r/PAstudent

9 Months in and this post is also a reminder to myself.

1. One person you can tell anything to about PA School and receive feedback/Advice (Must be in PA Profession)
2. SSRI never stopping it during PA school, this has helped me make sure that the mental stress does not progress to physical stress (lower immune system, hair loss, fatigue, etc)
3. Study for PANCE, Don’t study for grades, do bare minimum in grades but the maximum in understanding PANCE/clinical topics.
4. Don’t forget you just need to sacrifice one year of life, sleep, etc.
5. PANCE STYLE Practice questions > making notes/writing notes/ flashcards
6. Advisors are not there for emotional support just for academic

/career

1. guidance don’t rely on them

Long and short of it. Earliest I could start PA school would be, and I am gasping while typing this..around 53 (not a typo). I want to hear some hard stories from hard, determined people. Successes, failures and pit falls

I have children and am right now the sole support...looking for motivation to get me through my prereqs. It's something I have wanted to do for a long time, but I took a different path that I thought would fit better, Occupational Therapy Assistant, It's great in many ways, but also no longer working for me.

Hi all,

I'm starting a program in the fall. Trying to borrow loan(s) through private lender and what I'm learning is that students can only borrow up to the remainder amount that is total COA (provided by the school) - federal loan ($20,500) = amount that can be borrowed?

I was advised to borrow with some buffer in case of emergency cash need, etc., however that seems impossible? It doesn't make sense to me that private lenders expect all students to have the same COA that is purely based on the school estimate. You know what I mean?

I have roughly 2 and a half months till graduation and in this timeframe I still have to take my emergency med EOR my EOC and then the PANCE but I’m so checked outtttt. How is everyone holding on when you’re so close to being done but so burnt out and exhausted. (Idk if I’m looking for advice or just ranting lol, I just need PA school to end)

Hi everyone! I am one month out from taking the PANCE, and have been studying pretty intensely every day. I was hoping someone who took the PANCE would be able to tell me if the questions are more similar to uworld or rosh.

I find the rosh questions to be a lot of random factoids, which is harder to answer to me than uworld 😅 I appreciate any tips or advice!!

I was accepted this past cycle and my program starts in July. I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity. I’ve worked toward this for the last 6 years and honestly didn’t think this moment would ever come. But instead of feeling excited, I mostly just feel stressed and sick with anxiety about the timing of everything.

Financially, this feels like the worst possible time to start. Federal loans are capped at $20,500 a year, which is nowhere near enough to cover tuition and living expenses, so I’ll have to rely heavily on private loans. The interest rates right now honestly feel criminal. On top of that, my family is about to go down to a single income because I obviously won’t be able to work during the next 2 years of PA school.

Everything is so expensive right now: rent, groceries, gas, literally everything. We already budget hard with two incomes, and I genuinely cannot imagine what things are going to look like once we’re living off one. It feels overwhelming to think about.

I’m still going to PA school and I refuse to give up this opportunity after working so hard for it. But when I started this journey after graduating undergrad in 2020, I never imagined I’d be entering school during a time that feels this financially unstable and so unpredictable.

Is anyone else feeling this way after getting accepted? I feel guilty for not being more excited, but honestly I’m just scared and stressed about the future.

I’m a few months into PA school and honestly I just don’t feel smart enough to be here. I look around at my classmates and it feels like everyone else understands things faster, retains information better, and just naturally “gets it.” Meanwhile I constantly feel behind and overwhelmed.

My grades are always in the lowest quartile. My faculty is concerned, I am concerned. Motivation isn’t an issue, so is it possible that my intelligence level is simply not high enough?

I’ve been that way all throughout my life when it comes to school. Middle school up until now, I have never been the smart person in the class. I have always been notably less intelligent than my peers.

What’s really getting to me is that I want to be the person who walks into an exam knowing they’re probably going to pass. Right now every exam feels like survival mode. I can study for hours and still feel like I know nothing compared to everyone else.

It’s hard not to wonder if some people are just naturally smarter and better built for this. I want to become someone who feels competent and confident academically, but right now I honestly have no idea how to get there. Is it even possible?

I know every program an attrition rate, but I’m still so scared of failing out. At what point will the fear of filling out go away? I’ve been in the program for 5 months and I’m barely hanging on.

Sorry for this word vomit rant. I’m just stuck

Just wanted to vent. I hate my surgery preceptors. I work both in surgery and outpatient in a clinic. Both are extremely cold, very disinterested in me, never asking me questions, communicating the plan, my perspective on the case or treatment plan. I asked for what the code is to get in the building and was told to just knock on the door and wait for someone to answer. All my past preceptors actually treated me like a member of the team and gave me the door code. Today there was one receptionist at the desk who was on a long call so I proceeded to stand there (and was late after lunch) for 30 minutes to ask her to open the door.

When we leave a patient room, the PA runs out with me following behind her like a toddler. Zero conversation afterwards. They are constantly gossiping amongst each other about other staff. When I talk to one PA, the other one interrupts me to talk to the other. Where is the social awareness? I’ve never met such rude ignorant people in my life

title is all really. being the new guy every few weeks sucks. finding a safe bathroom to poop in every few weeks sucks even more.

I’m a PA-S1 (3.94 GPA), almost finished with didactic year, and struggling with regret over not going to med school.

Becoming a doctor was my dream since I was 15. I went to a competitive undergrad, graduated with a 3.78 GPA, but then life happened — I worked full time, got married, had a child, never took the MCAT, and PA became the “practical” backup plan that turned into my actual path.

Now I’m 26 (almost 27), married, a mom to a 2-year-old, have a mortgage, and I’ll graduate PA school with around 200k of debt. PA school is already so grueling that I keep wondering: if I’m sacrificing this much, why didn’t I put it toward med school? My PA education isn’t going as deep as I was hoping it would.

I’m excited to become a PA, but I can’t shake the grief of not becoming a physician. At the same time, I don’t want to miss my son’s childhood or put my family through more years of school, debt, and residency. My husband is a head chef and dreams of opening his own restaurant a few years after I graduate, and I want to support that too.

Maybe med school later when my son is older, but then I’d be starting over in my mid/late 30s and giving up stability. I feel stuck, exhausted, and conflicted.

Has anyone else dealt with this kind of regret after choosing PA? How did you move through it? These thoughts are really bothering me, because my heart’s dream is to be a physician. It makes it hard to focus on the exams and clinicals that are in front of me. I’m also wondering what’s the point with AI moving so fast.

Wanted to post about my PANCE since seeing these types of posts always made me feel better!

EORs in order:

FM: 406
WH: 426
Psych: 418
IM: 404
EM: 420
Surg: 416
Peds: 436

Packrat 1: 138 (nat avg was 130 I believe)
Packrat 2: 170 (nat avg was super high like 160 something)

EOC: 1448 (nat avg was 1515)

PANCE: 460

HOT TAKE: My PANCE was not too bad! I had a single question (a derm one) that I’d never heard of in my life. Everything else was something that’s always heavily tested on, but you had to choose between 2 decent answer choices.

I did not take a PANCE practice exam. I did not use Uworld. I used blueprint prep PANCE qbank and my program made us do a 3-day crash course that was 12 hours per day of review lectures and practice questions. I took it 2 weeks after graduating and had so much going on (interviews and moving to a new apartment) so in total I did 700 practice questions in the couple weeks leading up to my test.

YOU CAN DO IT!!!

Here’s some background on my situation: older student, just split from my fiancé and now cannot get approved for loans by myself, I’ve already been denied by 4 lenders, I have NO one to co-sign, I owe in undergrad loans and a car loan, cannot do military service due to health reasons, and I am not eligible for GRAD plus loans. I do however receive a lifetime pension (monthly) from my old job, but that doesn’t seem to help me at all when trying to secure private loans….

Program starts in July

Anyway, I heard back from the College of Medicine, Student Finance and Scholarship department today. The university cannot offer me any institutional loans or scholarships because the department doesn’t have the money. They are a very large and notable public university with a great reputation, so I was shocked by this reply. They sent me links to 3rd party scholarships to apply for of varying amounts and due dates. I’m going to sit down and try to sort through as many as possible.

As it stands right now, MINUS the Federal Direct Loans (totaling $61,500 for 3 academic years), I would still owe another $70,000. I have no clue what I’m going to do. I officially asked if deferring until next year would be a possibility. I’m afraid they will say no. If anyone has any off the wall ideas, I’d love to hear them. I would absolutely apply for the NHSC if the app wasn’t already closed. Part of me would love to go ahead and start school as the summer semester would be fully paid for and would give me until August. But I would hate to commit to more debt only to find out that I still can’t fund the rest of my education, and would then have to drop out. 

This whole thing sucks so bad. What happens if somebody was able to secure private loans one year, but then didn’t get approved for the following year? What would the college do then?

Hi guys,

Just wanted to share that Core Step Prep has expanded beyond only USMLE prep and have begun offering prep resources for PAs/NPs/Premed students at coretestprep.com. We're offering a year of your choice of question bank so we can work out the bugs before official launch on Jan 1 2027.

Our banks are separated by different certification bodies so you know that you're prepping with the right materials.

If you're interested, use the code C0R3T35TPR3P01YR to pick a bank and explore our platform. All we request is that if you see any bugs, report them via question feedback / feedback. :) Its free no purchase or billing info needed.

(If this isn't allowed mod please remove.)

Hello all,

I’m looking for some tips! My girlfriend is going to PA school next Friday, we are driving out and moving here in. Today she was talking with one of our mentors at church, who’s a PA as well as a teacher in PA school. He told her a lot of people have trouble with relationships, which I get. I was in the military I understand the stress.

I looking for tips on how I can support and be a good partner while my girlfriend is in PA school. I’m already tracking being patient with her, letting her vent, send care packages, FaceTime dates, and I’m also going out there to see her every 5 or so weeks. Also I’m not stressed with my life as I’m also in school ( just for accounting lol) I surf every morning, go to school and wrap it up by 11 for the day, go workout to study or both. I already told her and she know she can call and text whenever but I’m not stressed about a response or hearing from her. I’m tracking she’s in school for hours and might not hear from until dinner time, which honestly I don’t care about, meaning. I went months without contact with my family while deployed, I’m not worried about a couple hours and don’t need her response for me to live life, if that makes sense lol.

So I guess to wrap this all up, if you have tips that made your relationship work I would greatly appreciate them.

im starting school in august and just worried about finances, but also cant help but want to join this girls trip to greece that my friends have been planning and originally I said no because I was working and didn’t think I could get the PTO off but now that I’m quitting my job I could go. is it a bad idea to spend almost 2K on a trip to start PA school or just stay over summer and save the money?

UPDATE: just bought my ticket tonight thanks everyone!!!!!

About to start PA school soon in the South, I was wondering how strict public universities are on septum piercings throughout didactic year? I kept mine flipped up for my interview and our handbook is vague on septums (they say they allow nose piercings, unsure if that only means nostrils or not). I was planning on just wearing a small seamless ring for orientation and see how it goes, but I’m starting to get nervous. Any advice is appreciated!

Hi I'm a PA-S1 and they told us we had to pick our selective clinical rotations one month after we started didactic. Any suggestions of how to choose those if you have no idea what you'd like right now? I'm just trying to survive let alone think about a year away

Hello I’m starting school this September.

I’m wondering how much you spent on average for one year excluding Tution. I have about 20k saved and was wondering how long that will last me (on average)?

I’m thankful to have very little bills. My total bills for rent and utilities is 700 a month (it may go up a little bit because rent increases each year).

I know that loans will cover my Tuition, but I’m not sure how much extra I would need throughout the year.

Also my pa program is 3 years !

I’m an NP… was asked to meet a friend of a friend for coffee to network…because… as you know… people get confused and my friend thought this person was going to nursing school.
So this person is 59, 0 healthcare experience and has somehow decided that being around 60 would be a good time to start PA school. Like gave up their corporate job to go all in. (Not accepted yet)
I was… just a bit stunned and couldn’t think of anything positive to say to this person. Really.. this seems a bit odd. I was in this awkward situation where I suggested perhaps they get some hands on experience first… but also not really wanting to invite them into my clinic to observe.
My general sense is that MOST PA students come in with a fair amount of medical experience (EMT, RN).. especially if they are a “mature” student. I didn’t want to sound ageist.. but even in my 50’s I’m ready to admit I’m just not as quick to learn new hand skills… especially if all this is new.
Anyway… am I crazy, or is this person? (They haven’t even started applying yet… so I could just let it go… but this person seems to be wanting my help with this)