What Are The Requirements for Entry into a Physician Assistant program?
There are currently about 133 accredited or provisionally accredited education programs in the U.S. for Physician Assistants. Sixty-eight of these programs offer master’s degree, and the rest offer either a bachelor’s degree or an associate’s degree. The requirements for entry into PA programs are essentially the same as for entry into medical or dental school–that is, the student must complete general biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics and at least two years of college (a degree is usually preferred). For additional comments regarding general requirements you should refer to the previous documents in this Information series, particularly Info5: Requirements for Entry Into Medical or Dental School. In addition, most PA programs require students to take the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). There are some PA programs that accept the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) in place of the GRE (contact individual programs for more info). Most PA programs require applicants t
