Applying To PA School With A Low GPA – What Can You Do?
1. Start early
If your GPA is low and you are still in school, try to address this as early as possible. Dropping a class with a W can be better than a very low grade, and will avoid that grade ever averaging into your cumulative GPA. Additionally, certain PA programs only use the GPA of the most recent 45 credits you took. Depending on your situation, if the average of your more recent classes is higher than your overall cumulative, you may consider applying at one of these programs. You can find info on the GPA’s that different programs want on MyPAbox.
2. Extra classes
If it is too late to drop a class, an alternative tactic is to take extra classes (that you believe you can still succeed in) as that will average in and therefore increase your cumulative GPA. You want to make sure that you are not overextending yourself, because that can also lead to overall lower grades if it is a struggle to complete an overly full class load. You can also retake a class you had a low grade in and for some PA programs this can sometimes replace the bad grade with the retaken new grade. Also keep in mind that schools also isolate the GPA of some science classes (called a BCP GPA, which includes chemistry, biology, and physics course grades) so pay special attention to those classes.
3. Compensate with other application aspects
In general, if your GPA is lower but still meets the minimum required GPA for the program, you are still a definite candidate to get into that program. An adjunct thing you can do to augment this situation is to make all of the other aspects of your application shine. Everyone has one area that they feel is their greatest weakness in their application. Therefore, if GPA is your weakness, try to make the other more modifiable factors your strength. These include having a polished personal statement, diversity of experiences, and a good number of patient care hours, volunteer hours, and so forth.
4. Consider addressing it
Don’t feel like you have to hide your GPA and never bring it up. Some try to hide it in all aspects of their application where they are not forced to say it. Do not feel like you have to do this. Oftentimes there are many portions of PA school applications that involve addressing deficiencies in your application or areas of weakness. Feel free to take advantage of this and own up to your experience and what you learned in a way that shows growth (see #5!).
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5. Show growth
When addressing a lower GPA or a specific bad grade, make sure you do this in a way that shows growth. This is essentially turning a negative on your application into a positive. This can be done by saying what you learned, how you changed your study style, or how you became more courageous to seek assistance. These are examples of positive things that can last and continue to be positives once in a PA program, so try to bring it back to those positives as much as possible!
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