CASPA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Industry | University and College Admissions |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | USA |
| Website | https://caspa.liaisoncas.com/ |
CASPA or the Centralized Application Service for Physician Assistants is an application service for graduate-level PA programs. Similar to the Common Application used by some undergraduate institutions and the American Medical College Application Service used by medical schools, CASPA allows students to submit one application to multiple schools. The CASPA application platform is a service offered by the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA).[1]
The CASPA application service launched in 2001 with 68 participating physician assistant programs, and mailed over 16,000 applications to its member schools. The original service consisted of the CASPA Applicant Portal, which interfaced with students, and the CASPA Admissions Portal, or PA Admit, an admissions software that interfaced directly with PA schools. Completed applications were printed and mailed to programs via postal mail. In 2011, CASPA moved from the PA AdMIT admissions software to WebADMIT, a web-based admissions application that allows schools to receive and review applications online rather than receiving them by mail. Today, over 180 PA programs use CASPA, which accounts for 90% of ARC-PA accredited physician assistant programs in the United States. CASPA annually processes over 100,000 applications.[2]
In 2015, CASPA moved its Applicant Portal to an entirely new software platform, called CAS 3.0. New aspects of the platform included a visual, image-based user interface as opposed to the previous text-based interface, and all payments and fee waiver submission forms moved to an entirely electronic format. The platform also included the addition of "Program Materials," a section of the application in which PA programs could configure and collect specific documentation and other information for their program directly through the CASPA application.[3]
Member Programs
PA Programs must be accredited by ARC-PA and be a member of PAEA in order to participate in CASPA as full-fledged programs. New PA programs who have applied for, but not yet received accreditation from ARC-PA may participate for one application cycle as a "developing program." All programs which participate in CASPA are graduate-level programs which require that students have completed at least some college-level coursework prior to applying. The small number of bachelor's degree-level PA programs which accept students straight from high school study do not use the CASPA application. Applicants may determine whether or not the programs they are interested in applying to use CASPA by searching the PA Program Directory.[4]