Most physician assistant school applicants are missing a major opportunity: supplemental essays.  Applying to PA school successfully is about doing a large number of things right.  Applicants know they need to get good grades, write a strong essay, turn in a strong application, etc.  But often they gloss over supplemental essays, and it's a huge mistake.

What are Supplemental Essay Questions?

Supplemental essay questions -- or just “supplementals" -- are extra essay questions asked by individual PA programs.  In the CASPA application, they come toward the end, after your experiences, grades, and essay.  They usually give you a character or word limit for each question.  500-2000 words is common.

The Purpose of Supplemental Essays 

Supplemental essays are a PA program’s opportunity to ask you about things they consider important that other programs might not.  Most of what schools read in your application will have generic appeal, but supplementals have a narrower focus on what individual programs value. Your responses will help the program decide if you might be a good fit for their program, and therefore deserve an interview. 

Your responses to a school's supplementals will be factored in when your overall application is scored.  This means that if you do a good job on them and you can expect to be invited to more interviews.  Do a so-so job on them and you might be spending another year applying.   

Common Supplemental Essay Questions

• How does your desire to become a PA fit with our program’s mission?
• Tell us about your experiences working with diversity.
• Why do you wish to attend [name of PA program]?
• Talk about a challenge that you have overcome and how it has prepared you for this.
• What are some of the challenges facing physician assistants in the next ten years?

First the Don’ts

Avoid these common mistakes:

• Don’t copy sections of your CASPA essay, even if you think you've answered a question in your CASPA essay.  (It would be like saying ‘Go back and read my essay!’)
• Don’t share the same material that’s in your CASPA essay, even if the wording is different.  If you're repeating yourself, you're missing an opportunity!
• Don’t answer similar questions by different schools with the same answer.  To test this, if you can copy the same answer into several different schools’ supplementals, it's a sign that you haven’t given enough thought to your different readers.  Every school is different and looks for different things.      
• Don’t answer them without giving specifics and examples.  If you must share material in your supplementals that you shared in your CASPA application, try to use different examples to make your points.  

The Smart Approach to Supplementals

Do your homework!  What are the program’s mission and goals? Where is the program located? What type of applicants do they typically admit, where are their clinical rotations, and where do their graduates work?  Program websites are wealths of this type of information. If they ask why you want to attend their program or what contributions you would make to their program, you need to connect your response back to these very specific and unique factors of the program.

Understand what each program is looking for in an ideal candidate.  Did you know that ARC-PA accreditation standards require PA programs to list specific traits, factors, and experiences that they are looking for in an applicant?  Look for this under “additional qualifications” or “applicant characteristics” on the program’s applicant webpages. You may not be their ideal candidate in every way, but no one is.  So be sure to emphasize aspects of your background that appeal to what they are looking for.

Answer the question you’re being asked.  You would be amazed at how many supplementals we read that don’t answer the question being asked. They are asking these questions because they make a difference in who they decide to interview.  So don’t B.S. your way through it; answer it!

Be specific.  For example: if you say that you are passionate about practicing medicine as a PA, don’t stop there.  Tell them what aspect of caring for patients you're passionate about.  Tell them what it is about the PA role that excites you.  Provide examples that illustrate your passion for this work  Making a claim without backing it up is common and will land your application into the DON’T INTERVIEW pile.

Share aspects of yourself that didn’t come out in your main CASPA essay.  Make different points, or (at least) use different examples/stories than you did in your main essay.  This is a golden opportunity to help them learn more about you.  Think of it as a “mini interview,” because that’s essentially what it is.  

Get Help!  At a minimum, you should have two or three acquaintances who are skilled writers review your responses for spelling, grammar, and content.  These responses should read very smoothly and answer the questions thoroughly and effectively.  Ask your readers to challenge you about anything they read that sounds like filler, isn’t clear, or isn’t convincing. 

Better still, hire an experienced PA admissions coach to help you craft great answers to your supplementals.  An experienced coach will have read many of these essays and can help you identify where yours is weak, or "typical" and help to improve it.  Be sure to check out our Supplemental Essay Editing Service -- it could make the difference between starting PA school next fall and wishing you were...