Becoming a physician assistant requires academic rigor and exacting skills. Our program seeks applicants
with excellent academic backgrounds, along with strong interpersonal skills
and maturity. Prior health care experience is also an indicator of a career
commitment to clinical practice. The admission process considers
each applicant's strengths and selects those best qualified
to meet our program's mission.
Admission Requirements
- Marquette Undergraduate
- Non-Marquette Undergraduate
- Applicants with Bachelor's Degrees or Current Seniors
- Technical standards
MU PA Application
Applicants must apply through the Central Application Service for Physician Assistants (CASPA) by October 1st. Marquette University also requires the submission of a supplemental application to be mailed directly to the program, concurrent to the CASPA submission, by the same deadline of October 1st.
The required supplemental application may be downloaded here.
* The GRE exam must be completed by September 1st so that the official scores are received by the PA program prior to the application deadline of October 1st each year.
Selection Factors
- Academic preparation and GPA
- Motivation, maturity, ability to work with people and suitability for clinical practice
- Minimum of 200 hours health care and other work experience. All hours must be submitted and documented on the CASPA application. Additional hours after submission will not be counted towards the total. (Note: healthcare shadowing does not count towards this requirement)
- Knowledge of the PA profession and its role in the health care system
- GRE for graduate applicants
- ACT/SAT scores for undergraduate applicants
- Letters of recommendation
- Personal interviews
The program currently admits 55 students per class consisting of a target class makeup of 27 +/- 5 being Marquette undergraduate students.
Immunization Requirements: The Physician Assistant program requires that students have health screening and immunizations according to current CDC recommendations for health professionals by the time they begin the program. See here
*Note: We do not accept transfer of students from other Physician Assistant programs for advanced standing. These students must also meet all the admission requirements and complete the entire physician assistant curriculum if accepted. There are no opportunities for advanced placement.
*Applicants applying Fall of 2013, who would start the PA program in Fall of 2014 must have the science prerequisite courses (biology, chemistry, organic chemistry/ biochemistry) completed at the time of application submission.
Other non-science outstanding prerequisite courses may be in progress at the time of application submission, but must be completed with a grade of C or better prior to starting the PA program if accepted. An official transcript of all outstanding prerequisite course must be mailed to the PA program at the completion of each semester and prior to beginning the PA program. Health care hours will be totaled at the time of application submission, additional hours completed will not be added to the application after submission.
