Examination of Similarities and Quantitative Analysis of Trends Between Admissions Variables and Academic Outcomes

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze similarities and trends between admissions variables and academic outcomes of physician assistant (PA) graduate programs to better understand the correlations between them. Methods: First, multiple admissions variables were examined individually to determine whether and, if so, why they were similar to each of the following 3 academic outcomes: students' first-time Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam scores and overall and first-term graduate school grade point averages (GPAs). Afterward, trends between those individual academic outcome variables and the independent variables associated with any admissions criteria found to share similarities with individual academic outcomes were analyzed using simultaneous multiple linear regression models. Each model used at least 562 students from a sample set of 566 across 3 different PA graduate school programs. Results: Undergraduate GPAs and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning scores shared similarities with each academic outcome, and those similarities were included in each regression model. In each model, the undergraduate GPA beta coefficient was greater than the value of the GRE beta coefficients. Conclusions: Based on the beta coefficient values, the undergraduate GPA variable appeared to be the nonbinary and non-age-independent variable that trended upward the strongest alongside increases in each academic outcome when other variables were controlled for.