ISSUE 20

By Jim Pearson and Dr. Scott Massey

The demographic changes over the last 30 years within the PA educational community have been happening across all graduate-level health science programs. More and more individuals have been drawn to graduate-level health science programs like PA, PT, and OT, but now the average graduate of a PA program is a 26-year-old White woman.

These changes have led to fewer underrepresented students being enrolled than ever before. Everyone agrees that medicine in particular needs strong and equitable representation across all demographic population groups in the United States, not just White women. Unfortunately, some PA educators are unsure of how they can widen their pools of applicants and enrolled students to improve representation.

Rethink Admissions

How do we move this from a theoretical discussion on diversity and inclusion to a methodology that can be applied to any PA program? It starts with understanding data and understanding that an applicant’s incoming GPA is not the only gateway to a successful enrollment strategy.

HBCUs and similar universities have successfully enrolled a large group of diverse students and have helped them succeed at the undergraduate and graduate health science levels for decades.

PA programs nationwide have an advantage because there are more qualified applicants who could be enrolled, graduate, and become physician assistants than there are seats available. So, the problem is not a lack of qualified underrepresented applicants – the problem is that we don’t know how to select or recruit them!

Let’s examine some statistics from CASPA from the 2023 – 2024 admissions cycle:

• 53% of applicants are White
• 15% of applicants are Asian
• 16% of applicants are Hispanic
• 8% of applicants are Black
• 18.21% of applicants are economically disadvantaged

With proper understanding and analysis of your admissions data, you can expand your applicant pool — and most importantly the breadth of your student population—to fill a large part of your cohort with underrepresented students, without a significant reduction in your program’s outcomes.

Exam Master’s PA Admissions Pre-Enrollment Risk Scoring Model is specifically designed to help PA program admissions departments acquire and analyze their admissions data to better identify their underrepresented students and to identify those students who can succeed in their program.

One of our key findings from reviewing extensive admissions data is that incoming student GPA is not a major factor for student success within certain GPA ranges. Applicants who come from different backgrounds from today’s average PA student (White woman) should be viewed through a different admissions lens compared to the traditional approach many PA programs still use (What top university did you graduate from? Do you have the highest GPA? etc.).

Most underrepresented students often miss the same early life advantages that the average current PA student (white female) enjoys. They may not have an opportunity to attend the best K-12 and undergraduate schools, or they may lack good support systems, tutors, or equipment. As a result, many underrepresented student applications will not display the best-ranked undergraduate institutions or the highest undergraduate GPA. Even without such line items, these underrepresented students can show determination and perseverance. They have worked hard throughout their undergraduate education, many times in healthcare fields. Due to their different circumstances, it’s entirely possible they have taken longer than four years to complete an undergraduate degree.

By looking deeply at your admissions data and using a different lens to view your admissions pool, you will be able to greatly expand your diversity and inclusion in your PA program and realign your program to maintain your program’s mission and vision.

Look at Your Program’s Mission Statement

There are two possible reasons why your program does not have a sufficient breadth of underrepresented students enrolling:

1. They are not applying to your program in the first place.
2. Your program’s mission statement and goals do not adequately express their enrollment as a priority.

In your admissions process, there must be intention to identify students in these desired categories. In some cases, these applicants may not be the most competitive at a glance, but remember the image you have created of your ideal student. Now consider if your program’s philosophy and mission is in line with that ideal student’s identity.

Consider including a point system that rewards students from underrepresented populations. Some programs emphasize that students who meet these criteria are given preference. It is paramount that you are transparent about giving preference to specific populations.

Meeting Standard A1.11

Work with your institution to ensure there is support to meet ARC-PA’s Standard A1.11 as described below.

Embracing Standard A1.11 means taking a holistic approach to enhancing diversity and inclusion.

• Incorporate recruitment strategies for future faculty that enhances the diversity on your faculty team.
• Ensure that there are diversity and inclusion resources on your campus.
• Students of color are less likely to accept a seat in your program if there is little or no support within your campus community.
• Ensure that your entire team embraces this movement.
• This may take a paradigm shift in your admissions process to ensure that diversity and inclusion is considered within the framework of decision-making involving future students.

Ultimately, some of your strategies to improve diversity and inclusion might include additional remediation resources, which we will address in the upcoming Issue 25 of PA Admissions Corner.

Example of Real-World PA Program Aspirational Goal and Results

Here is an example of a real-world PA program’s goal to recruit students from medically underserved regions (in Appalachia and across the country) who demonstrated commitment to academic and professional excellence.

Outcome:

1A: The program exceeded the minimum benchmark annually with students who have identified themselves as residing in the medically underserved regions in each incoming cohort.

1B: The program was able to meet the minimum benchmark for the admission year cohort 2021 with students identifying as Appalachian residency, but a three-year trend analysis shows the program below its goal during multiple years despite preference given on applicant scorecard.

This provides measurable outcomes, which follow ARC-PA 5th Edition Standards Appendix 14 H. Making this information available to ideal potential applicants will increase awareness of the program’s particular desire to recruit them and encourage them to pursue enrollment.

Conclusion

Increasing diversity in your program requires altering your program’s goals. This will lead to aspirations that change the composition of your class. Over time, this evidence will be available and displayed for all prospective applicants. This will lead to more applications from prospective students who come from diverse and underrepresented populations. You’re going to need to put your matriculation where your mouth is.

Expanding your PA program’s diversity and inclusion should not be a side project. It needs to be an everyday occurrence at the forefront of your normal admissions practices and procedures.

Consider how you can realign your admissions practices and procedures to become more transparent in your diversity and inclusion goals. What steps could you make in the next 90 days that would be impactful regarding diversity and inclusion?

NEXT TIME…
Issue 21 of PA Admissions Corner will wrap up our five-Issue series on Successful PA Admissions by answering some of the most common questions we’ve encountered over the years. We’ll discuss how you can:

• Improve your interview process, even with a limited staff of interviewers
• Improve your pre-admittance screening for behavioral issues
• Improve your mission-based outcomes in your selection process
• Ensure that your outcomes stay strong even as you improve diversity/inclusion

To your admissions and program success,

Jim Pearson, Former CEO
Exam Master

Dr. Scott Massey Ph.D., PA-C
Scott Massey LLC

ISSUE 21

By Jim Pearson and Dr. Scott Massey

Welcome back to PA Admissions Corner. In today’s Issue, we’ll complete our five-part series on Successful PA Admissions by addressing some of the most frequently asked questions regarding interviewing, pre-screening, diversification, and inclusion.

Question: How can we improve our interview process with a small staff of interviewers?

PA programs are often under-resourced in terms of staff members dedicated to admissions activities. Sometimes you need to be creative and highly strategic about operationalizing an admissions process involving a smaller number of team members. Here are some ways to bolster your admissions team that have been used successfully in the past and involve less budgetary impact than another staff member.

1. Recruit alumni to be interviewers. Your own alumni can be among the most dedicated to maintaining your cohort quality. With most people available through some form of video conference, your alumni can help from wherever they happen to live. With some standardized training, you can reduce the workload of interviewing from your existing principal faculty. The key challenge is achieving uniformity among reviewers. Using an established comprehensive approach like behavioral interviewing will reduce variance between your reviewers. Small stipends for alumni may be necessary to compensate them for their time.
2. Recruit students on interview day. Existing students are very invested in their program’s future. They can be highly effective in showing prospects from the information session to the interview suite. They can answer applicant questions between specific interview phases. Students should be encouraged to list this volunteer experience on their CV. It demonstrates leadership and initiative.
3. Train faculty members outside of the PA program to interview applicants. The basic science faculty can be valuable contributors in selecting the highest quality applicants. Not every interview has to be conducted by a PA faculty member.
4. Empower your staff to create a highly organized machine on interview day. The ability to interview 20 students in one day takes a highly organized logistical process. Allow the staff members to take charge and ensure that all the pieces come together.

Using these methods can significantly reduce the burden on smaller faculty sizes to help improve interview processes and outcomes.

Question: How can we improve our pre-admittance screening process to identify and avoid applicants with problematic behavior?

Every PA educator will ask this question. How can I prevent admitting students who display serious behavioral issues from the moment they matriculate? Many policies that evolved over the years could be named for a specific student based on loopholes they found in the system. Fortunately, the number of students in this category is historically small. There are some specific traits that will help identify problematic applicants at the crucial time: before admittance. This is one of the reasons we created the PA Applicant Pre-Enrollment Risk Scoring Model to provide information about specific risk factors to look for in your applicants.

Recall any students with severe behavioral issues that you have contended with in your career. Ask yourself if the student demonstrated any warning signs during the admissions process. Reflect on whether applicants with extremely high academic profiles have been admitted to your program despite limited insights about character and behavior.

Here are a few observable traits that should give you pause when making the final decision to offer applicants a seat in your PA program.

1. Applicant dressed casually to the interview. If an applicant doesn’t understand the implications of dressing in business attire to the most important interview of their life so far, there could be reason to believe that there will be issues involving professionalism.
2. Applicant exhibited rude behavior on campus. If an applicant exhibits rude behavior toward other students or staff members while on campus, or the applicant attended your affiliated undergraduate institution and has a history rude behavior, such behavior will not change in the PA program.
3. Applicant was antagonistic toward other students during the group interview. There are anecdotal examples of applicants who exhibited aggression during the group interview who were subsequently admitted to the program and became a behavioral nightmare. This can signal a confrontational personality and lack of maturity.
4. The faculty experienced a gut feeling that the applicant should not be admitted. We cannot underscore the importance of listening to intuition. Some of the worst student ordeals in our experience were admitted despite misgivings from the interviewing faculty. There is a reason for intuitive impulses, and sometimes they can be a precursor to avoidable behavioral problems.
5. Applicant has a history of harassing phone calls to the admissions coordinator. Excessive phone calls exhibiting aggressive behavior is an extreme warning sign of behavioral issues. This is reason enough not to admit the student.

Question: We want more diversity in our PA classes, but we don’t know where to begin. How can we improve our mission-based outcomes in our admissions selection process?

If you want to improve your mission-based outcome involving your admissions selection process, start by using fair practice language on your website. Below is an example of a program that informs prospective students that populations defined by HRSA will be given preference in the admissions process.

“The Department will admit qualified applicants to matriculate through the MPAS curriculum of study. Applicants from Health Personnel Shortage Areas (HPSA) https://data.hrsa.gov/tools/shortage-area/hpsa-find or Medically Underserved Areas/Populations (MUA/P) https://data.hrsa.gov/tools/shortage-area/mua-find and groups and/or racial/ethnic populations underrepresented within the physician assistant profession are encouraged to apply and will receive preference.”

Look at your own programmatic goals or mission statement to determine if diversity and inclusion is mentioned in the first place. Remember that prospective students will look at your admissions materials and mission statement to see if they may be a good fit at your institution. Here is an example of an institution that includes diversity and inclusion as part of their core goals:

“Cultivate a holistic admission process to recruit and select multicultural, diverse, highly qualified applicants who can complete the rigorous MS in Physician Assistant Studies”

These two steps demonstrate to prospective students that your program is serious about enhancing diversity and inclusion. Including statistics about each admitting class on your website will provide proof.

Question: How can we ensure we keep our outcomes strong while better diversifying our future incoming cohorts?

Many PA educators talk about enhancing diversity, but achieving this goal takes diligence, commitment, and adequate resources. In the large pool of applications, remember that federally qualified disadvantaged students need to be screened and identified as part of the process.

The best way to achieve your goals is to identify measurable ones. Here is a suggested strategy to measure your own success.

1. Develop a hypothetical goal. The program will improve the admissions process to increase the proportion of multicultural and underrepresented applicants.
2. Set an aspirational goal. Your aspiration is evidenced by the program admitting 20% of students who qualify as multicultural or underrepresented each year. Failing to achieve the aspirational goal will trigger an evaluation process to course-correct your admissions system, most likely indicating that the program needs to invite a more diverse set of students to the interview process.
3. The benchmark for success has to match your aspirational goal. On your website, if you state that multicultural and underrepresented students comprise 20% of each admitting class, then the demographic evidence you provide for each class must match this claim. This provides strong evidence that your admissions process has operationalized and successfully implemented a selection process that works.
4. Ensure that your university’s legal department and diversity and inclusion policies support your benchmark and aspirational goal. This one is a little more by-the-book.

Hopefully, our answers to these common questions have given you some helpful ideas for moving forward.

NEXT TIME…
ARC-PA Standard Compliance causes a lot of stress. But don’t panic! In the next issue of PA Admissions Corner, we’ll present the first of two Issues on complying with ARC-PA Standards without the hassle.

To your admissions and program success,

Jim Pearson, Former CEO
Exam Master

Dr. Scott Massey Ph.D., PA-C
Scott Massey LLC

ISSUE 22

By Jim Pearson and Dr. Scott Massey

Welcome back to PA Admissions Corner. The Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant, Inc. (ARC-PA) is in charge of protecting the interests of the public and the PAs receiving training from programs in the United States. ARC-PA’s goal is to encourage sound educational practices, innovation, and continuous improvement, not to penalize institutions. Unfortunately, many PA administrators, program directors, and faculty live in fear of receiving citations for being out of compliance with specific standards related to their admissions practices. Remember, the commission has the right to review your website at any time. Ensuring your compliance will save you the stress of worrying about it later.

We approach Accreditation Standards with a different attitude. Clear understanding and compliance with ARC-PA standards protects your program, its students, and their future patients, and it can benefit your program by ensuring that you have the funding and staff required to fulfill your roles. Compliance is necessary to prevent headaches and citations, and it has distinct benefits if it is maintained promptly and thoroughly.

Let’s define and interpret the meaning behind the ARC-PA Standards 5th edition related to admissions practices and clear up some common misconceptions. Accurate knowledge of the standards is essential to ensure that your admissions process remains compliant.

ARC-PA Standard A1.11 – Diversity and Inclusion

✔ The sponsoring institution must demonstrate its commitment to student, faculty, and staff diversity and inclusion by:

a) supporting the program in defining its goal(s) for diversity and inclusion,
b) supporting the program in implementing recruitment strategies,
c) supporting the program in implementing retention strategies, and
d) making available resources which promote diversity and inclusion.

This standard has profound implications for admissions practices. The ability to achieve your specific goals regarding diversity and inclusion requires dedicated labor resources to strategically review, interview, and admit students. This means that your managing institution should provide adequate support to satisfy the spirit and interpretation of the standard.

The retention standard aspect speaks to remediation practices and has legal implications in terms of fair practices involving advertisement. If you are favoring a specific group of individuals, you must advertise as such to be clear to all prospective students.

ARC-PA Standard A2.05 – Process and Procedure

✔ Principal faculty and the program director must be responsible for, and actively participate in the processes of…b) selecting applicants for admission to the PA program.

The main takeaway from this standard is that principal faculty and the program director must actively participate in the selection of applicants for admissions. Here are some important considerations related to the standard.

1. The institution cannot make these decisions independent from the program.
2. The faculty must have adequate time and workload to be able to perform this important function.
3. The program must have adequate staff to be able to perform the clerical related tasks that will enable the faculty and program director to focus on the key aspects of selection.

ARC-PA Standard A3.03 – Fair Practice

✔ The program must define, publish, make readily available and consistently apply a policy for prospective and enrolled students that they must not be required to provide or solicit clinical sites.

Programs must publish policies on their website that state students must not be required to provide or solicit sites or preceptors. This does not imply that students cannot identify potential preceptors from their original geographic region.

ARC-PA Standard A3.12 – Fair Practice

This standard has multiple facets to examine. Each of the components of A3.12 will be separately reviewed with key concepts to ensure that your program is fully in compliance, preventing future citations or administrative actions.

✔ The program must define, publish, and make readily available to enrolled and prospective students general program information to include:

a) the program’s ARC-PA accreditation status as provided to the program by the ARC-PA

Always include the exact language provided by ARC-PA. For provisional applicant programs, this does not mean that you can’t launch a website, but you must include the language provided in the correspondence from the commission when your program entered the provisional pathway.

b) evidence of its effectiveness in meeting its goals

Measurable data sets must be gathered, tabulated, and displayed on the website providing evidence that the program is achieving its established goals. Prospective students will review these goals for evidence of the program’s quality and outcomes.

c) The most current annual NCCPA PANCE Exam Performance Summary Report Last 5 Years

One of the first things prospective students will review is the first-time-taker pass rate on the PANCE. Students will have valid concerns if your program is consistently below the national average. The commission continuously monitors websites to ensure that this report directly downloaded from NCCPA is displayed promptly and is easily accessible on the main landing page.

d) all required curricular components, including required rotation disciplines

Programs must display the curriculum prominently on the website. Once visitors arrive on the landing page, this information should be available within one click. If the commission feels that this information is not readily available (requiring multiple clicks), the page will be deemed non-compliant.

e) academic credit offered by the program

The number of credit hours must be displayed prominently on the landing page within one click. The number of credit hours is directly connected to the cost to the student; any discrepancies between correspondence to students and the website will result in an immediate citation during an on-site visit.

f) estimates of all costs (tuition, fees, etc.) related to the program

This is a frequent cause of citations because of discrepancies among materials providing cost structure to prospective students. Ensure that your admissions department has the latest information, including tuition and fees. This information must be specific and updated annually. Do not rely on your admissions department to display this information. This is another item that must be displayed prominently on your landing page, accessible within one click.

g) program required competencies for entry level practice, consistent with the competencies as defined by the PA profession

The program determines what competencies are measured upon students graduating from the program. Providing adequate measurability with data demonstrating that graduates are achieving these competencies provides key evidence for prospective students. This is another item that must be readily available within one click.

h) whether certain services and resources are only available to students and faculty on the main campus when the program is offered at a geographically distant campus location

The number of PA programs with distant campuses is growing. The program must provide adequate information about services that students will need to acquire on the main campus. Prospective students might have reservations about attending a distant campus program. This transparency can make a huge difference in students’ willingness to matriculate to your distant campus.

i) the most current annual student attrition information, on the table provided by the ARC-PA, no later than April first each year

There is a required template that must be displayed on the website. Prospective students will immediately notice if the program has high attrition rates. Experiencing higher than national average attrition rates must be addressed with robust remediation and careful admissions practices.

ARC-PA Standard A3.14 – Fair Practice

✔ The program must make student admission decisions in accordance with clearly defined and published practices of the institution and program.

Providing clear information is the key. Making it easily accessible on your website and all in all other materials is paramount for maintaining compliance. This accreditation standard encompasses all the admissions practices that you advertise to prospective students. The institution may have specific standards for admission to the institution. For example, the graduate school may have a specific requirement for PA students to be admitted to the university. Consistency and clarity are key. Following your policies is non-negotiable.

NEXT TIME…
Issue 23 of PA Admissions Corner will be entirely devoted to ARC-PA Standard A3.13, which we have found to be the most frequently misunderstood of the many standards programs must follow. We’ll cut through the confusion about complying with this important standard.

To your admissions and program success,

Jim Pearson, Former CEO
Exam Master

Dr. Scott Massey Ph.D., PA-C
Scott Massey LLC

ISSUE 23

By Jim Pearson and Dr. Scott Massey

Welcome back to PA Admissions Corner. In our previous Issue, we began discussing the ARC-PA Standards that apply to the admissions process. In this Issue, we’ll conclude the topic by examining the most frequently misunderstood standard: A3.13.

Some ARC-PA Standards can be easy to misunderstand on their face. The greater challenge often lies in gauging the level of commitment required to meet the Standard. ARC-PA Standard A3.13 is especially challenging in this regard, which is why it’s the most frequently misunderstood Accreditation Requirement.

Standard A3.13 can make or break your admissions process if not correctly addressed. Let’s examine each of the requirements of the standard, then look at some key concepts to clarify how to interpret and achieve each one.

Your program’s website will be the primary resource for applicants to review and gain a thorough understanding of your program’s practices. Clearly link those practices on your landing page. Remember, your policies are not meant to be a puzzle for your applicants to solve. Be clear, concise, and straightforward.

A3.13 (a) through (e)

✔ The program must define, publish, consistently apply, and make readily available to prospective students, policies, and procedures to include:

a) admission and enrollment practices that favor specified individuals or groups (if applicable)

PA program directors often do not properly apply the spirit of this standard. It doesn’t say that you can’t favor specific groups of students, but you have to properly communicate the fact that you are favoring these groups of people in your admissions process.

For example, if you have a matriculation agreement with a specific institution to accept a designated proportion of its graduating students each year, that arrangement needs to be stated on your website. If you are emphasizing diversity, that needs to be adequately defined on the website, too. Other favored groups may include those with military experience, patient contact hours, and GPA. This way, you can seek out more of your “ideal applicants” by letting specific groups know that your program is interested in their experience.

b) admission requirements regarding prior education or work experience

Prior work/education requirements, like healthcare experience hours needed for qualifying for your program, must be adequately specific. It’s in your interested to display the minimum with enough specificity for prospective students to understand.

By the same token, be clear that meeting the minimum requirement does not automatically guarantee consideration. Most programs have students that exceed the minimum, and most programs define required prior education in terms of a baccalaureate degree and specific prerequisite courses. This also needs to be specific enough for prospective students to fully understand the requirements. For example, does your program require labs for science courses? Is there a specific expiration date for your prerequisite courses?

If your program undergoes a policy change like new admissions requirements, this change should promptly be incorporated into your program’s accessible information. Always allow sufficient time for applicants to capably meet the new requirement before the application submission. It would be unfair to expect applicants to have achieved a new GPA requirement, number of credit hours, or a particular amount of experience that your website only began including in its accessible information a month ago. PA programs often forget to include admissions changes on their website.

c) practices for awarding or granting advanced placement

Failing to apply this aspect of the Standard properly has resulted in significant consequences for programs. Carefully consider whether you are granting advanced placement to any students, like accepting students from medical school and fast-tracking them into your program. Successful advanced placement needs to have significant equivalency processes and assessment in place to ensure that the students are meeting all the learning outcomes in your program.

Your program must explicitly state that advanced placement is NOT an option if this is the case

d) any required academic standards for enrollment

Proper delineation of your minimum academic standards must be prominently displayed and easily understandable. Some key metrics include overall admissions GPA, prerequisite science GPA, last 60 GPA, CASPA science GPA, and required admissions exams. Just like in Standard subsection (b), programs can experience changes in policies: for example, removing or adding additional admissions requirements like an admissions exam. This information must be readily available. These website changes don’t have to occur a year in advance of your admissions cycle; the interpretation of reasonable access implies that students have the ability to meet the requirements for this prerequisite course before the deadline of application submission.

e) any required technical standards for enrollment

PA programs determine the technical standards required for admittance and for graduation based on the program’s competencies. There can be pitfalls when prospective students have disabilities that can preclude them from admissions. There have been groundbreaking cases like blind medical students admitted to and graduating from medical school. The onus is on the program to ensure that there is adequate support for a student who requires additional assistance. There have been PA programs who have accepted deaf students and successfully accommodated them. Without sufficient accommodation resources, however, you are not required to accommodate a student who cannot meet your technical standards.

Further Tips for Compliance

The ARC-PA Accreditation Manual for Standards, 5th Edition defines “readily available” information as that which is “made accessible to others in a timely fashioned via defined program or institution procedures. Navigation to digital content should take little effort or time.”

Whenever possible, use the precise wording used by the ARC-PA. Providing language that allows for flexibility is sometimes necessary. For example, if you are occasionally willing to accept a student who does not meet your minimum requirements, this information must be accessible on your website: “Students who do not meet the minimum requirements may be considered for admissions on a case-by-case basis.”

The term “consistently apply” regarding the above policies requires = your program to follow its policies exactly as written. If your senior administration is asking you to make exceptions to a rule, you are violating a standard.

Summary

Compliance with ARC-PA Standards is not a punishment; it’s an opportunity to make your PA program stand out among the competition and prevent time-consuming citations. Make the effort to understand the requirements of ARC-PA Standard A3.13 and to ensure that your program’s website includes that information. Clarifying these requirements in a way that ensures applicant comprehension will streamline your entire admissions process by welcoming more of your ideal candidates to apply and reducing applications from unqualified candidates.

The processes we have outlined here will help your admissions process remain safely in compliance with ARC-PA Standards. Once you’ve reached compliance, you can save yourself the stress of the uncertainty that you are making mistakes. Take the time to consider whether your program fully in compliance with ARC-PA Standards. If not, form an action plan that takes compliance off your worry list.

NEXT TIME…
In our next issue, we’ll begin a three-part series concerning academic remediation. We’ll discuss helping students meet the challenges of PA education, and we’ll present proven methods for assisting struggling students with the Study Skill Seminar and the Academic Success Coach.

To your admissions and program success,

Jim Pearson, Former CEO
Exam Master

Dr. Scott Massey Ph.D., PA-C
Scott Massey LLC

ISSUE 24

By Jim Pearson and Dr. Scott Massey

Welcome back to PA Admissions Corner. Whether you are the dean of a pharmacy school with 600 enrolled students or running a PA program with 72 enrolled students, remediation is a necessary part of academic life.

You’re probably familiar with some of the reasons:

• Lack of incoming student prerequisite preparedness for didactic education. You may recall back in Issues 7 and 8 of PA Admissions Corner, we discussed two major difficulties facing graduate-level educators:
  • Grade Inflation – Students often receive grades that don’t accurately reflect their knowledge of the material.
  • Lack of Didactic Preparedness – Even students with high GPAs and plenty of experience can struggle with a didactic environment with greater demands on their time and attention than they’re used to.
• Difficulty of newly enrolled students to handle the rigors of graduate-level health science education. This can happen to anyone; PA education is demanding.
• Struggles within specific didactic courses when prerequisite courses haven’t been sufficiently thorough, successful, or well-remembered.
• Lack of adequate pre-admissions screening of an applicant’s pre-requisite knowledge.

Introducing the Study Skills Seminar

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is an expression that’s just as applicable to medical education as it is to medicine. As incoming cohorts of students prepare for matriculation, you have an excellent opportunity to intervene on behalf of your program. Take this time to remind students of the importance of effort and dedication to improving their study skillset. It can make a major difference in student performance during the didactic year.

The first component of this early intervention is to incorporate a student Study Skills Seminar at your program. The list below provides the basic framework of a study skill workshop that can be incorporated at orientation or during the early didactic weeks of the program.

• Assessment of study skills
• Learning styles
• Metacognitive skills
• Becoming an independent learner
• Time management skills
• Managing stress for success
• Collaborative and cooperative learning
• Academic reading skills
• Note-taking skills
• Getting the most out of lectures
• Effective exam preparation
• Sound test-taking skills

Once your PA program has incorporated a study skill workshop into its framework, your faculty can use the resources provided within this framework to reinforce student development skills.

This model emphasizes the importance of students acquiring the success skills to ensure that they thrive in your program early on. Many of the core reasons that students fail academically stem from an inability to acclimate to a highly accelerated learning environment. These skills have been proven to prevent failures and transform students from failing to earning Bs and As.

How can we provide pre-matriculation support to our students to enhance academic success?

The Study Skills Seminar is an excellent idea that will promote better habits among students and give them an edge, but it will not be of much use to a student who lacks the requisite knowledge or experience to handle the didactic year. Instructors and faculty frequently argue –for good reason – that it is not their responsibility to “babysit” students. At this education level, shouldn’t we expect students to be able to handle their courseload? If they can’t, how much do they belong in the program?

It’s a valid point, but the perspective may be skewed. Problems arise when we consider your PA program’s desire to promote diversity and inclusion. Programs often wrestle with the question of whether students from underrepresented populations have had the same opportunities as the “traditional” 26-year-old white woman applicant with a model GPA. Are all of your students coming from a level playing field? Probably not. Opening our doors to exciting new prospects means giving them every chance to succeed – because we know that they can. Leveling that playing field is our responsibility.

Proactively identifying students who may be at higher risk for attrition and academic difficulty provides an opportunity to better prepare them before the first day of classes. There are several PA programs conducting research studies involving the efficacy of pre-matriculation modules — typically an online class, usually conducted by a qualified third party. In the interest of transparency, we at Exam Master offer a program like that; we’ve seen similar programs used successfully for pre-pharmacy students for several years. Some solutions to common problems are on the table when implementing a pre-matriculation program as a requirement for incoming students:

1. Notify the students that they are given a seat in the program contingent upon completion of the pre-matriculation program.
2. Consider offering the module at no charge to the student to reduce the burden before entering the program.
3. If your institution requires a legal standing to require pre-matriculation study material, consider a one-credit module called, “Free PA Preparation,” for example The student signs up for the module approximately 12 weeks before the beginning of the PA program. Completion of the module results in a passing grade.

How can we identify students at risk for attrition and intervene effectively?

The only way to reliably identify students at risk for attrition and effectively intervene is to use some critical data early on to guide your decision-making.

1. Retrospective data on student performance in specific academic classes can be used to predict future performance, through simple descriptive analysis or more complex parametric analysis.
2. Analyzing prerequisite performance and subsequent academic performance in the PA program can be an effective tool if conducted annually. With sufficient numbers, protocols can be built into the system. For example, if students receive a lower grade in a highly predictive course, then the student can be started on an academic improvement plan.
3. If a retrospective analysis demonstrates that a science GPA less than 3.10 is highly correlated with low performance or attrition in the program, the correlation may give you pause in accepting students with this profile. In some cases, candidates who meet this profile can be started in a pre-matriculation program.
4. Admissions exams like the GRE or the PA-CAT can be analyzed for their predictive strength. Student scores from these instruments can be correlated with performance, academic courses, and critical nationally standardized examinations like PACKRAT and PANCE. Over time, performance on these instruments can better inform decision-making involving admission or pre-matriculation intervention.

Summary

A Study Skills Seminar and pre-matriculation support modules for at-risk students are two ways your program can help its incoming students prepare for the difficulty and stress of their didactic year. Implementing these preventative measures can make a big difference in your program’s outcomes, helping students from all walks of life enter your program equipped with the tools they need to succeed.

NEXT TIME…
We’ll continue our three-part series on remediation in the next Issue of PA Admissions Corner by discussing the Student Success Coaching Model and introducing ways that struggling students can work alongside advisors to make great strides.

To your admissions and program success,

Jim Pearson, Former CEO
Exam Master

Dr. Scott Massey Ph.D., PA-C
Scott Massey LLC