I applied to school back in late June of 2009. Not only did it take months to apply, but countless hours of research and organization of where I wanted to go. The application itself was 15 pages long. I had to gather volunteer information, human contact experience, work experience, medical experience, extracurricular activities, and the list goes on. I also had to figure out who I would want to write my letters of recommendation (LOR). That really wasn't hard since I already had a mentor/professor from college that I knew for 4 years. I also knew I could get the doctors I currently work for the write one each--so that made my 3 LOR's.

As far as my personal statement (PS), that had been in the works for years. I knew sooner or later I would have to write something for PA school. I molded it into what it is today and really think it weighed heavy in my application.

Looking for schools wasn't easy. I would find a school or call them ask them questions only to go back to their website 2 weeks later. There are just so many schools out there and I realized I needed another form of organization--Thank you excel! I organized my excel chart by school, tuition cost, average GRE, when the semester started, length of semester, etc. This really helped me narrow my choices down to 10 schools. Of course I didn't do this for every PA school out there, but ones that I was interested in.

Example of my excel chart




The schools I applied to: Nova southeastern-Jacksonville, Fort Myers, and Orlando campuses, Salus University, Drexel University, NYIT, St Johns University, Touro College (all campuses), and my current school.

Patience is a virtue while waiting for letters to come in the mail. I obsessively checked my email and the mail box. Every day I would rush home from work to see if I got a letter in the mail. I think I probably ruined the lock on my mailbox because now the key doesn't want to come out sometimes.

I interviewed at 4 schools: Touro college: Bayshore campus, Manhattan campus, Nova jacksonville, and my current school.

I will talk more about my interviews later. It wasn't until February that I knew which school I was attending. I couldn't be more pleased with the decision I made.