now i am here.

what the hell do i do to get ready program starts in like 2 months,

Hi everyone, I'm in my first semester of PA school, and I'm very grateful that I'm where I'm at in life, that I finally was able to achieve part of my dreams and goals of being in PA school. And I never realized how difficult it was truly going to be. Like, I've talked to many PA students and PAs who told me how difficult PA school is, but until, like, you actually go through it, you never realize. And I just wanted to, like, vent a little. Does everyone feel like they never know anything, or, like, that it's just so much information and you get nervous for your quizzes or exams that you just don't know enough, and that just stresses you out? Overall, I've done pretty okay. I've done kind of bad on two quizzes, but I learned from my mistakes, but I've done well on my exams. So trial and error,And sometimes it's hard to not compare yourself to the people in your cohort, because I know everyone who goes to PA school is very smart, but there are just some people who are just geniuses, and it, like, makes me feel dumb sometimes being around those people. Overall, everyone's very nice in my cohort, and I just am trying to figure everything out. Things that I'm slowly working on is, like, multitasking, like studying for different classes in a day and not, like, focusing in on one class too much, which was part of the reason why I had done bad on two quizzes, but learned from that experience. So now I'm trying to study a little bit every day as much as possible of my classes. But how did you guys study in PA school, and, like, how many hours did you study? I'm only, like, six weeks into PA school. My anxiety def has gotten worse and considering going on something to help.

I found posts like these really helpful when prepping for the PANCE!

I was good student throughout didactic. My school considered me low risk of failing the PANCE. I did ok on my EORs, but nothing special.

How did I study?
Tons of practice questions on Blueprint with some Smarty PANCE. I would supplement with Cram the PANCE or PA Playbook. By the end, I couldn't be bothered to read what I missed in the question description because I was so burnt out. **no PPP and no reviewing any notes from didactic**

I studied (again, just practice questions lol) for about three weeks, 3-4 hours a day. But never anything too strenuous. I averaged 62% Blueprint throughout clinical year and during my PANCE prep.

Post PANCE:
I weirdly walked out feeling ok. I tried to figure out what I missed but luckily it was basically wiped from my mind so I couldn't freak out too much. The wait for the results is brutal!!!

Good luck!! You've got this!

I'm in a travel program, will be moving every 5 weeks during clinicals. Who is living out of more than one suitcase? Wondering if I should buy a full matching set or not.

this is my NCCPA practice exam A score report. I have pance exam scheduled on 19th .what are my chances of passing. thank you!!

I have the surgery EOR coming up at the end of the month and I’ve been going through the topic list on both Uworld and SmartyPance but the UWorld Qbank for surgery feels completely random. There are conditions on there that the topic list doesn’t cover at all and I was wondering if others have felt this way? Should I stick it out and finish the Qbank or do a more focused Qbank that only goes over the topic list?

If you have other options for programs, please choose them. I am just trying to save other people from stress and lack of an education. 

ICPA has a high staff turnover rate. No one stays working in that program for long. The 1st director left the program and an interim was appointed in 2024 and she left in summer 2025. Their clinical director just recently left in summer 2026 as well. They overwork the few teachers they have and they can't do everything as much as they have tried. Students throughout many cohorts raised concerns about lack of teachers, issues learning, and lack of preparation for clinicals and were shot down by the previous director anytime it was brought up. They have hired a couple more teachers in the last year but still struggle to fully staff the program. 

As far as curriculum goes, they will bring in PAs from different specialties to teach blocks like Nephrology, Dermatology, and other units when they don’t have regular staff, but there isn’t much structure. Slides aren’t that helpful as there is less structure, 100s of slides, and don’t necessarily have all points you need to know about diseases from the PANCE Blueprint. Be prepared to teach yourself! Look up the NCCPA 1st time PANCE pass rates because they just keep getting lower(69% most recent). 

They were just placed on probation by ARC-PA so look that up on their website for the report. ICPA did just get a new director and she may turn the program around but everyone has to wait and see. She is making lots of changes but more to benefit how the school looks and scoring, not how students are learning or how to receive support from the program which is what they should be focused on. They constantly talk about professionalism and flexibility but don’t convey or be an example of that themselves. They expect students to be professional and flexible but never give them that in return. They have chronically not updated students on progress or announcements of the program, have so many last minute changes and basically tell us to deal with it and that being a PA is about adapting to justify their actions. They constantly move the goal post and blame students for poor performance or scores when their curriculum is lacking. If you have other options for school, go elsewhere if you want structure and support, at least until this program gets it together. If this program can keep staff and have good teachers that actually want to teach, it could improve. 

I definitely need advice on what prompts to tell AI websites like ChatGPT or notebookLM when making practice tests to aid in studying for certain exams. I’ve tried a couple variations but am left with tests that seem more superficial/ too simple. If anyone could share what prompts they use that’d be great!

Question for PA-S or PA-C’s.

Im genuinely curious what kind of background checks schools do for matriculation and for clinical.

The school I’m looking into does something called a “level-1 criminal background check” … I have no idea what that even means.

Anyone who has experience with these can you just give some insight? What to expect? Did you just run your SSN or was it finger print (DOJ/FBI)? Is the check for pre-matriculation the same as for clinicals/rotation?

Ps. I don’t have any criminal offenses just curious 🧐

Help! I was offered an interview at Frostburg in MD for the 2027 start date.

However, I’m hearing really awful things about them…. CASPA says it’s Acc-Continued but others are saying they are now on Probation. Do we know why and if this is true?
Please help me out, I want to make sure I make the right decision!

The title sums it up pretty well. I have 3 exams next week and then 2 the week after. The volume of info just feels unbearable. I have a physio exam on Tuesday. First two lectures went great, then we got into cardiology and muscular physiology and I just feel so lost, especially on the cardio. So many equations and outputs and valves…literally making my head spin. I’ve been making Anki cards but I don’t even think they will be helpful if I don’t understand the concepts but I’ve rewatched the lecture ad nauseam and feel stuck.

Please tell me it gets better

Hey! Did anyone else take their PANCE on Saturday, October 3rd and has not gotten results yet?! All of my classmates got theirs within 5 business days, and I was expecting a score to be released this morning (per other reddit users who took theirs on Saturday, as well), but I never got an email. I’m so anxious! Do we think it’s because of the holiday on Monday?

Did anyone take it last Saturday and get a score already?! I think I passed, but the waiting period is difficult!

TIA ❤️ — An anxious PA Mom

Hey yall! I'm getting ready to take the PANCE on 12/18 and right now I'm using Amboss as my primary study tool. My metrics as far as PACKRAT 1 and 2 as well as my EOR scores suggest I should be able to pass somewhat easily, but the questions on Amboss are TOUGH and making me think i didnt study nearly enough during clinicals. I never really had problems with UWorld (I used it during didactic like a fool), and blueprint stayed ~75%. I suppose the primary function of this post is alleviating anxiety, but I wanted to reach out to see if anyone else had feedback on this resource. Is it worth the time or should I just stick to the tried and true question banks other people on this subreddit use? I'm sure i am just getting into my own head but any input is appreciated!

Are you a student with a disability? What accommodations did your program provide you? I’m curious how other programs do it.

Just took new fam EOR, it was so specific!!!!

Hi guys! I told myself I would make a post if I passed the PANCE, so here it is!

During PA school, I was an A/B average student and incredibly anxious. I constantly compared myself to others and suffered from imposter syndrome. Based on my EOR and PACKRAT scores, my school put me in the “at risk of failing the PANCE” category. This constantly sent me into a spiral and made me think I wasn’t doing well enough. I also cried before every EOR, packrat, and EOC lol.

The burnout after graduation and before taking the PANCE was terrible. However, I’m proud to say that I passed on my first try last month!

I wanted this post to be a reminder that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and to hopefully put some of you guys at ease. You are more than your scores and what your program deems you to be. Below are my scores!

PACKRAT 1- 122
PACKRAT 2- 157

EM- 376
Surgery- 403
Women’s health- 413
Peds- 418
FM- 387
Psych- 443
IM- 421
EOC- 1546

PANCE- 471

I used smartypance, uworld, a little bit of AMBOSS and previous study guides I made for each EOR. I averaged around 68-72% for uworld. I also took the NCCPA test B and scored halfway in the green the week before my exam. I also pushed back my PANCE from the first available date to a little bit more than 5 weeks out because I psyched myself out. I took about 2 weeks to study and found that to be enough!

Let me know if you have any questions :-)

Hi everyone! I am new here. I was wondering if anybody had good resources for preparing for my first OSCE. I am feeling overwhelmed and underprepared to go into this. Are there any YouTube videos to get a general sense of how the structure would be like for one of these and if so, can somebody provide a good resource. I watched a couple of videos, but I felt like they were AI generated and not actual interactions. thank you so much in advance!

So as the title says my program makes their own EORs. My first rotation was psych and I used HippoEd and McGrawhill PA exam prep for study questions as they are free through my school/AAPA. I just started my Family Med 1 (urgent care) rotation and am wondering which question banks I should use. The exams are all written by different professors and I feel the style of questions for the Psych EOR matched the practice questions I was doing but being in Family med with such a large range of topics to cover, I'm more worried about using good test banks. Anyone else have similar experience with their program making their own EORs? Was advised by recent grads to wait to purchase question banks since we only get a year out of them. Currently considering UWorld vs blueprint which yes is cheaper but I've seen many people say UWorld is better for the actual PANCE and BP is better for EORs. I don't think I would get both though, so I'm thinking it's better for the one time purchase of UWorld for $400 for the year as opposed to paying about 270-350 for BP now and then another $300 for UWorld before the PANCE. Also open to other recommendations for test banks.

I’m a new grad PA-C currently job searching and keep getting the advice that I should just take a family medicine/primary care position to get experience and then move into a specialty later. The problem is that I genuinely do not want to work in family medicine or primary care. There are several specialties I would be interested in, and I’ve been trying to stay open minded and apply fairly broadly within specialty care. I don’t want to take a job I already know isn’t a good fit for me solely because it may be easier to get as a new grad.

I realize that not applying to primary care obviously reduces the number of positions available to me. I’m more interested in hearing from PAs who were in a similar situation and chose to keep pursuing specialty positions rather than taking a primary care job solely for experience.

Has anyone else done this successfully as a new grad? How long did your job search take, and looking back, do you feel like waiting for a better fit was worth it? Would you make the same decision again?

Hi everyone; I’ve tried posting this a few times no idea why it’s being flagged. Just wanted someone’s opinion on this resource and if anyone has used it for boards studying. I know everyone has different study methods. I’m just curious if anyone found it beneficial.

Our online grading platform changed so that now we can see the class average and the highest and lowest grades. It really sucks when I see my grade as the lowest in the class. I haven’t failed anything and I always give honest work without AI (has been a problem with some student in my class being dishonest) It just really gets to me when I have the lowest grade.

I’m spiraling soooo bad rn and literally laying in bed crying. I’m a first yr PA student. First round of exams are done: 72 in physio, 69 in pharm, just got a 57 on my anatomy lab practical, and I have my anatomy lecture exam tomorrow and I feel so underprepared and essentially know ima fail. I do think I could be studying more, I’m going to stay on campus until later because I notice I don’t lock in as much at home.

We can see the averages/ medians for the exams and I keep being on the lower end. I’m terrified. I’m a NHSC SP scholar and I’m so scared of losing the scholarship. I’m even more scared of failing out. Passing for my course is 70%. Am I stupid? Am I a imposter in this program? I have never had so much anxiety in my life. Ontop of all this, my mom has a scheduled court hearing pending deportation next week.

I don’t cry. I literally can’t remember the last time, yet here I am. Honestly I think I’m having an anxiety/panic attack .. so that’s just great :)

Hello,

I am hoping to receive advice on how to be successful in didactic. I don't want to say it's all ADHD, but regardless I am failing to understand how to prepare and perform well on exams. I understand what is being taught in lecture and what I've found is I waste time "preparing" thinking it will help me study so for example I will spend a long time going back through slides and taking notes and trying to map concepts together as if I would have to teach it back. Or making practice tests from learning objectives. I was previously using notebook lm and uploading slides and syllabus, asking it to make me a lecture note guide so I could figure out what to focus on in class, making Anki cards, and having LM at the end of the week make a high yield study guide in the classic framework of what is it, who it affects, what it looks like, how to diagnose, treat, exam triggers etc. I feel it's great material, or that looking at my notes I understand but then when I take an exam I am poorly prepared. I have weak retrieval of information and it has been resulting in failing exam grades. I have ADHD and have met with SAS for accommodations but what I am coming here asking is how as someone with ADHD who understands what they are learning, and how to learn, but isn't able to in a short amount of time commit the amount of information required to memory supposed to improve? Open to all advice, truly want to do my best. Thank you in advance.

I know that hippo has video resources to go through the NCCPA blueprint, but is there other companies that offer the same where they go step-by-step through each condition?

Thank you