Required Courses
While Northwestern University is on the quarter calendar, our course credit is expressed in terms of units, not semester or quarter hours. Course credit units can be confusing for Northwestern pre-health students in understanding how their Northwestern credits fulfill common pre-health prerequisites. This section provides a broad overview of course pre-requisites
Course Unit Conversion:
- 1 Northwestern Course Credit = 2.66 semester hours or 4 quarter hours
- Northwestern University Course Credit Unit Conversion information
Courses required for admission vary significantly from one institution to another. These courses are mentioned frequently as being required and/or recommended:
- Human Anatomy
- Human Physiology
- General Chemistry
- Biochemistry
- Microbiology
- Statistics
- Other courses may also be required
Some of the above courses may not be offered by Northwestern University’s undergraduate program but may be available through the Northwestern School of Professional Studies (SPS).
- Northwestern undergraduates must follow these steps to register for an SPS course. (Scroll to the 2nd to last question.)
- Many PA programs will accept online or community college coursework.
Because pre-requisite courses can vary so much by program, we encourage pre-PA students to research PA programs early by using the PAEA directory and reviewing PA program websites.
- Coursework that may be accepted by one PA program may not necessarily be accepted by other PA programs.
- It’s important for pre-PA students to communicate with each program to double-check that their coursework is accepted as fulfilling that particular program’s pre-requisites.
- We’re also happy to meet with students to discuss the best way to plan and complete the necessary coursework.
Choosing a Major
PA students come from a wide variety of educational back grounds. Applicants are not required to major in a particular major in college to be eligible for admission to a PA Masters degree program. If the physician assistant pre-requisite courses are not required as part of an applicant’s undergraduate major, these courses will need to be completed as electives or outside of the Northwestern system (there would not be a need to transfer the courses back to Northwestern).