Online Anatomy & Physiology I & II with Lab for PA School- everything pre-PA applicants need to know about completing the most heavily weighted prerequisite in the entire CASPA application — online, with lab, accepted by virtually every PA program.
If you are preparing to apply to PA school, Anatomy & Physiology I and II with lab is the single most important prerequisite on your transcript. It is required by virtually 100% of CASPA-participating PA programs. It is weighted more heavily in admissions screening than any other prerequisite. And it is the course PA programs read most carefully when evaluating whether an applicant is ready for the demanding first-year curriculum of PA school itself.
The good news is that A&P I and II with lab can be completed online — at a regionally accredited institution, with home lab kits, in a fraction of the time a traditional semester-based course requires. The Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) estimates that the overwhelming majority of CASPA-participating PA programs (~90%+) accept online A&P with lab when taken from a regionally accredited US institution. This makes online A&P one of the highest-leverage decisions a pre-PA applicant can make.
This guide covers everything you need to know: why A&P matters so much in PA admissions, what an online A&P course with lab actually looks like, which PA programs accept the format, how long the course takes, what it costs, and how PrereqCourses.com structures A&P I and A&P II for working pre-PA applicants who need to compress the course into a manageable timeline. Whether you are a career changer starting the prerequisite stack from scratch, a reapplicant retaking A&P to raise your prereq GPA, or a refresh-stage applicant whose original A&P expired under program recency rules, this is the article that walks through the practical details.
| In this guideWhy A&P I & II is the most-weighted PA prerequisiteWhat online A&P with lab actually coversHow the home lab kit worksWhich PA programs accept online A&P (and what to verify)Time commitment and pace expectationsCost comparison across providersStudy strategies for earning an A in A&PHow PrereqCourses delivers A&P I and II |
Pre-PA applicants who treat A&P as just another required course misread the situation. PA admissions committees use A&P as a more important screening signal than any other prerequisite, for several specific reasons that compound on each other.
The first year of every PA program is anchored in clinical anatomy and physiology. Cardiopulmonary physiology, neuroanatomy, musculoskeletal anatomy, renal physiology, GI physiology — these are taught in PA school at graduate intensity and are the foundation everything else builds on. A student who arrives at PA school without a strong A&P foundation falls behind immediately and rarely recovers.
Admissions committees know this. When they read your A&P grades, they are not just checking off a prerequisite. They are asking: can this applicant handle our first year? A strong A&P grade says yes. A weak A&P grade — even with strong grades in other prerequisites — raises serious questions.
Some PA prerequisites are required by 60% or 80% of programs. A&P I and II are required at approximately 100% of CASPA-participating PA programs. There is no major PA program that does not require both semesters of A&P with lab. This universality means A&P is the one prerequisite that cannot be optimized around — every applicant takes both semesters, and every program sees those grades.
PA programs compute a prerequisite GPA from your science prerequisite grades. A&P I and II together are 8 credit hours — the largest single block in most applicants’ prereq GPA calculation. A single C in A&P I or II drops your prereq GPA more than a C in almost any other prerequisite, simply because the credit weight is larger.
The flip side is also true: A grades in A&P I and II raise your prereq GPA more than A grades in lighter courses. A reapplicant who retakes A&P I and II to convert two Cs into two As gets a much larger prereq GPA bump than someone retaking the same number of credits across smaller courses.
| The A&P principle. If you have time and money to invest in only one prerequisite area — to take it carefully, study deliberately, and ensure an A — make it A&P I and II. The leverage is greater than in any other prerequisite. Programs read these grades first, weight them most heavily, and use them as the primary readiness signal for first-year PA school work. |
Anatomy & Physiology I and II together form a two-semester sequence covering the structure and function of the human body system by system. The standard split between the two courses is consistent across most regionally accredited US institutions, including the version offered through PrereqCourses.com and Upper Iowa University.
Typical A&P I topics include:
A&P I lays the foundation. The cellular biology, tissue types, and homeostasis concepts introduced here recur throughout the rest of the sequence, throughout PA school, and throughout clinical practice. Strong mastery of A&P I makes A&P II noticeably easier; weak A&P I makes A&P II a struggle.
Typical A&P II topics include:
A&P II covers the systems PA students see most frequently in clinical practice. Cardiopulmonary physiology, renal physiology, GI physiology, and endocrinology are all foundational to internal medicine, family medicine, emergency medicine, and surgery — the specialties most PAs spend the bulk of their careers in. Strong mastery of A&P II content carries forward directly.
The single biggest concern pre-PA applicants raise about online A&P is the lab component. “How can you do a lab from home?” is a fair question, and the honest answer is that modern home A&P labs are substantially more hands-on than most prospective students expect.
A typical home A&P lab kit, including the version PrereqCourses students receive, contains:
The kit is shipped to your address at the start of the course. You keep all the materials at the end of the course; they are yours.
Online A&P lab sessions combine four components, each weighted differently across modules:
Most students who have done both in-person and home A&P labs report that the home lab is more hands-on than expected, but somewhat less hands-on than an in-person lab in a fully equipped university setting. The difference is real but smaller than the stereotype suggests. The home lab kit covers the core skills PA programs care about — observing anatomical structures, working with prepared slides, conducting basic dissections, taking physiological measurements — and the transcript records the lab credit identically.
| What programs care about. PA admissions committees are not evaluating whether you spent your lab hours in a university lab building or at your kitchen table. They are evaluating whether you completed a transcripted lab course with a regionally accredited institution. The format of the lab does not appear on the transcript. The course code, credit hours, and grade do — and those look identical regardless of where the lab was conducted. |
Approximately 90%+ of CASPA-participating PA programs accept online A&P I and II with lab when the course is taken at a regionally accredited US institution. This is the highest online-lab acceptance rate of any prerequisite — higher than General Chemistry, Microbiology, or General Biology — because A&P is the lab science where home kits most successfully approximate in-person work.
The remaining 10% of programs fall into two categories: programs that explicitly require in-person labs (typically 5–7% of programs) and programs whose policy is unclear or evolving. For deeper analysis of online prerequisite acceptance by program, see our pillar guide on can you take PA school prerequisites online.
Before enrolling in any online A&P course, verify acceptance at the specific PA programs you plan to apply to. For each program:
Programs that accept online A&P with lab apply consistent structural requirements. Your A&P course must:
The PrereqCourses.com version of A&P I and A&P II is structured around all four requirements. Every course is delivered through Upper Iowa University (HLC regionally accredited), is 4 credit hours, includes a physical home lab kit, and produces an official UIU transcript with a letter grade.
This is the question pre-PA applicants ask most often after acceptance. The realistic answer depends entirely on how much time per week you can commit and how aggressively you want to pace the course.
A traditional semester A&P I or A&P II runs 15–16 weeks. The course is designed to require roughly 10–12 hours of total work per week — 3 hours of lecture-equivalent material, 3 hours of lab, and 4–6 hours of reading, problem sets, and study. Most students who pace themselves at the standard rate finish in 12–16 weeks of self-paced enrollment.
Self-paced enrollment lets you go faster if you have the time and stamina. A motivated student working 20–25 hours per week on the course can finish A&P I in 6–8 weeks rather than the standard 15. The course material is the same; the timeline is compressed.
Realistic pace expectations:
| Weekly Hours | Single Course Time | A&P I + II Time | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10–12 hours/week | 15–16 weeks | 8 months | Full-time workers |
| 15–18 hours/week | 10–12 weeks | 5–6 months | Part-time workers |
| 20–25 hours/week | 6–8 weeks | 3–4 months | Reapplicants on deadline |
| 30+ hours/week (full-time) | 4–5 weeks | 2–3 months | Refresh-stage gap year |
Strongly prefer sequential. A&P II builds directly on A&P I — the cellular biology, tissue types, and homeostasis concepts from A&P I are foundational to understanding the cardiovascular, respiratory, and renal systems in A&P II. Students who take them in parallel often struggle with A&P II because they have not yet consolidated the A&P I material.
The exception is reapplicants and refresh-stage applicants who have previously completed A&P I or II and are retaking for GPA or recency reasons. These students already have the conceptual foundation and can sometimes take both semesters in parallel without academic risk. First-time A&P students should always sequence them.
A&P I and II together are typically the largest single cost in a PA prerequisite budget because both are 4-credit lab courses. Cost varies dramatically by provider.
| Provider | Per Course (4 cr) | A&P I + II | Lab Kit Included? |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-state community college | $600–$900 | $1,200–$1,800 | Usually |
| Out-of-state community college (online) | $1,200–$2,000 | $2,400–$4,000 | Usually |
| Public four-year university | $1,600–$3,000 | $3,200–$6,000 | Sometimes |
| Post-baccalaureate program | $3,200–$6,000 | $6,400–$12,000 | Usually |
| PrereqCourses.com | $675–$695 | $1,350–$1,390 | Yes (included) |
Two cost factors are easy to overlook. First, the lab kit is sometimes a separate fee at community colleges and universities — $100–$300 per course in addition to tuition. At PrereqCourses, the lab kit is included in the course price. Second, online and out-of-state community college students typically pay non-resident rates that are 2–3× the in-state price — closing the gap that makes community college look initially cheaper.
A&P is conceptually demanding — the volume of vocabulary alone is enormous, and the physiological mechanisms require active understanding rather than memorization. But the course is not inherently harder than other lab sciences. Students who earn As in A&P consistently use a similar set of study practices. A few of the most effective:
A&P I introduces approximately 1,500 new anatomical and physiological terms. A&P II adds another 1,500–2,000. Most students who struggle in A&P struggle with vocabulary volume rather than with conceptual difficulty. Build flashcards (paper or digital — Anki and Quizlet are popular) from week one and review them daily, even briefly. Twenty minutes per day of vocabulary review is more effective than two hours per week of cramming.
The lab is your best opportunity to convert abstract textbook concepts into concrete mental models. Do the lab modules carefully — examine the anatomical models from multiple angles, use the microscope thoughtfully on the prepared slides, dissect carefully rather than racing through. Students who treat the lab as a checkbox they need to complete miss the consolidation opportunity. Students who treat it as the most efficient study method available outperform their classmates.
Textbook chapters present material in a sequence convenient for the textbook author. The exam tests your ability to integrate across chapters. Build study sheets organized by body system rather than by chapter — for the cardiovascular system, pull together heart anatomy, cardiac physiology, blood pressure regulation, and blood vessel anatomy onto a single integrated overview. This is how the material is actually used in clinical reasoning.
A&P exams are heavily visual. You will be asked to identify anatomical structures from labeled and unlabeled diagrams, photographs, and histological images. Build visual recognition as a separate study skill. Practice with both the textbook images and external image banks — flashcards work well here, but so does drawing structures from memory.
A&P final exams are typically cumulative. The integumentary system content from week 2 of A&P I appears on the A&P I final exam in week 16. Plan periodic review of older material throughout the course — one hour per week reviewing older modules prevents the catastrophic re-learning sprint many students do in the final two weeks.
| The A&P time investment principle. If you have ever earned a C in a college science course, you know the difference between “understanding most of it” and “understanding all of it” is the difference between a B and an A. A&P is the prerequisite where that distinction matters most. Plan to over-invest 20% relative to what you would naturally spend. The marginal hours pay back at 3–5× their cost in higher prereq GPA and stronger application standing. |
PrereqCourses.com delivers both A&P I and A&P II through Upper Iowa University — a Higher Learning Commission–accredited regional university awarding degrees since 1857. Every structural element of the course is built to satisfy the requirements PA programs apply to A&P specifically.
Both A&P I and A&P II are priced between $675 and $695 each — typically $1,350–$1,390 for the complete two-semester sequence with lab kits included. This is competitive with in-state community college, less than half the cost of out-of-state community college online, and dramatically less than a post-baccalaureate program. For working pre-PA applicants, the time-and-cost combination is decisive.
Enroll directly:
Both course pages include the official Upper Iowa University course code, syllabus overview, lab kit contents list, completion timeline, and the CASPA prerequisite category each course satisfies. Most pre-PA applicants enroll in A&P I first, complete it in 6–12 weeks depending on pace, then immediately enroll in A&P II.
Yes, the overwhelming majority do. Approximately 90%+ of CASPA-participating PA programs accept online A&P I and II with lab from a regionally accredited US institution. This is the highest online-lab acceptance rate of any prerequisite, because A&P is the lab science where home kits most successfully replicate in-person work.
Yes, at the overwhelming majority of programs. PA programs require lab coursework with hands-on components — observation of anatomical models, microscopy, dissections, physiological measurements. Modern home lab kits provide all of these. The course transcribes identically to an in-person lab, with the same course code and the same credit hours.
Most PA programs require 4 credits per semester (3 lecture + 1 lab) for both A&P I and A&P II — 8 credits total. Lower-credit “survey” courses (such as 3-credit non-lab A&P or 1-credit A&P labs sold separately from the lecture) are not typically accepted as fulfilling the prerequisite.
It is technically possible but not recommended for first-time A&P students. A&P II builds directly on A&P I, and most students perform better when they take them sequentially. Reapplicants and refresh-stage students who have previously completed A&P I or II can sometimes take them in parallel without academic risk.
Self-paced online A&P can be completed in 6–8 weeks per course at an accelerated pace (20–25 hours/week), or 12–16 weeks per course at a standard pace (10–12 hours/week). The total two-semester sequence is typically 3–8 months depending on your weekly time commitment.
Self-paced online A&P is structurally suited to this scenario. You can take more time on the early modules, build study habits, and increase pace as your foundation strengthens. Career changers and refresh-stage applicants frequently report that they learn the material more deeply the second time, because they bring more life experience and clinical context to it.
Yes. The textbook is the same, the topic coverage is the same, the lab modules are the same, the exams are equivalent. The difference is delivery format — recorded video lecture instead of live lecture, online discussions instead of in-classroom discussions, home lab kit instead of campus lab equipment. The content itself is identical.
Course grades are typically a weighted combination of lecture exams (often 50–60%), the cumulative final exam (15–20%), lab reports and lab practical exams (20–25%), and shorter quizzes or assignments (5–10%). The specific weighting varies by course but is published in the syllabus.
Self-paced enrollment usually allows you to extend your completion window beyond the standard term if needed. Most pre-PA applicants do better by sustaining a steady weekly pace than by trying to recover from a multi-week gap. If you anticipate a busy period at work or family demands, plan to scale back to a lighter pace (5–7 hours/week) rather than pausing entirely.
Both are valid choices. PrereqCourses.com offers a four-year-institution transcript (Upper Iowa University), self-paced enrollment, an included lab kit, and predictable pricing. Community college offers lower per-credit pricing but with semester scheduling and sometimes-separate lab fees. The right choice depends on your timeline, your target programs (some prefer four-year-institution coursework), and your budget.
Anatomy & Physiology I and II with lab is the single most important prerequisite on your PA school application. It is required at virtually every CASPA program, weighted more heavily than any other prerequisite in admissions screening, and read by admissions committees as the primary signal of whether you can handle first-year PA school work.
It is also one of the most accessible prerequisites to complete online. The online A&P acceptance rate at CASPA-participating PA programs is approximately 90%+, the home lab kit format is now mature and widely accepted, and the self-paced enrollment model lets working applicants finish in a fraction of the time a traditional semester would require. There is no longer a meaningful trade-off between the convenience of online A&P and the strength of your application — for the overwhelming majority of pre-PA applicants, online A&P at a regionally accredited four-year university is the structurally optimal choice.
| Ready to enroll? Start with Anatomy & Physiology I with Lab at PrereqCourses.com. The course is delivered through Upper Iowa University — regionally accredited, lab kit included, self-paced, with rolling enrollment. Most pre-PA applicants complete A&P I in six to twelve weeks, then immediately enroll in A&P II with Lab to finish the sequence. |
Not sure if A&P I or II is the right starting point for your transcript? Speak with an academic advisor — we’ll review your prior coursework, identify whether you need both semesters or just one, and confirm acceptance at your specific target PA programs.
