Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies

Studying to be a physician assistant (PA) is a demanding educational experience that leads to an outstanding career. At Clarkson, you'll develop the professionalism, medical knowledge and clinical skills needed to provide comprehensive care to diverse populations in a variety of clinical settings. The majority of your rotations will be one-on-one clinical experiences in hospitals that are recruiting PAs, with many of them in underserved areas.
Our PA program has a small class size, which allows for more individualized attention and support. Our faculty members have a variety of clinical backgrounds, as do the local healthcare providers we utilize for rotations and as guest speakers. We utilize clinical sites in St. Lawrence and surrounding counties, as well as distant sites.

Listed below are the requirements for the Clarkson University Physician Assistant Studies Program:

Completion of the 10 prerequisites listed below.

Each prerequisite course taken needs to be at least a B or higher. (B- is not accepted)

A minimum overall, prerequisite and science prerequisite GPA of a 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale.

Three letters of reference. One reference needs to be completed by a clinician. It is recommended (but not required) to have a reference from a Professor.

The completion of the GRE is optional.

A minimum of 500 hours of patient care experience must be completed, documented and verifiable at the time of application. 700 hours must be completed by the January 15th deadline and a minimum of 1,000 hours of documented and verifiable patient care experience is to be completed by the time of matriculation. Patient care experience is considered by two factors, quality and quantity. A heavy emphasis is placed on the quality of the experience. The program defines quality as hands on responsibility for the patient. Applicants with compensated hours of direct patient care experience will have an advantage. Shadowing or observation is not accepted as patient care experience or used towards your required hours.

Applicants who studied extensively outside of North America will require formal evaluation of those transcripts by the World Education Service (WES). Completion of TOEFL will be required for those for whom English is not the primary language. This requirement may be waived if the applicant has a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree from a regionally accredited U.S. college/university. All prerequisite coursework must be completed at an accreditation institution within the United States or Canada.

Ensure the technical standards can be met. Please review the standards prior to applying.