The physician assistant program at San Joaquin Valley College is permanently closed. It taught out its final cohort and its ARC-PA accreditation was voluntarily withdrawn as of September 30, 2015. There is no application cycle, and the program is not expected to return.
If you landed here while building a school list, the short version is: cross it off, and use the links at the bottom of this page to find programs that are open and accredited today.
What ARC-PA said at the time
At its March 2014 meeting, the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) placed the San Joaquin Valley College Physician Assistant program on Accreditation-Probation status until no later than September 30, 2015, at which point the sponsoring institution voluntarily withdrew from the accreditation process.
The institution and program taught out their currently enrolled students in accordance and compliance with the educational Standards for accredited programs, and the college did not enroll any future cohorts.
What does Accreditation-Probation actually mean?
Accreditation-Probation is a temporary status conferred when a program does not meet the Standards and when the program’s capability to provide an acceptable educational experience for its students is threatened. Programs placed on probation that still fail to comply with accreditation requirements in a timely manner, as specified by the ARC-PA, may be scheduled for a focused site visit and risk having their accreditation withdrawn entirely.
Probation is a warning. Closure is an outcome. Most programs placed on probation correct the findings and come off it — but a few, like this one, do not. That is exactly why it is worth checking a program’s accreditation status before you apply, not after you have been accepted.
What should you do if you were looking at this program?
- Find PA programs in California that are open and accredited: California PA programs.
- See which programs are on probation right now, and what each finding actually means: PA schools on probation.
- Check the other programs that have permanently closed so you do not lose time on one of them: permanently closed PA programs.
- Build a realistic list against your own GPA and experience: match your profile to PA programs.
You can also verify any program yourself against ARC-PA’s own roster of currently accredited programs. If a program is not on that list, it is not accredited — no matter what its website says.
Thanks for reading — I’m rooting for you.
Stephen Pasquini PA-C
