What Reviewers Look For in the CASPA Experience Descriptions — PA
This rubric looks at whether each description clearly shows what you personally did, the responsibility you held, and the evidence behind any claim. It also checks that each entry answers its specific field, stays accurate about your role, and can stand alone when read apart from your other entries.
What We Check
Whether each applicable entry makes the applicant's own duties and level of responsibility identifiable to a reader who has never met them.
Whether each applicable entry supports its central claim with evidence suited to its experience type and field.
Whether each claim stays inside the work the entry says the applicant did.
Whether each response unit performs the exact job shown in its supplied experience type and field instruction.
Whether the submitted entries divide the work between them without contradiction or repeated evidence.
Mistakes We Flag
- Writing a job posting instead of your own work
- Listing what someone with your title generally does does not show what you personally did. Lead with a duty, decision, observation, or contribution you can describe accurately.
- Using a title or setting as proof
- A hospital name, unit label, organization history, or volume figure does not explain your responsibilities. Use the space to name your task, who or what it involved, and how you carried it out when relevant.
- Claiming team results as your own
- Do not turn a clinic, unit, or organization outcome into a personal achievement. Describe your specific contribution and keep supervisors, coworkers, and other contributors visible where needed.
- Forcing every entry into a PA narrative
- Non-healthcare work, service, hobbies, and other activities can speak for themselves. Focus on the activity and responsibilities the field asks for rather than adding a broad career lesson.
- Repeating or relying on another entry
- CASPA entries may be read in no set order, so each one needs its own essential facts. If a position is split across entries, give each entry the duties that belong to that share instead of duplicating the same description.
How this rubric reads your essay
- Built from published reader guidance — the sources are listed below.
- Scored per section against defined criteria, not general impressions.
- Calibrated for consistent scoring, so a better draft shows up in the score.
References
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I include in an experience description?
Describe the activity and your key responsibilities unless the entry shows a different instruction. Make your own duties, decisions, observations, project role, or contribution clear.
Do I need clinical work or impressive outcomes for every entry?
No. A non-healthcare entry does not need a clinical or career connection, and numbers, dramatic outcomes, high-acuity settings, and formal leadership are not required. Accurate, ordinary responsibilities can be enough.
How should I write a shadowing entry?
Focus on what you observed the clinician do and, when useful, what that observation showed about the clinician's work. Do not write it as though you personally delivered the care.
How long can each description be?
If your entry shows a current limit, follow that limit. Otherwise, this rubric uses 600 characters including spaces as the reported upper bound; it is not a target or minimum, and a shorter entry is fine if it completes the field's job.
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