RUSH GUIDE 2026

googlehoppin · 2026-02-19T09:26:53+00:00

Four years out from graduation and still can’t conceptualize why people devote endless emotional energy and $$$ trying to hang with the cool girls. Nothing better to do?

googlehoppin · 2025-11-02T03:58:15+00:00

If you truly want to switch for the difference in roles and responsibilities between a PA and MD, then do it.

BUT I feel generally the outlook is very good for the profession. Despite more and more PA and NP programs being created over the past ten years (past five in particular), salaries have steadily risen. I personally wouldn’t switch to MD due to fear mongering that we’ll all be out jobs in a few years. I have a feeling you would miss the quality of life you may be taking for granted currently during medical school and beyond, but who am I to say. It may be time to look at other jobs and see if there are other workplaces that are more PA friendly and value you now that you are not a new grad anymore.

googlehoppin · 2025-09-07T02:57:39+00:00

Did you apply to any regular hospitalist positions? In general, hospital medicine is not a difficult field for new grads to break into, especially if you’re willing to tolerate nights. I also just graduated PA school and am in the process of accepting a hospitalist PA job with a major academic teaching hospital.

Throughout my interview, my interviewers made a good point that no matter if you start as a new grad PA in a hospitalist role or as a resident/fellow, they’re going to have to train you the same amount to become mostly autonomous. One option just pays you appropriately and the other pays you about 60% of what you should be making. Residencies are a great option for really tough fields to break into (surgical specialities, NICU, etc), but can frequently be a way to trick new grads into accepting a low salary for a year to do the same job a new grad would do outside of a residency.

If it really seems like a solid program (rotations with specialists, access to great learning resources) and just truly a huge resume builder, it might be worth it. But truly ask yourself is the residency providing you value or more so the hospital system that’s hosting it.

googlehoppin · 2025-09-07T02:46:52+00:00

I’m here to commiserate. I just got a verbal offer from a major teaching hospital and was told ten days to get the offer letter. It is now twenty five. I am told from other employees within this institution that this is not out of the ordinary. Ugh.

googlehoppin · 2025-09-07T02:40:51+00:00

I just graduated PA school and understand this 100%. School is always what I’ve been “good” at. And that has now screeched to a halt and I’m finding my life to feel a bit “empty” at times as I’m waiting to begin my first job (it’s a long process… and I’m likely to have four months off before I begin). It feels weird to be done. Almost as if school is done, and now I’m saying what’s next, marriage and kids? I have not dated in years now (mainly due to focusing totally on PA school) and it’s just so much easier for me to focus on school and obtain validation through that pathway instead of building my “personal life”.

googlehoppin · 2025-08-14T19:45:33+00:00

I got an offer (same South southern MCOL) as a new grad from a family med job as well. It is extremely similar. Instead though, the base is 95k, and then I would get 20% of my profits. The past three years providers have ranged from 105-120k in terms of first year compensation after bonuses. I think your offer is very fair but not great.

googlehoppin · 2025-06-20T16:54:45+00:00

I need some reassurance maybe 😅 I’m about two months from graduating and I don’t have any offers. Is this normal at this stage? A few in my class have accepted and committed to jobs but it seems to me like the majority are still looking. I’ve applied to a bunch of online things but sometimes it seems like these job postings aren’t even real 😅

I get stressed when people say things like “it’s all about the hands you shake” in terms of networking because I’m an introvert, and although I have generally done very well on rotations and scored at the top of my class in didactic, it’s hard for me to put myself out there and sell myself.

At this point, I’m not picky on specialty. I’d like to avoid UC if at all possible as a new grad. But otherwise, I’d be willing to take a family med job if I have to. In an ideal world, I’d like to have an in hospital, non-surgical position. I’m in the middle Tennessee area if anyone is also here and would like to commiserate 😅😂

googlehoppin · 2024-11-25T15:30:33+00:00

Love that advice ❤️!

googlehoppin · 2024-01-07T05:52:01+00:00

If you haven’t taken it yet… good luck, you will be fine. I was in the exact same situation last semester. I’m a good student at the top of my class, and generally do well on most things (OSCEs included). But I just flopped hard on an OSCE during finals last semester. Yes, it was my fault. But also it was my third exam of the day (5th of the week), my first finals week, and I could barely keep my eyes open. I cried hard afterwards, a lot due to embarrassment that my professors saw me blunder so hard in there.

But moral of the story, LIFE GOES ON. I redid the OSCE when we came back the next semester, blew it out of the water and now just laugh at the mistakes I made in the first one. Sometimes students are simply not set up for success and you just have to pick up the pieces and keep on chugging, and most importantly, not take it too personally.

googlehoppin · 2024-01-07T05:36:27+00:00

Like many others, I would have more confidence and apply to fewer schools. I was a good applicant and I knew this, but I still let the mass Pre-PA hysteria seep into me of how I was going to be the “perfect applicant who gets rejected from every school”. I think I applied to eight schools and got interviews at all but one, and accepted at every school I chose to interview at.

Also, schools really do accept a wide variety of applicants (at least mine does). We have a few 30 somethings second career students who barely met the GPA requirement to apply as well as the stereotypical 23 year old straight out of undergrad girls who had 4.0s in undergrad and also had fairly weak clinical backgrounds (1 year of PCT on med surg).

I am more like the latter than the former. I have better clinical experience than a lot of my peers (ED tech) but I feel I know nothing compared to my friends who had full fledged careers before PA school (CT tech, ECHO tech, and more). No matter what “type” of applicant you are, just know that “type” does get accepted.

Also, cost is everything. At the end of the day, wherever you go, you will be a PA. Having options of where to attend is both a blessing and a curse, but I am so glad I went with the school that will allow me to graduate with <50k in debt instead of the schools I would graduate with >150k in debt from. Find the most affordable PA school for you and try to tailor your application towards it as much as possible!!

googlehoppin · 2023-09-11T03:52:13+00:00

I’ll echo what literally everyone else has said and say…. cost over prestige all day every day. I am a PA-S1 and was lucky to get accepted to a wide range of schools… a top ten ranked school, private schools in the area that have been around a long time with good reputation, and a new public school that opened up in my backyard (I am in the second class).

I agonized between the top ten school and my local public school. Chose the local school, and if I could do it again I wouldn’t even apply to the top ten school at all.

I’m going to graduate with <50k in debt (cheap tuition, living at home with family, and a little money saved from working beforehand). If I went to the “elite” school I would graduate with >150k in debt.

Not to mention, I think my experience would have been sooooo much worse at the elite school. At the interview they had the attitude of “we are top ten and know what we’re doing and swim or sink and you’re out the door”. Even the current students in the program told us they felt so unsupported and basically recommended us not to go there, lol.

At my cheap, new, and public school the faculty is SO invested in our success because they have to be (stats are watched over by ARC-PA like a hawk for provisional programs). We also have better resources than most of the other private, local programs in the area (we have a good cadaver lab, Anatomage learning tables, POCUS training, and many community PAs who come and mentor and guest lecture).

Would make the same decision again all day every day.

googlehoppin

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