PA · Westfield, Massachusetts · public

Westfield State University Physician Assistant Program prerequisites

What Westfield State asks for in the 2026-27 cycle, as read from the school's own admissions page. 7 lines differ from the standard PA school set, marked below.

Read from the school’s pageCheck it with the school

Coursework

General chemistry with labnot required here
General chemistry is not named as a prerequisite. Chemistry coursework still counts toward the 30 semester hours of biological, chemical and physical sciences, but no general chemistry sequence is required in its own right.
Biochemistryrequired
1 semester · 3 credits
Named in the prerequisite list with no credit figure and no lab. C or better, within the past 10 years.
English or writing-intensivenot required here
No English or writing requirement appears. The named non-science prerequisites are statistics and psychology.
Statisticsrequired
1 semester · 3 credits
"One University-level statistics course." No credit figure, no subject narrowing beyond university level.
Psychologyrequired
1 semester · 3 credits
"One University level Psychology Course." Any university-level psychology course answers it; no second course such as abnormal or developmental is named.
Geneticsrequiredextra here
No published minimum
Named outright in the prerequisite list, with no credit figure and no laboratory attached. C or better, within the past 10 years.
Anatomy and physiologyrequired
2 semesters · 8 credits · lab
"Human Anatomy and Physiology I & II with lab." The program publishes no credit figure for the sequence. C or better, within the past 10 years, and the labs must be taken on campus apart from the 2020 to 2021 COVID-19 exception.
Microbiologyrequired
1 semester · 4 credits · lab
"Microbiology with lab," no credit figure published. Same on-campus lab rule, same C minimum and same 10 year window.
Medical terminologynot required here
Medical terminology does not appear in the prerequisite list.
Additional science creditsrequiredextra here
10 semesters · 30 credits
The frame around everything else: "30 semester hours of biological, chemical, and physical sciences." The named prerequisites sit inside this block, so the remaining hours can be filled with any biological, chemical or physical science coursework. Every course counted must carry a C or better and have been completed within the past 10 years.

Experience hours

Patient care experiencerequired
500+ hours
"A minimum of 500 hours of patient contact hours are required by application deadline. Examples of patient contact hours can include but are not limited to EMT, Scribe, Paramedic, Lab Tech, Volunteer, and Nurse's Aide as long as direct patient contact has occurred." Westfield counts by contact rather than by job title, which makes it one of the programs where scribing and lab tech work can count, provided the contact was direct. Note how far above the floor admitted classes sit: reported averages run from 2,682 to 5,218 hours.
Healthcare experiencerecommended
500+ hours
No separate healthcare experience number is published. The single requirement is stated in patient contact terms, and the qualifier "as long as direct patient contact has occurred" is what decides whether a role counts.
PA shadowingrecommended
20+ hours
Under a fifth of programs set a shadowing minimum; among those that do the median is 20 hours and a handful ask for 100 or more. Several count shadowing inside their experience total rather than separately, and a few have dropped it from scoring entirely.

Letters

Science faculty letterrecommended
No published minimum
Only a handful of programs require a science faculty letter by name. An academic letter is welcome nearly everywhere and mandatory almost nowhere.
PA letterrecommendeddiffers
1 letter
Most PA programmes publish no minimum.
No writer is named by profession. The requirement is "Three academic and/or professional letters of recommendation," which a PA can satisfy on the professional side without being required to.
Supervisor letterrecommendeddiffers
1 letter
Most PA programmes publish no minimum.
Three letters, "academic and/or professional," with the mix left to the applicant. A work supervisor is one of the professional options rather than a required voice.

Also on the school’s page

Westfield frames its coursework as a science block first and a course list second: "30 semester hours of biological, chemical, and physical sciences," inside which it names human anatomy and physiology I and II with lab, microbiology with lab, genetics, biochemistry, one university-level statistics course and one university-level psychology course. Per-course credit hours are not published, so this overlay records the block and the named courses without inventing credit figures. "All prerequisite courses listed below must be completed with a grade of 'C' or better and a minimum overall and prerequisite GPA of 3.0," and "All prerequisite courses must have been completed within the past 10 years." Delivery is constrained where it matters: "Labs must be taken on campus with the exception of labs taken online during COVID-19 pandemic years 2020-2021." Admission also requires "A baccalaureate or graduate degree from an accredited institution with a minimum overall GPA of 3.0. Degree must be completed and verified by August 1 deadline," plus a science GPA at or above 3.0 across all college science coursework. Neither the GRE nor the PA-CAT is mentioned anywhere in the admission requirements, and shadowing is not mentioned either. Recent cohorts have come in well above the floors: the program page reports average overall GPAs of 3.54 to 3.72, average prerequisite GPAs of 3.68 to 3.81, and average patient care hours between 2,682 and 5,218. Those are class averages, not minimums.

School

westfield.ma.edu/academics/degrees/ms-physician-assistant-studies

Check your transcript against this list

Cyclios keeps this list beside your coursework and tells you what Westfield State still needs from you.

See it for PA school

Also in Massachusetts

All PA programmes, compared