How to Fill Out and Submit a Shadowing Hours Verification Form

A shadowing hours verification form documents the time you spent observing a licensed healthcare provider and needs the provider’s signature before you submit it with your graduate application. The form itself is short — your details, the provider’s details, dates, hours, signature — but small errors cause resubmission requests during a cycle where every week matters. What follows is how to find the right form, complete it cleanly, get it signed, and submit it without triggering delays.

Where To Get the Right Form

There is no single universal template. What you use depends on the program and the application service.

  • Many individual schools publish their own PDF on the admissions website. If your target program provides one, use it. A generic substitute may not be accepted.
  • CASPA (physician assistant programs) and PTCAS (physical therapy programs) collect shadowing through the online experiences section rather than a downloadable template. You enter dates, hours, and a supervisor contact, and the program verifies independently. Some schools using these portals still require a signed form uploaded as a separate document.1Liaison. Experiences
  • AMCAS has an activities and experiences section for medical school applicants but no dedicated verification form. Individual schools may request one separately.
  • ADEA AADSAS collects experience information online with a supervisor contact for verification. Individual dental schools set their own additional documentation requirements.2Liaison. Experiences

If you cannot find a form on the program’s site and the centralized application does not include one, contact admissions directly. Do not assume that entering hours into an online portal satisfies a program that specifically asks for a signed document.

Filling in Your Information

Start with your full legal name, current mailing address, phone number, and email. Use the same name that appears on your application. Some forms also ask for your applicant ID number from the centralized application service.

Filling in the Experience Details

This section captures what you did, where, and for how long. A typical form asks for:3Springfield College. Physician Assistant Shadowing Verification Form

  • The hospital, clinic, or practice name and address.4Seton Hall University. Healthcare Experience Verification Form
  • The specific calendar dates or date range. Check your log rather than estimating.
  • The cumulative total hours completed at that site.4Seton Hall University. Healthcare Experience Verification Form
  • The type of experience, if the form distinguishes shadowing from volunteering or scribing. Shadowing means observing, not performing clinical tasks. CASPA in particular treats shadowing, healthcare experience, and patient care experience as separate categories, and mixing them is a frequent error.1Liaison. Experiences

Use one form per shadowing site. If you shadowed at multiple facilities or with different providers, lumping them onto a single form typically forces admissions to send the whole thing back.

Filling in the Provider’s Information

The provider section usually asks for:

Collect this information before your shadowing ends. Tracking down a busy physician months later for their office phone or correct title is harder than it sounds, and it is where a surprising number of applicants stall.

Getting the Practitioner to Sign

The signature is what turns a self-reported claim into a verified record. The provider signs a statement confirming you were present for the listed hours. A typical statement reads: “I verify that the above-named applicant participated in an opportunity to explore the profession by spending time observing me in practice.”3Springfield College. Physician Assistant Shadowing Verification Form

Ask on your last day, or shortly after. The longer you wait, the less likely the provider is to remember specifics and the more they may hesitate to confirm exact counts. If you shadowed across several months, get the form signed at the end of each block rather than at the very end.

Programs generally expect the signer to hold the appropriate credential for the field you are entering. PA programs typically require a PA-C or physician. Physical therapy programs vary: some accept a licensed physical therapist assistant’s signature, others require a PT.6American Physical Therapy Association. PT Observation Requirements by Program Check your target program’s rule before assuming any licensed healthcare worker qualifies.

Submitting the Form

Most centralized application systems accept scanned PDF uploads. Some programs use their own portals — Rocky Vista University’s NursingCAS instructions direct applicants to upload the completed form into the application, for example.7Rocky Vista University. Shadowing Hours Verification Form Some programs accept email or fax; a few still want a physical original.

After you submit through CASPA, the verification process can take up to ten business days once your application reaches “Completed” status, and transcript posting alone can take five business days from receipt.8Liaison. Checking Your CASPA Notifications and Status Some applicants have reported total turnaround as long as 30 days during peak season.9UC San Diego School of Medicine. Timeline Submitting the week before a deadline is gambling with your application.

Mistakes That Get Forms Sent Back

Most resubmission requests come down to a handful of preventable errors.

  • Missing signature, or a signature from someone without the credential the program requires.
  • Hours on the form that do not match hours entered elsewhere in the application. Reconcile the numbers before submitting.
  • Using a generic template when the program publishes its own, or submitting an older version of a form that has since been updated.
  • Illegible handwriting. If the provider’s name or phone number cannot be read, the contact information is useless.
  • Combining multiple sites onto one form when the form is not designed to accept them.

Misrepresenting hours has consequences well beyond a returned form. If a school discovers inflated or fabricated hours, the application is rejected, and offers can be revoked after admission. Harvard Medical School’s policy states that misrepresentations discovered after a degree has been awarded can result in the degree being rescinded.10Harvard Medical School. Harvard Medical School Medical Education Student Handbook 4.06 Falsification of Admissions Application The verification form exists so programs can audit claims. Assume they will.

Virtual Shadowing Hours

Acceptance policies for virtual shadowing vary. Some programs count these hours toward their expectations, others accept them only as a supplement to in-person observation, and some do not count them at all. Confirm with each target program before listing virtual hours on the form. Verification for virtual experiences is less standardized: some platforms issue completion certificates, but these carry less weight than a signed form from a provider who worked alongside you.

Shadowing a Relative

Shadowing a family member who practices medicine is not automatically disqualified, but leaning on it as your primary clinical exposure raises credibility concerns with admissions committees. A reasonable guideline is to keep family-member shadowing to no more than about a quarter of your total hours and fill the rest with providers you found independently.

Keep Your Own Log

The verification form is only as accurate as the records behind it. Start a simple log on your first day of shadowing: date, location, provider name, hours, and a brief note on what you observed. Update it after every session rather than at the end of the semester. When you sit down to fill out the form, you will be transcribing confirmed data instead of reconstructing memory, and the provider’s recollection of when you were present will match what the form says.