Best Practices

The CASPA Advisory Committee has worked with various PA programs to develop ideas for improving admission process practices. These ideas have been incorporated and are listed below.

Communicate with applicants early in the admissions process. Through the Admission Portal, participating programs have access to information for all applicants that have designated that particular program and electronically submitted an application to CASPA. The Admissions Portal allows the admissions officer (and other designated individuals at the program) to view an individual's application status whether it is incomplete or complete and unverified or verified.

By accessing the individual application information, programs can see what specific materials (transcripts and references) might be missing. In addition, programs have access to an Excel spread sheet that contains contact information (including name, address, phone number and email address) for each applicant that is considered incomplete, unverified or in the process of being verified. Programs can use the Excel list as an initial contact opportunity with the applicants.

Evaluate applications as they arrive at your program. Once you receive complete and verified applications from CASPA, it is helpful to start evaluating these applications. Applicants typically apply to several programs, many of which have similar deadlines. If other programs are evaluating and interviewing applicants as they receive the applications, your program might be at a disadvantage to recruit these applicants if you start your evaluation process at a later time frame.

Conduct interviews early. If you have been able to evaluate your applicants as they are received, you could conduct your first interviews before you've received all of your applications from CASPA. Many programs have different starting dates and might conduct interviews earlier. If the applicant has been interviewed and accepted at other programs before the interview process has started at your program, these applicants may not consider your program.

Make decisions based on complete and verified applications. Making an admissions offer based on incomplete application information that has not been verified may be perilous. CASPA is capable of catching fraudulent documents through verification. It is in the programs best interest to wait for complete verified applications from CASPA. Incomplete applications have not gone through the verification process and therefore cannot be guaranteed.