As I mentioned in a previous post, one can’t hear a yes if you don’t try.

So far I’ve heard back from three of the PA schools I’ve applied to (out of close to a dozen now).

The first I’ll be honest probably hurt the most. This was in part because it was the first. It’s tough getting your first rejection. It does get a bit easier. But that wasn’t the main reason it hurt. The main reason was because it was one of the few schools that doesn’t absolutely require a 3.0 undergrad GPA. It was at or near the top of my list of schools I wanted to get into. I was hoping at the very least to get to the interview stage because if I did, I felt very confident I could sell myself at that point. But alas, not even that is happening at that school. However, if I don’t end up at a PA school in this round, I will definitely re-apply next year. They’re fairly competitive and by then I’ll have well above the average number of required patient contact hours and I’ll have some more classes under my belt and they look favorably at folks who try again. So we’ll see.

I honestly felt more insulted by the second rejection. It wasn’t exactly a long-shot, but it was a mostly online program which I’m not entirely sold on, but they school itself has an excellent reputation. The reason for insult wasn’t the rejection per se, it was the email. I applied at 11:30 PM. At 9:30 AM the next morning I received the rejection letter. My guess is I automatically tripped their minimum GPA requirement. That’s fine. It was some of the wording in the email:

This decision was very difficult, and every consideration was given to your application.

Given no one got in until probably 9:00 AM for the workday, I have to wonder how difficult the decision really was and how much consideration they really gave me!

The third rejection actually was the most honest and as a result, I appreciated the most:

School requires a minimum 3.0 for the overall GPA and science GPA. Unfortunately, one or both of your GPAs, as calculated by CASPA at time of application, did not meet this minimum requirement

Hey, that at least was honest and clear and no pulling of the punches. I’m fine with that. I mean I knew beforehand I would almost certainly get rejected based on my GPA, but this left no doubt. It also means I will leave them off my list for the next round if there is a second round of applications. I’m fine with that. It’ll save me $61.

Ironically however, the last two emails actually give me a bit of hope. Most of the schools I’ve applied to have a 3.0 GPA cut-off, but I haven’t heard from them yet. This means my application apparently hasn’t tripped any automatic “GPA Cut-off” filters. That’s hopeful.

Now, I still expect most if not all of the remaining ones to reject me this round, but there’s still hope.

So the record it’s NO: 3, YES: 0 and Hopeful: quite a few.

We’ll see.