Requirements
School of Physician Assistant Studies Admissions

The ideal University of Florida School of Physician Assistant Studies candidate will reflect qualities that represent the mission, values and goals of the program.

Competitive Admissions

The data listed below for the most recent class will allow you to assess your application package against previously admitted students. Please be realistic in your assessment and remember that all discussed requirements are considered in our application review process.

Academic Standards:

Degree Requirements

Applicants must complete a BACHELOR’S DEGREE at a college or university that is accredited by one of the regional accrediting bodies, such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. To determine if a college or university is regionally accredited, visit chea.org.

The School of Physician Assistant Studies does not accept foreign degree equivalency evaluations. We do not make exceptions. All coursework must be completed at a school that is accredited by one of the regional accrediting bodies.

Prerequisites and Other Courses

• Human Anatomy & Human Physiology*, including labs (a minimum of 6 semester hours)
• Microbiology, including lab (a minimum of 3 semester hours)
• General (inorganic) Chemistry, a complete sequence (2-3 semesters) including labs (a minimum of 8 semester hours)
• Introduction to Statistics (a minimum of 3 semester hours)
• Medical Terminology (a minimum of 1 semester hour shown as such on your transcript)
• ALL PREREQUISITES COURSES MUST MEET OUR PROGRAM CONTENT REQUIREMENTS.

All applicants must complete the PREPROFESSIONAL PREREQUISITE COURSES with a grade of C or better by the end of the fall semester in the year you apply*. At the time of application, Microbiology must be taken with the lab within the past 5 years. All remaining prerequisite courses must be taken within the past 10 years.

*When applying with prerequisites planned/in progress, you may have 1 non science prerequisite course and 1 science prerequisite course for a maximum of 2 planned or in progress at the time of application submission. All prerequisites must be completed by the end of the fall semester in the year you apply.

• * Human Anatomy & Physiology: To meet this requirement take Human Anatomy and Physiology 1 with lab PLUS Human Anatomy and Physiology 2 with lab –OR– take Human Anatomy with lab PLUS Human Physiology. On rare occasions there are other sequences/course combinations that meet our requirement.

CLEP or Advanced Placement Courses – CLEP examination or advanced placement credit may not be used to meet any of the School’s requirements. Experiential learning is also not an acceptable substitute for prerequisite requirements.

Applicants that wish to verify if their complete coursework will meet our prerequisite requirements should email the course number with the prefix along with the school name to the UF School of PA Studies Admissions Office for review. admissions@pap.ufl.edu.

Online prerequisite courses including labs will be accepted and viewed as equivalent to courses taught in the traditional classroom setting when they meet our content requirements. However, please note that taking in-person prerequisite courses is encouraged as this will mirror an applicant’s experience in the UF School of Physician Assistant Studies classroom.

In addition to successfully completing prerequisite courses, competitive applicants will demonstrate success in an academic setting by completing ongoing coursework applicable to entry into a professional graduate healthcare program between the completion of their undergraduate studies and matriculating to PA school.

Recommended Additional Courses

Additional chemistry, biology, and social science courses beyond the minimum requirements will strengthen an application, especially if the additional courses are highly correlated with medicine. If an applicant has completed the minimum pre-professional courses listed above and is searching for electives, the following areas would strengthen an application.

Please access the Additional Course LIST.

Patient Care Experience

Experience in a healthcare setting offers opportunities for working alongside varied professionals to gain understanding of a collaborative healthcare environment. Dedication to clinical work prior to application further demonstrates your interest and commitment to healthcare. The admissions committee reviews each experience listed and reserves the right to identify an experience as direct patient care experience or healthcare related experience regardless of its placement in CASPA.

Direct Patient Care

The UF School of Physician Assistant Studies requires a minimum of 1000 hours of direct patient care (DPC) experience before August 1st of the application year. Our Admissions team will compute your DPC hours for your on going (current) positions and give you credit at the time of application for those hours through August 1st. Our Admissions Committee recommends that you continue gaining direct patient care experience until matriculation. DPC experience beyond the minimum requirements is valued. DPC includes positions and responsibilities in which you are directly responsible for providing care to a patient. This includes but is not limited to taking vitals, drawing blood, performing diagnostics, administering prescribed therapy or treatments, scribing and counseling. Experiences receiving academic credit and shadowing opportunities is not DPC.

Applicants without previous health care experience are often able to acquire DPC experience working as a medical or nursing assistant, or aide. Patient care experience can be acquired on a paid or volunteer basis, as long as the recommended amount of time is met in an acceptable health care setting.  Applicants often complete nursing assistant certification, gain paramedic training, or learn how to become a scribe in order to secure paid employment while gaining clinical experience. Scribe work is perhaps the only example of non-professional level clinical experience we consider to be DPC which doesn’t allow for touching patients. It is the integration and application of various aspects of patient care required of a scribe working alongside a physician, PA, or ARNP that qualifies scribing as providing Direct Patient Care.

Please see the DPC positions table.

If you have questions regarding a specific direct patient care (DPC) experience. please contact our admissions team at admissions@pap.ufl.edu.

Health Related Experience

Health Related Experience (HRE) is considered to be an individual’s exposure to the healthcare field, the patients and the healthcare professionals caring for them, but the exposure doesn’t permit the individual to be directly responsible for the patient’s care. Examples of HRE include but is not limited to shadowing, transporting patients, data entry work, laboratory bench work, telephoning patients, personal care of relatives, and clerical work.  Also, without exception, internships and other categories of educational training are considered HRE.

Examples:

• Lactation Specialists
• Medical Office Clerical Staff/Receptionist/Scheduler
• NICU Baby Cuddler
• Observer/Shadower
• Patient Transporter
• Pharmacy Cashier/Clerk
• Pharmacy Tech
• Research Assistant (health related)
• Student Clinical Rotation/Internship
• Ward Clerk
• Personal trainer

Patient Care/Health Related Experience and CASPA

CASPA applications request listing of responsibilities and total time spent in patient care (DPC) and HRE. Shadowing experiences are to be listed in the Shadowing Experience section on the CASPA application.

You will be asked to list job title, role, name of institution, name and title of supervisor, and to provide a detailed description of tasks performed, number of hours worked per week, and total number of weeks worked. We do not need a description of what the experienced taught you.

Applicants should be careful not to duplicate information and to provide accurate dates/hours in each section of the CASPA application.

Additional Experiences

Experiences in service, PA Shadowing, leadership and mentorship are valuable opportunities for the admissions committee to gain additional insight into your intangible skills. While we do not have a minimum requirement for these experiences, we strongly encourage you to seek additional experiences to demonstrate your attributes. Competitive candidates have distinguished themselves through their additional experiences.

References

UF School of Physician Assistant Studies will continue to require 3 letters of reference to be submitted in the CASPA application. We understand that other programs require more letters of reference and we will continue to review all letters submitted with an application.

We now require one of your letters of reference be from a licensed clinical provider such as a PA-C, NP, MD, DO, etc. We recommend references from supervisors in the health care field and from individuals who have known and observed you with patients a minimum of 6 months.  Your references should speak to your clinical experiences and how you function with patients as these will be the strongest references.

CASPer Requirement

The UF School of Physician Assistant Studies requires each applicant to complete the CASPer U.S. Professional Health Sciences Test. CASPer scores must be received on or before our application deadline of August 1. Applications will not be considered for an interview if the CASPer test scores are not submitted. Applicants may be denied prior to the CASPer test score receipt if the Admissions Committee so deems to deny the application.

GRE Requirement

All applicants must meet the GRE requirement by submitting scores from the GRE General Test (verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing sections).  On test day, use 0427 for the Institution Code.  

NOTE: Our Admissions Committee reserves the right to decline an application prior to receiving the CASPer or GRE score based on the overall strength (or lack thereof) of the application.

Applications received without official GRE scores in CASPA or submitted CASPer scores on or before August 1 will be considered incomplete.