Ohio Dominican PA Program Interview: Questions & Requirements

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The Ohio Dominican University PA program requires an invitation-only interview to fill its 50-seat cohort each August, according to the ODU PA Program FAQs. To qualify for an interview, you need at least a 3.0 overall and 3.0 science GPA, 250 hours of direct patient care experience, and a CASPA application submitted by October 1, per ODU's Admission and Prerequisites page. Below are ODU's selection criteria, admissions requirements, PANCE pass rates, and 12 practice questions with example answers. Sources: ODU PA Program: Admission & Prerequisites, ODU PA Program: Application & Cost, ODU PA Program: Frequently Asked Questions. Last checked November 3, 2026.

How the Ohio Dominican PA interview process works

An interview is required for admission to the Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies (MSPAS) program at Ohio Dominican University, and invitations go out only after the program confirms you meet its baseline admissions requirements. Candidates pay their own travel expenses, and an interview invitation does not guarantee acceptance into the 50-seat class. Check your invitation email for your exact schedule and check-in instructions.

All applicants are held to the same admissions standards, though ODU grants interview preference to four groups listed below. Preference for an interview does not mean preference for final selection. To rehearse behavioral and patient-care questions out loud before interview day, practice with PA school interview questions and mock interviews on Confetto. Start your free week.

Ohio Dominican PA interview and selection criteria (Source: ODU PA Admission & Prerequisites)
Stage	What Ohio Dominican evaluates or requires
Interview requirement	By invitation only, required for admission. All travel expenses are paid by the candidate.
Interview selection factors	Overall GPA, science GPA, GRE or MCAT scores, patient-care experience hours, PA shadowing hours, community service hours, and projected prerequisite completion.
Priority groups for interview invites	Current Ohio residents, ODU Early Assurance Program (EAP) students, Ohio Dominican University graduates, and U.S. armed forces service members.
Final admission preference factors	Academic excellence, commitment to service, quality of patient-care experience, professionalism and interpersonal skills, strong letters of recommendation, resilience, and supplemental characteristics (Ohio residency, PA shadowing, CASPA personal statement).

What ODU's mission, goals, and competencies mean for your answers

Ohio Dominican's PA program was the first MS in Physician Assistant Studies program in Central Ohio, enrolling its inaugural class in July 2012 and graduating that cohort in Fall 2014. Founded by the Dominican Sisters of Peace, the university grounds the curriculum in a liberal arts and Catholic and Dominican identity that honors the dignity of every person.

According to the ODU Mission and Goals page, the program educates students to become qualified members of the healthcare team, promoting service and excellence in academics, professionalism, and clinical care so graduates deliver "holistic, evidence-based, patient-centered care" across practice settings. Every student takes PAS 830 (Diverse and Vulnerable Patient Populations), where 100% of the Class of 2023, Class of 2024, and Class of 2025 earned a final grade of 70% or higher. The Class of 2025 also averaged 18.35 community service hours while enrolled against a 15-hour requirement. Clinical preceptors rated the Class of 2025 at 4.83 out of 5 for effective communication, 4.94 for professionalism, and 4.77 overall. Use ODU's five competencies below to choose which stories you tell.

Medical Knowledge (MK): Applying basic and clinical science to acute, chronic, and emergent conditions while considering the whole patient to promote wellness and disease prevention.
Interpersonal Skills (IP): Building therapeutic relationships that identify patient goals and communicating medical concepts to promote health literacy.
Clinical and Technical Skills (CTS): Conducting thorough histories and physical exams, interpreting diagnostic studies, and counseling patients.
Professional Behavior (PB): Recognizing how health disparities affect patients, working on interprofessional teams, and showing accountability by reflecting on your limitations, mistakes, and constructive criticism.
Clinical Reasoning and Problem-Solving (CRPS): Factoring social determinants of health and local community resources into evidence-based care plans.

12 Ohio Dominican PA interview questions and example answers

Our team wrote the 12 practice questions and example answers below around ODU's admission preference criteria, its five competencies, and its focus on Central Ohio and underserved patients. For a broader list of prompts used across programs, read our guide to PA school interview questions.

1. Why do you want to attend Ohio Dominican University's PA program specifically? Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "I want to train in Central Ohio where I grew up and plan to practice as a primary care PA, and Ohio Dominican was the first PA program built for this community. When I attended ODU's spring Open House in St. Albert Hall, two things stood out: the full human cadaver dissection lab during the 15-month didactic phase and the way community service is built directly into the student schedule. In my two years as a medical assistant in Columbus, I saw how often patients leave a clinic with a prescription they cannot afford or understand. ODU's emphasis on integrating local community resources and health literacy through courses like PAS 830 matches the clinician I want to become."

2. Tell us about a patient interaction from your patient-care experience that shaped how you view whole-person, patient-centered care. Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "While working as a patient care associate on a step-down telemetry unit, I cared for an older gentleman admitted twice in one month for heart failure exacerbations. Charts labeled him non-compliant with his low-sodium diet and diuretics. While helping him get washed up one morning, I asked what his routine looked like at home. He lived alone, no longer drove, and relied on canned foods from a neighborhood pantry because he could not walk to a grocery store, and he skipped his morning diuretic whenever he had a bus ride to an appointment. I shared that with the unit PA, who brought in social work to arrange meal delivery and adjusted his dosing schedule. That taught me that patient-centered care means asking how a treatment plan fits a patient's daily life before judging their adherence."

3. Describe a time you made a mistake in a clinical or academic setting and how you handled it. Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "During my first month as a phlebotomist at an outpatient clinic, I drew a morning metabolic panel on a patient without confirming whether he had fasted. Halfway through labeling the tubes, I realized I had skipped that question. I asked him right away, learned he had eaten breakfast an hour earlier, and immediately walked to the lead medical assistant to explain my mistake before the sample went to the courier. We documented the non-fasting state for the ordering PA so the glucose and lipid results would not be misinterpreted, and I apologized to the patient. After that shift, I made 'fasting check' the first spoken step after verifying name and date of birth on every draw."

4. Tell us about a time you received constructive criticism that was difficult to hear. Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "Six months into my job as an emergency department scribe, the lead PA pulled me aside after a busy shift and told me my history of present illness notes were too wordy and buried the timeline of acute symptoms. I took pride in capturing everything the patient said, so hearing that my thoroughness made the chart harder to use stung at first. I asked her to show me two charts from that shift and point out what she would cut. For the next three weeks, I organized every HPI chronologically in three sentences before adding pertinent negatives, and I asked the PAs on shift for a 30-second check at the end of the day. My charting speed improved and the providers stopped having to edit the timeline."

5. How has your community service prepared you to care for diverse and vulnerable patient populations? Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "For the past two years I have volunteered every other Saturday at a neighborhood food and clothing pantry in Columbus. My role is helping Spanish-speaking and newly arrived families complete intake forms and find local health resources. Early on, I noticed families taking blood pressure flyers but never scheduling visits at the free clinic 2 miles away. When I asked why, several parents told me they worried a clinic visit would require a Social Security number or trigger a bill they could not pay. I worked with the pantry coordinator to invite a bilingual nurse from the free clinic to do blood pressure checks right in the pantry lobby once a month. Meeting people where they already feel safe taught me that equitable care starts with removing fear and logistical friction."

6. Tell us about a conflict or breakdown in communication on a team and what you did to resolve it. Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "At the orthopedic clinic where I worked as a medical assistant, the front desk and the back-office MAs kept clashing over late-arriving patients being roomed right before lunch, which pushed afternoon rooms behind. Instead of complaining in the break room, I asked the lead receptionist and our clinic PA if we could look at one week of schedule blocks together. We realized patients had no clear grace-period rule on their reminder texts, and MAs did not know when the front desk had already cleared a late arrival with the provider. We agreed on a 15-minute cutoff and a quick instant-message flag whenever a provider approved a late add-on. Tensions dropped within two weeks because both sides followed the same rule."

6 more ODU practice questions with example answers

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7. Why do you want to be a physician assistant rather than a physician or nurse practitioner? Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "Shadowing a PA in internal medicine and later working alongside PAs in urgent care showed me how the medical model training and lateral mobility fit my goals. In urgent care, the PA I worked with had spent five years in orthopedic surgery before transitioning to acute walk-in care, and he brought procedural confidence with splinting and joint reductions that helped the whole clinic. Whenever a complex multisystem patient came in, he collaborated directly with the supervising physician in real time. I want a generalist curriculum trained across all seven core specialties so I can adapt to where my community needs clinicians most while practicing on a physician-PA team."

8. How did you explain a complex concept to a patient or family member with limited health literacy? Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "As a medical assistant in a family practice clinic, I was teaching a newly diagnosed patient how to use a peak flow meter and two different asthma inhalers. He kept nodding politely, but when I asked him to show me which inhaler he would reach for if he started wheezing at work, he picked the daily steroid maintenance inhaler. I put the medical handout aside, placed a red sticker on his rescue albuterol and a calendar sticker on his daily controller, and compared them to brushing his teeth every morning versus using a fire extinguisher when smoke appears. Then I had him walk me through both scenarios in his own words. He nailed it on the second try, and his wife took a photo of the two stickers for their kitchen counter."

9. ODU's 27-month curriculum is intense and discourages outside employment. Tell us about a time you showed resilience during a heavy workload. Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "During my junior year of college, I took Organic Chemistry with lab, Human Anatomy with lab, and Statistics in the same semester while working 20 hours a week as a CNA on evening shifts to help pay tuition. Midway through the term, I scored a 76 on my second anatomy lab practical because I was trying to cram late at night after work. Rather than dropping a course, I rebuilt my week: I moved my CNA hours to 2 12-hour weekend shifts, booked the open anatomy lab every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 7 a.m., and formed a three-person study group to quiz each other out loud on origins and insertions. I finished the course with an A-minus and learned how to spot early signs of burnout before my grades slip."

10. During the clinical year, ODU places students at rotation sites up to 90 miles from campus or across Ohio. How would you handle a placement far from your home base? Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "I view traveling across Ohio for rotations as an advantage of ODU's clinical phase, not a hurdle. Practicing in a small rural hospital an hour and a half outside Columbus requires very different clinical problem-solving than rotating at a large tertiary center ten minutes from campus, especially when specialists are not down the hall. Before starting the clinical year, I have budgeted specifically for travel and short-term room rentals, and I have a reliable vehicle. Wherever the Clinical Coordinator assigns me across those 11 1-month rotations, my focus will be showing up prepared on day one and learning how PAs deliver care in that community."

11. A patient refuses an evidence-based treatment you and your supervising physician recommend. How do you respond? Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "First, I would pause and ask open-ended questions to understand why the patient is saying no, making sure they feel respected rather than lectured. Refusals often come down to something practical or personal that has not been voiced yet, like cost, fear of a side effect a family member experienced, or a religious or cultural conviction. Once I understand their goal and their concern, I would explain the reasoning behind our recommendation in plain language, walk through the risks of waiting, and bring in the supervising physician to explore safe alternatives that align with the patient's values. Respecting human dignity means honoring an informed adult's autonomy while keeping the door open if they change their mind."

12. Tell us about a time you realized you were out of your depth clinically or academically and had to ask for help. Example answer written by our team. The applicant is invented: "While working as an EMT on a basic life support squad, we responded to a patient with developmental disabilities who was nonverbal and agitated after a fall at his group home. My standard verbal trauma assessment was only making him more distressed, and I could not tell if he was guarding his abdomen or simply frightened by our equipment. Instead of forcing the exam, I stepped back, lowered the lighting, and asked his daytime caregiver at the house how he normally shows pain and what calms him down. She sat next to him and helped us check his range of motion gently before we called for an advanced life support intercept. Recognizing my limitation early kept the patient safe and got us an accurate exam."

How to prepare in the two weeks before your ODU PA interview

Use this six-step preparation plan written by our team to align your stories with the factors ODU's admissions committee evaluates.

Map one concrete patient story to each of ODU's five competencies (Medical Knowledge, Interpersonal Skills, Clinical and Technical Skills, Professional Behavior, and Clinical Reasoning), including one story on recognizing a mistake (PB 4.4) and one on social determinants of health (CRPS 5.2).
Prepare a concise verbal update. ODU does not accept updates or extra documents after you submit CASPA, so be ready to share new prerequisite grades, patient-care hours, or PA shadowing naturally in conversation.
Review your 250+ patient-care experience hours and PA shadowing hours so you can clearly distinguish your hands-on clinical duties from what you observed a PA doing.
Prepare a direct explanation for any prerequisite grade near a C, since ODU favors higher prerequisite GPAs and upper-level science coursework when selecting interviewees.
Know ODU's 27-month curriculum: 15 months of didactic study in St. Albert Hall with cadaver dissection, simulation, and clinical skills labs, plus suturing, lumbar puncture, vascular access, splinting, point-of-care ultrasound, OR techniques, and ACLS in the final didactic semester. That is followed by 12 months across 11 1-month rotations, including 7 core rotations in Family medicine, Internal medicine, Emergency medicine, Surgery, Behavioral health, Women's health, and Pediatrics, plus 4 non-core specialties.
Run two full timed mock interviews out loud on camera and cut any answer that runs past two minutes.

Ohio Dominican PA admissions requirements, prerequisites, and PANCE pass rates

You apply to Ohio Dominican's ARC-PA accredited PA program (next validation review October 2035) through CASPA by October 1, and for the August 2027 class CASPA opens April 30, 2026. ODU does not require a supplemental application or accept updates after submission. Applicants must hold a bachelor's degree with at least a 3.0 overall and 3.0 science GPA, submit GRE (code 0436) or MCAT scores within 5 years, and provide two letters of recommendation, preferably one from a PA or clinician and one from an academic mentor or professor.

The Class of 2025 matriculated with a 3.73 overall GPA and 3.69 science GPA and achieved a 100% first-time PANCE pass rate compared to the 91% national average. ODU holds a 97% five-year first-time pass rate, with 2026-2027 tuition set at $1,007 per credit hour and an estimated Class of 2028 cost of attendance of $164,514. Compare ODU against national baselines in our guide to PA school requirements, or see other Columbus healthcare programs in our Ohio State medical school acceptance rate and Ohio State dental school interview guides.

49 semester credit hours of prerequisites (grade of C or better at a regionally accredited U.S. school): Inorganic/General Chemistry with Lab (4 credits), Organic Chemistry with Lab (3), Biochemistry (3, taken separately from Organic Chemistry), Human Anatomy with Lab (3), Human Physiology (3, lab recommended), Microbiology with Lab (3), General Biology (6, at least 3 credits per course), Intro to Psychology (3), Additional Psychology (3), College Algebra or Higher Math (3), Statistics (3), and Humanities (12).
Prerequisite policies: There is no minimum prerequisite GPA (though higher GPAs are favored for interviews), courses may be in progress when applying, completion within 10 years is recommended (except humanities), AP credit counts if on your official transcript, and Pass/Fail grades are only accepted for Spring, Summer, and Fall 2020.
Patient-care experience (250 hours minimum, paid or volunteer, subject to audit): Accepted roles include CNA, Patient Care Associate (PCA), Phlebotomist, Nursing Assistant, Medical Assistant, Dietician/Nutritionist, EMT, Medical Mission Trips, Medical Scribe, Dental Assistant, Respiratory Therapist, and Athletic Trainer. Shadowing, community service, pharmacy work, and lab work do not count toward the 250 hours.
Citizenship and post-acceptance rules: Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents (550+ TOEFL required for non-English speaking countries, WES/ECE evaluation for foreign transcripts). Accepted students must pass a medical terminology exam shortly after the first semester begins, hold a driver's license, BLS certification, and health insurance, and clear a background check and drug screen.

Ohio Dominican PA program performance, GPA trends, and cost (Sources: ODU Mission & Goals, Application & Cost)
Metric	ODU PA Program Details
First-time PANCE pass rate	100% for Class of 2025 (vs. 91% national), 98% for Class of 2024, 96% for Class of 2023, and 97% five-year average.
Graduation rate	100% for Class of 2025, 92% for Class of 2024, and 100% for Class of 2023.
Matriculating GPA (Class of 2023, Class of 2024, Class of 2025)	Overall GPA: 3.72 (Class of 2023), 3.73 (Class of 2024), 3.73 (Class of 2025). Science GPA: 3.64 (Class of 2023), 3.66 (Class of 2024), 3.69 (Class of 2025).
Tuition and seat deposits	$1,007 per credit hour for 2026-2027. Non-refundable seat deposits total $1,500 ($500 initial deposit plus $1,000 second deposit due about 3 weeks after acceptance).
Total estimated cost of attendance (Class of 2028)	$164,514 total ($110,932 for the 15-month didactic phase and $53,582 for the 12-month clinical phase, including living and travel estimates).

Practice for your Ohio Dominican PA interview

Ready to practice your ODU interview answers out loud? Confetto runs realistic PA mock interviews with follow-up questions on your clinical and service experiences. Start your free week.

Frequently asked questions

Can I apply to the Ohio Dominican PA program with prerequisites still in progress?

Yes. You may have prerequisite courses in progress when you submit CASPA, as long as you complete all 49 credits with a grade of C or higher before matriculation, though ODU prefers applicants who have finished most of their coursework before applying.

Does Ohio Dominican require a medical terminology course before applying?

No separate medical terminology course is listed among the 49 prerequisite credits. Instead, every accepted student must pass a medical terminology exam administered shortly after the first semester begins to advance in the program, and ODU advises studying Davi-Ellen Chabner's Medical Terminology: A Short Course.

How does the Ohio Dominican PA Early Assurance Program (EAP) work?

ODU's Early Assurance Program lets qualified high school seniors apply for a guaranteed seat in the PA program if they complete their undergraduate degree at ODU and maintain eligibility requirements. EAP students still apply through CASPA in April of their junior year and receive interview preference.

Do Ohio Dominican PA students have to find their own clinical rotation sites?

No. The ODU PA program acquires and matches all students to clinical sites across their 11 1-month rotations, though students must arrange their own housing and reliable transportation for placements up to 90 miles from campus or their primary residence.

Can I work while enrolled in the Ohio Dominican PA program, or get course waivers?

ODU strongly discourages outside employment during the 27-month program and prohibits students from working for the program or substituting for staff at clinical sites. The program also does not grant course waivers or advanced standing to any student, including foreign medical graduates.