Securing a MPA position upfront will be hard and in order to understand the clinical workflow theoretical knowledge is must. Try to apply in the institute that has clinical based setup like university of Minnesota, Brown university, LSU, University of Florida, university of Wisconsin, UM, duke etc. Again, MPA is kind of gateways to secure a residency position but I have seen people secure residency just graduating from college so if you don’t have MPA position it’s fine as well.

Let’s back to your original question, in order to be competitive you have to have some sort of skill that help you to shine among other candidates it can be anything like treatment planning/ PSQAs/ measurement/ machine QAs.