Program FAQs

New dates will be available soon!

For more questions about these meetings, please email paprogram@csuniv.edu. We look forward to meeting with you!

This meeting will be specific to you as a student/applicant preparing to apply to CSU’s PA program. We can discuss your GPA, course requirements, patient care experience, other contributing factors to the application.

• Only schedule a time if you are a Jr/Sr in college OR planning to apply to PA school in the next 2 years
• This meeting does not give you extra credit for your application. We will still score all applications on the same plane

Schedule a Session

Our PA program offers tours from October-April
while the application cycle is closed. If you would like to schedule a tour, please contact us at paprogram@csuniv.edu.

If you cannot make it out to our campus for an in-person tour, check out our virtual tour, health science building walk-through video.

With COVID-19 continuing to have a significant impact on potential applicants, it has been decided that the Charleston Southern University Physician Assistant Program will allow the following changes for the 2022-2023 CASPA application requirements:

• Courses taken between January 1, 2020 and September 1, 2021 and awarded satisfactory completion (P), to meet prerequisite requirements, will be accepted to accommodate students enrolled in these courses whose universities who have moved to a P/F grading scale.
  • Please note – In situations where candidates are awarded P/F grades, the grade point average (GPA) for those grades is not impacted in the calculation of GPA. The CSU PA Program will only consider CASPA calculated GPAs.
• Courses taken between January 1, 2020 and September 1, 2021 including those with lab components that were transitioned to an online format will be accepted if completed with a grade of “C” or higher or with a satisfactory completion (P).

• The minimum of 1,000 hours of direct patient care experience required at the time of application submission will be reduced to 500 hours of direct patient care experience to accommodate for situations in which an applicant may not have been able to complete these hours due to clinic closures or removal of students from those settings.
  • Please note – This requirement will be modified for the 2020 – 2021, 2021 – 2022, and 2022 – 2023 application cycles only.
• Three letters of recommendation are required for the application to be considered complete. However, only one of these letters must be from a healthcare setting. All remaining requirements for letters of recommendation are unchanged.
  • Please note – This requirement will be modified for the 2020 – 2021, 2021 – 2022, and 2022 – 2023 application cycles only.

All other prerequisite requirements and deadlines will remain the same.

If you have any questions regarding these changes or the application process in general, please reach out to the program at paprogram@csuniv.edu.

The Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant, Inc. (ARC-PA) has granted Accreditation-Continued status to the Charleston Southern University Physician Assistant Program sponsored by Charleston Southern University.

Accreditation-Continued is an accreditation status granted when a currently accredited program is in compliance with the ARC-PA Standards. Accreditation remains in effect until the program closes or withdraws from the accreditation process or until accreditation is withdrawn for failure to comply with the standards.

The approximate date for the next validation review of the program by the ARC-PA will be March 2032. The review date is contingent upon continued compliance with the Accreditation Standards and ARC-PA policy. The program’s accreditation history can be viewed on the ARC-PA website.

We are looking for well-rounded applicants who will help us achieve our mission statement as a program. Please see the Selection Process section of our website on our Application page for more information.

CSU is a private institution, and we do not distinguish between in-state and out-of-state applicants.

CSU’s CASPA application opens in Late April 2023. The application closes on September 1, 2023 and all information must be submitted and verified by CASPA by that date in order for the application to be reviewed.

We use a rolling admissions process, so applying earlier will allow you to be considered for an earlier interview date. With this approach, it is possible for the program to fill all available seats prior to the September 1st application deadline. Once the cohort is full, remaining applicants will be evaluated for an alternate list.

We do not have a supplemental application or additional fee to apply to the program.

A bachelor’s degree must be completed from a regionally accredited institution or an equivalent from a foreign institution, but we do not require a specific major. Students who meet the application requirements are able to apply to the program.

CSU uses CASPA calculations and takes into consideration cumulative, science and prerequisite GPAs. To better understand how these are calculated, we recommend reaching out to CASPA.

Applicants must meet the minimum GPA requirements (calculation based on CASPA application) to be considered for the program.

Be sure to view our acceptable patient healthcare experience on the Application Requirements page of our website. When tracking your hours we recommend recording location, supervisor, contact information, your position and a short description and the number of hours you completed at each location.

Applicants may apply with two (2) work in progress prerequisites provided they complete each with a B (3.0) or higher before September 1st. Official transcripts must be received at Charleston Southern University by October 1 or a selected candidate will relinquish their seat. However, applicants must have all direct patient care hours complete at the time they submit their application.

If you do not meet the prerequisite requirements for the PA Program at Charleston Southern University, please consider looking into taking additional courses to boost your GPA and fulfill your prerequisite course requirements. We would encourage you to consider looking at other graduate level programs to strengthen your application. Charleston Southern offers a variety of graduate level programs, such as the Master of Science in biology program. For additional information about this program please click here.

We have excellent faculty, a new state-of-the-art Health Science Building, and a very well-organized curriculum plan. The didactic year is organized to deliver curriculum by each major organ system in sequence. The curriculum will be taught through various platforms such as lectures, small groups, problem-based learning, high fidelity simulation and practical hands-on training.

The majority of our clinical sites will be located in and around the Charleston area.  However, students may be required to attend rotations at a site outside of the Charleston area and will be responsible for all expenses related to such assignments.

If a student wishes to establish a new clinical site for the program, he or she can request up to two new clinical sites. However, the student is not guaranteed to be placed at the requested sites.