The waiting nearly killed me!!

The whole process of applying to PA school and then waiting to see the note in CASPA that your application is mailed is tough!! Then once it is mailed, the wait continues! and then continues even more hoping to hear that you have an interview. And it doesn't stop there...more waiting to find out the results of that interview, accepted, provisionally accepted, wait-listed, alternate, or rejected. Grrrr!!!! (that's a growl!)
But the time spent between the mailing to the long awaited call or email for an interview can be excruciating! I submitted my CASPA application on the 1 of Oct, which in reality is quite late in the process. Had I applied to more than one program, this would have been past the deadline for some schools. Luckily, for the Nova program, I was still in time. As I mentioned in a previous post I did get a call from the program!! It was about a month after they received my completed app. I remember the day...I had taken off work early to pick up my niece for an appointment. We had just returned to the car and were pulling out of the parking lot when I looked at my ringing phone. I had saved the main number for Nova in my phone months before so I knew it was the school calling. Yes, I was that neurotic! I saved the number so I was sure not to miss it! I turned to my niece who is 17 and knew of my stress and desire to get into this program. "OMG!!! Its the school for the PA program!!!" She said "Answer it!!!" I did, but the news was that I was missing the appropriate LOR and could not move forward without it. And so, I was scrambling to get that done. Again...once completed I waited some more.
Christmas came and went. I had finished my EMT-B class and took my National Registry exam, passed with flying colors. The exam was incredibly easy. And with it I was able to volunteer in the ER where I could not before. I briefly looked into getting a paid job but soon found that the county fire dept. would not hire unless you continued on into fire standards etc...and I was not interested in running into any burning buildings! For me that is a one way street...OUT!
Finally just after the new year, on January 7th I got the call for an interview! YAY!!! When asked what day was good for me, I asked "when is the first day you have available?" I was local so I did not have to make arraignments. So I was sent up to be there on January 12th, just five days later. Well at least with just five days, the wait here was not to bad!!
I arrived early to the interview and chatted with the other two people there. It seemed odd to me that neither was particularly excited. I was thrilled and I know that the energy was completely surrounding me. After a bit of conversation, I found out the other two were not really interested in the program but decided to come to the interview for "practice." This is an interesting concept but not one that I would have done! One girl said this was her 10th interview...that is a lot of practice! I wonder if it paid off! :)
I thought the interview went well...but you really never know in these situations. I was quite confidant that the interviewers liked me but I wasn't sure they they liked me any more than all the others who had interviewed. And so the waiting began again. I will go into the interview in another post.
The admission coordinator assured me that I would hear back either way in about 2 weeks. The committee was scheduled to meet and review the latest round of interviews in that two week time frame. I was also asked at this time to send in any new transcripts which would show my previously listed in-progress classes as complete with grades. I did this immediately!!
Right around the two week mark I got a call!! But it was not an acceptance. My file was pulled from the committee meeting; they would not be reviewing it this time around. Mercy! Could anything else hinder the process???? There was a question about some classes taken a long long time ago in Europe. Frantic phone calls and emails ensued! The calls to Europe had to be done very earlier in the morning due to the time difference and finally I had the course descriptions from the early 80s...20 years ago! Done! Signed sealed and delivered! And I was in review!
Finally, on February 4th, almost a month later, I received the call!! Yay! I was in! The Director said, Hello Maria, I hope I am about to make your day!" to which I responded, "I hope you are about to make my year!!" And he did!!
Dont think that the waiting stops...You still have to receive the "official" acceptance latter and further instructions and sooo many more things need to happen before everything is official!! But that is for another day, another post!