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Everything You Need To Know About CASPA

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Posted on November 22, 2022 By katiebean84Comments Off on Everything You Need To Know About CASPA
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If you’re applying to physician assistant (PA) school, then get ready to become very familiar with CASPA as you go through the application process!

CASPA stands for the Centralized Application Service for Physician Assistants. 

CASPA is a service of the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA), and it has been the national organization representing PA schools since its inception in 2001.

CASPA allows you to fill out ONE application but send it to as many programs as you want! This keeps things simple because you only have to input your schools, grades, experiences, etc. ONCE…but can send this application to multiple programs.

***Note: not all schools use CASPA. The vast majority of PA schools do, so it really helps you save time and frustration!***

CASPA operates on a ~ 50 week cycle. It opens near the end of April and runs for approximately 50 weeks. Then it shuts down for 2 weeks in early April and rolls over to the next cycle.

For example, right now we are in the 2022-2023 cycle. CASPA opened up this cycle on April 28, 2022 and the cycle will run until April 14, 2023.  After this date, CASPA will close for two weeks and nothing can be submitted. During this closure it will roll over to the 2023-2024 cycle. 

So what types of things do you need to apply on CASPA?

Here is an example of the things you need to input into your online CASPA application:

  • Demographic info
  • Schools attended
  • Transcripts
  • Classes/grades
  • Patient Care Experience (PCE) hours
  • Health Care Experience (HCE) hours
  • Leadership
  • Extracurriculars
  • Honors/awards/scholarships
  • Research
  • Volunteering
  • Letters of Recommendations (LORs)
  • Personal Essays
  • And more….

You can make a CASPA login anytime in the process (it’s free!) so click HERE  if you want to make a login and explore the website.

Filling out your CASPA application takes time (lots of time) so we recommend you start early to make sure you give yourself enough time to submit before your program due dates!

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: It’s important to note that you CANNOT change your information in CASPA once you push submit! You want to make sure your CASPA app is completely edited and complete BEFORE you submit it. Again, you need to be ready and make sure you’ve done a full audit of your entire application BEFORE pressing submit, because you can’t edit any of your essays or experience details for the rest of the cycle. 

At first glance, CASPA may seem overwhelming and complicated, but it does help streamline the PA admission process by helping you apply to multiple PA schools with only one application!