The CASPA Experiences Section: Entering Your Hours Without Losing Any
The Experiences section is where two years of clinical work becomes the set of numbers programs screen on - and it is the section applicants fill out most carelessly. This is how to categorize each role, calculate hours the way programs expect, handle current positions, and keep every entry verifiable.
Your GPA arrives in CASPA through transcripts - machine-checked, verified line by line. Your hours arrive through the Experiences section, and the only source for them is you. That asymmetry is why this section deserves more care than applicants give it: the numbers you enter here get screened against program minimums, compared against the accepted-applicant averages of 2,669 PCE and 1,490 HCE hours, and occasionally verified by a phone call to the supervisor you listed. Enter them well and the section quietly does its job. Enter them sloppily and you either shortchange yourself by hundreds of hours or hand a reader a reason to doubt the whole file.
How CASPA structures the section
CASPA asks you to enter each experience as its own entry: one job, one organization, one date range. For every entry you supply an experience type (the category dropdown), a title and employer, a supervisor or contact with a working phone number or email, the date range, the average hours per week, and a total-hours figure, plus a short description of your duties. Entries repeat for as many roles as you have; the section then totals your hours by category.
Two structural facts worth internalizing before you start. First, the category totals are what programs screen on - a strong PCE total in the wrong category is a weak total. Second, every entry names a human being who can be called. Both facts drive everything below.
The category dropdown decides everything
The experience type you pick sorts your hours into buckets: patient care experience, healthcare experience, shadowing, volunteer/community service, research, leadership, and non-healthcare employment. The one that matters most is the PCE/HCE line, and it is worth being exact about: PCE is hands-on work where you are directly involved in the patient's care; HCE is healthcare-adjacent work where you interact with patients but are not responsible for their care. The full definitions, the per-program split, and the job-by-job table are in the PCE vs HCE guide - read it before you categorize anything ambiguous.
Misclassification costs you in one of two directions. Categorize hands-on work as HCE and you donate hundreds of hours to the weaker bucket. Categorize adjacent work as PCE and you invite the reader to re-classify it downward - and to wonder what else in your file is optimistic. When a role is genuinely ambiguous (scribe with vitals duties, transporter with patient handling), classify by what you actually did, describe the hands-on tasks explicitly in the description field, and let the honest description defend the category. Shadowing is its own category - never fold shadowing into PCE, even when you helped out during the shadow day.
The hour math programs expect
CASPA wants an average hours-per-week and a total. The total is the number that gets screened, so calculate it rather than guessing: hours per week × weeks worked. Weeks worked is the date range minus real gaps - a semester abroad, a two-month injury. Round to the nearest sensible figure; a total of "1,847" reads as calculated, "2,000" on the nose reads as rounded up.
| Schedule | Hours/week | Duration | Entered total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-time ER tech | 36 | 14 months (~61 weeks) | ~2,196 |
| Part-time MA during school | 16 | 2 academic years (~60 weeks worked) | ~960 |
| Per-diem CNA, variable census | 12 (honest average) | 10 months (~43 weeks) | ~516 |
| Weekend volunteer shift | 4 | 18 months (~78 weeks) | ~312 |
The per-diem row is the one people get wrong. When your weeks ranged from 8 to 24 hours, do not enter 24. Pull your pay stubs or schedule exports, total the real hours, and divide by the weeks in the range. Enter that average, and use the description field to note the variability. This is exactly the arithmetic an admissions office runs when an entry looks inflated - run it first yourself.
Splitting one job across categories
Some roles genuinely span categories: an MA who spent two of five weekly shifts on front desk, a tech whose role was half clinical and half administrative. CASPA lets you enter the same employer twice with the hours divided - one PCE entry for the clinical portion, one HCE (or non-healthcare) entry for the rest, same supervisor on both, with descriptions that make the split obvious.
Split when the non-clinical share is substantial and defensible; do not slice a genuinely clinical job into fragments to game the totals. The test is whether your supervisor, on the phone with an admissions office, would describe the split the way you entered it.
Current positions and the hours you haven't worked yet
For a role you still hold, CASPA records it as current: you enter the hours accrued so far, and the entry shows an open-ended date range. Programs understand that a current position keeps accruing - many will ask for an updated total at interview, and some rolling programs effectively credit your trajectory, not just your submission-day number.
The discipline current positions demand: know your projected total. "How many hours will you have by matriculation?" is a real interview question, and "about 2,400 by next May, at my current 24 hours a week" is a real answer. Track each role's hours-per-week and start date somewhere you can query - a spreadsheet, or the hours tracker inside the Application Dashboard, which projects each current role forward to your target date automatically. What you must not do is enter projected hours as accrued hours; that is the single fastest way to fail a spot-check.
Honest reporting, verification, and the description field
Every entry lists a supervisor or contact, and programs call them - not for every applicant, but predictably for the files where the hours are load-bearing or the totals look generous. The calls are short: did this person work here, in this role, at roughly this volume? An entry that survives that call is an entry you can stop worrying about.
Three habits keep you verifiable. Enter supervisors who actually remember you (a charge nurse who worked beside you beats a department director who never met you). Keep your own records - pay stubs, schedule exports, a running log - for every total you enter. And write description fields that describe tasks, not aspirations: "obtained vitals, performed 12-lead EKGs, splinted, transported, assisted with procedures under RN supervision" tells a reader precisely why the entry is PCE. The description field is also where honest context lives: per-diem variability, a role that changed scope mid-tenure, the hands-on share of a hybrid job.
Frequently asked questions
Can I update my hours in CASPA after submitting?
You can add new experiences and update hours on current positions through CASPA's post-submission update process, but programs are not required to re-review your file after an update. The safer pattern: report accrued hours accurately at submission, mark ongoing roles as current, and email programs directly with meaningful hour milestones later in the cycle.
Do PA programs verify experience hours?
Programs can and do spot-check. Every experience entry carries a supervisor or contact, and admissions offices call them - especially when an entry looks inflated or a total is load-bearing for an admission decision. Report hours you could defend from pay stubs or schedules.
Do I have to list every job I've ever had in CASPA?
No. List everything clinical, everything healthcare-adjacent, and any non-healthcare work that carries real responsibility or explains your timeline. A summer retail job from freshman year can stay off; two years managing a restaurant should go in - it speaks to responsibility and fills the timeline.
How do I report per-diem or seasonal hours in CASPA?
Average them honestly. Total the hours you actually worked from pay stubs or schedules, divide by the weeks in the reporting period, and enter that average with the true date range. A note in the description field ("per-diem, 8-24 hrs/week depending on census") keeps the entry verifiable.
Can two experiences overlap in time?
Yes - overlapping entries are normal (a weekend EMT job during a weekday MA role, volunteering alongside work). Programs read overlaps as work ethic. What draws scrutiny is impossible math: date ranges and hours-per-week that add to more waking hours than exist.