***Official 2010-2011 PharmCAS Questions Thread***

you will be marked completed once all of the forms are submitted including your reference letters

your PCAT also has to be marked and received by pharmcas

Does your GPA on PharmCas include classes such as Philosophy Class and/or Calculus III?

ChEStud said:

Does your GPA on PharmCas include classes such as Philosophy Class and/or Calculus III?

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Overall GPA will. There will also be a separate Science GPA that won't.

ChEStud said:

Does your GPA on PharmCas include classes such as Philosophy Class and/or Calculus III?

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Pharmcas counts GPA calculating all of your post secondary education......it doesn't matter if that course is required by pharmacy school or not. If you retake any course, Pharmcas will count that course two times instead of just counting the higher grade.

ChEStud said:

Does your GPA on PharmCas include classes such as Philosophy Class and/or Calculus III?

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Obviously Calculus III will count as a math class. Some schools only look at pre req GPA and those classes won't matter. Pharmcas will require that you report all classes that you have taken post high school.

Hey all, so I want to finish one of my upper level bio prerequisites and I'll get that score around the end of the first week of August. Do you all think that it's in my favor to wait until this grade is posted and then submit my application or just submit near early July w/o having this grade? It's for micro btw. I'm under the impression that it takes 5 weeks for pharmcas to calculate all of the GPAs so, assuming they do take that long, I think this would mean having my app complete in Aug vs Sep...

If you're applying to any rolling admissions schools and that's the only prereq you're missing, I would go ahead and submit the application as soon as you can and just update your PharmCAS when the updating window opens up in December.

samurai361 said:

Hey all, so I want to finish one of my upper level bio prerequisites and I'll get that score around the end of the first week of August. Do you all think that it's in my favor to wait until this grade is posted and then submit my application or just submit near early July w/o having this grade? It's for micro btw. I'm under the impression that it takes 5 weeks for pharmcas to calculate all of the GPAs so, assuming they do take that long, I think this would mean having my app complete in Aug vs Sep...

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Yep send it in June if even better so all Pharmcas will be waiting for is that one grade. The earlier you apply the better Trust me!! You want to send in all your transcripts in as early as possible and pharmcas payments for your top schools so that the 5 weeks will not affect you negatively.

well I'm also missing orgo II and physics and possibly calc since the one I did won't count at some places, which I was going to do in the fall

rxrina said:

All the pharamcy schools that I am planning to apply to this summer have a November 2nd deadline.
I had a question about submitting PharmCas. I want to submit my application by August, however I don't think I will be able to get my 3rd letter of rec sent until mid October.

Will PharmCas allow me to submit my application in August and count it as complete? or will it only be complete until all letters of rec are sent?

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When you officillay submit your application after submitting all the required documents like LORs, transcripts etc......your application is procesed in 4-5 weeks and sent to respective schools........you can submit your application even if pharmcas hasn't received your LOR. It is better to finish yor application asap and submit if schools u r applying to offer rolling admissions

Submit ASAP! Even if everything is not completed, submit. The earlier the better. PharmCAS will calculate your GPA with the transcripts you have, then once your new stuff gets to them, they will recalculate your GPA.

They do overall, math, science, and others. They show you columns of the classes and GPAs!

Thanks guys for your answers!

I was wondering, what can I possibly do to increase my chances of getting into pharmacy school for 2011. My gpa is really low and even if I retake a lot of the classes it will only slowly increase and will take a long time and cost a lot of money to retake my classes. I made mistake with organic I and since PharmCAS counts all the classes even if you retook the class and did well the failed class counts against you. I had bad advising and instead of dropping the class I ended up getting an F, but I worked really had to change that. I received my B.S. in biological sciences and my grades were good for my upper division classes. But with pharmcas my overall gpa comes out to be a 2.75 overall.

I am planning to retake the pcat in august and wanted to know if anyone can give me some advice on what I can possibly do.

pharmstudentfl said:

I was wondering, what can I possibly do to increase my chances of getting into pharmacy school for 2011. My gpa is really low and even if I retake a lot of the classes it will only slowly increase and will take a long time and cost a lot of money to retake my classes. I made mistake with organic I and since PharmCAS counts all the classes even if you retook the class and did well the failed class counts against you. I had bad advising and instead of dropping the class I ended up getting an F, but I worked really had to change that. I received my B.S. in biological sciences and my grades were good for my upper division classes. But with pharmcas my overall gpa comes out to be a 2.75 overall.

I am planning to retake the pcat in august and wanted to know if anyone can give me some advice on what I can possibly do.

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I don't know how much you can do in one year but if you're honestly serious about it now maybe you could sign up for some type of post-bacc program? If would probably take you two years, though.

gilgamesh said:

I don't know how much you can do in one year but if you're honestly serious about it now maybe you could sign up for some type of post-bacc program? If would probably take you two years, though.

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I was thinking of after I take my pcat's in august to take upper division courses in science mostly for the fall and spring, like biochemistry and other courses. should I then wait till January to sent out my application so I can get the grades from the fall to get calculated into the gpa. I am going to try to get all A's in the classes to somehow increase the gpa by more than just 0.01 %

pharmstudentfl said:

I was thinking of after I take my pcat's in august to take upper division courses in science mostly for the fall and spring, like biochemistry and other courses. should I then wait till January to sent out my application so I can get the grades from the fall to get calculated into the gpa. I am going to try to get all A's in the classes to somehow increase the gpa by more than just 0.01 %

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As long as it meets the deadline for the schools you are applying to January is OK.

thank you, I just was not sure if I was making the correct decision and wanted to know before I do it. the deadline is in march. if I score above an 85 on the pcat does the schools take that into consideration??

pharmstudentfl said:

I was thinking of after I take my pcat's in august to take upper division courses in science mostly for the fall and spring, like biochemistry and other courses. should I then wait till January to sent out my application so I can get the grades from the fall to get calculated into the gpa. I am going to try to get all A's in the classes to somehow increase the gpa by more than just 0.01 %

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Have you finished all of your pre-reqs? Micro/Econ/etc? The good thing about PharmCAS is that it displays your post-grad and science gpa's. I would focus on a high PCAT score and pharmacy experience. Maybe even take some summer courses. Otherwise, apply early, don't let your low GPA keep you from waiting until Jan to apply...you can always update your applications.

yeah I finished all of my pre-reqs. and I have 6 years of pharmacy experience and I have my license as a pharmacy tech. I am thinking of getting all of my transcripts and recommendation letters done by june. but I will only take the exam in August because I want enough time to study to score really well on the test and try to prove myself through the test. In addition to take post-grad classes like you stated earlier. So you think that if I apply in the summer it will be ok and they will wait until my scores come in or will they reject me right away after viewing my gpa?

I would just retake a few classes over the summer if you have time...Well, it depends on what schools you are applying to and very much your PCAT scores.

A really good PCAT vs. a so so PCAT makes a huge difference. I would probably still retake some classes in the fall, just to be safe. I didn't apply to any "top" programs but my PharmCAS said I had an overall 2.99 and I was still invited to several interviews.

I wanted to retake classes in the summer, but with the schools budget cuts, they do not offer too many upper division classes. they offer lower division elective course mainly. but thanks for the suggestion.
Did you get accepted to any of the schools after the interviews? and what was your PCAT score? if you don't mind me asking

That sucks! Well not yet..but I am waitlisted at 3 and am waiting to hear back from 1. My PCAT was a 64...but my post-grad gpa was 3.89 and I had really good LOR's and personal statement. Just think about if you get a really high/mid range/low PCAT and figure out your school choices and make sure you have everything ready for those applications. Then right after you get your scores, apply to those schools. 3 things I would have done differently: got a better score, applied to more competitive programs, and applied earlier. But early as in August/September..you should be fine to apply after you get your pcat back.

Take into account some schools do not require/ignore academic update. So if you're banking on your fall grades of your applying year to count, make sure you apply to ones that consider them.

thank you mimi45, I appreciate your advice and you know what I am going through. I hope you get selected from the waitlist. I will apply for the post grad program and study hard to do well on my pcat that is my last resort. but keep me updated on your status. you worked hard with getting your gpa up, so don't give up and keep hopeful.
I wanted to also ask one more thing, I did bad on my previous PCAT, if I improve on my score in August will they still judge me on my previous scores or do they look at the most recent scores?
thanks

nnnn32125 said:

Take into account some schools do not require/ignore academic update. So if you're banking on your fall grades of your applying year to count, make sure you apply to ones that consider them.

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I was in the same situation last year. Graduated with a low GPA, so the summer/fall following graduation, I took classes at a C.C. to raise my GPA, raised my PCAT (94 bio, 85 chem, 85 math, 79 vocab, 21 reading), and continued to get experience. Applied late October and received 3/6 interview invites and one accpetance thus far! My biggest recommendation is not to wait for fall grades and submit by August/September.

so I should just rely on my PCAT scores that I will take in August? and try to retake some courses in the summer at a community college?

pharmstudentfl said:

thank you mimi45, I appreciate your advice and you know what I am going through. I hope you get selected from the waitlist. I will apply for the post grad program and study hard to do well on my pcat that is my last resort. but keep me updated on your status. you worked hard with getting your gpa up, so don't give up and keep hopeful.
I wanted to also ask one more thing, I did bad on my previous PCAT, if I improve on my score in August will they still judge me on my previous scores or do they look at the most recent scores?
thanks

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I wasn't actually in a post grad program..I was just taking undergrad classes post grad.. and I think most programs want to see improvements..i doubt any committee will hold you to your first pcat score.. but i'm not 100% sure

Check with each school reguarding multiple PCAT scores. Some take your best, some combine your best subscores and make their own cummulative PCAT scores, and others look at all scores.

pharmstudentfl said:

so I should just rely on my PCAT scores that I will take in August? and try to retake some courses in the summer at a community college?

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I was in the same boat as you 2 years ago. I graduated with a B.S in biology and minor in chem in 2008. I screwed up my first 3 years in college from partying and health concerns as well. I left my home state (Ca.) and decided to move to GA to start fresh. When I left the University in Ca, my gpa was super low (1.97). I was very ashamed and embarrassed to even tell anyone. Well when I graduated from a private university in Ga, my gpa was about a 3.6. So with my old gpa and my gpa in ga combined, my overall came out to be like a 2.75. I was rejected from all the pharm schools that I applied to so I spent the last 2 yrs repeating old coursework and took some new bio courses as well. My post grad gpa is a 4.0 so now my overall is about a 2.93. I received 5 interviews this year. I've been accepted into 1 school so far, waitlisted for 2 schools and I've declined the last 2 interviews. What I'm trying to say is do not lose hope! The admissions committee look at your apps very carefully and will notice your improvements, like they did with mine. You can explain any academic difficulties that you might have during the interview. Also, on your app, briefly explain your difficulties but don't go into too much detail since they will question you at the interview anyway. Repeating the PCAT is also a good idea. I've taken it many times and the schools that I've applied to see the many attempts as my motivation to improve. So retaking the PCAT several times is not necessarily a bad thing. If your science gpa is low then I suggest you to take more science courses. In my case, it was my overall gpa so what I did was take both liberal arts courses and science courses to bring up my gpa. Good luck and PM me if you have any questions.

thanks for the information yeah I was thinking of taking some easy classes as well as some more science courses to help boost up my gpa. it sucks that Pharmcas calculates all the good and bad grades. I won't give up i will do my best to improve my score and grades. good luck with you as well, and I hope you get into the school you want.

determination pays off! good luck!

Hi all, I'm preparing my letters of recommendation and want to apply to pharmacy schools during the 2nd half of the year. One of my evaluators signed for a printed copy of my letter; the other one sent the letter to me through email. I am using an online letter service and I am thinking if I can just mail these letters out by myself. Does anyone know if I can do that? do the schools require a signature in digital/hand-written form? Any requirement for the position of the signature? Thanks very much!

Use search function. PharmCAS does not work with online letter services.

Check this out, http://www.pharmcas.org/applicants/eval.htm

Good luck!

I am applying for Fall 2011. I am in the process of writing an email to my professors for recommendation letters. I know the application process doesn't start until June, but I don't want to wait for too long. Can any of you prior applicants tell me how would I inform my professor? Is PharmCAS supposed to send my professor the form? If that be true, do I have to wait until June to do this? Thanks

Cyn0612 said:

I am applying for Fall 2011. I am in the process of writing an email to my professors for recommendation letters. I know the application process doesn't start until June, but I don't want to wait for too long. Can any of you prior applicants tell me how would I inform my professor? Is PharmCAS supposed to send my professor the form? If that be true, do I have to wait until June to do this? Thanks

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You can ask your professor now if he/she will write the letter on your behalf. If they are willing to do so, once PharmCAS opens up the new cycle (yes, you'd have to wait til June), you will input your professor's email onto your application. Doing so will automatically kick off a LOR request form from PharmCAS to your professor, which your professor will complete. (You can explain that part in your email to your professor.) Once your professor responds back and submits the LOR to PharmCAS, the date it was submitted will be indicated on your application.

tsicamrahp said:

You can ask your professor now if he/she will write the letter on your behalf. If they are willing to do so, once PharmCAS opens up the new cycle (yes, you'd have to wait til June), you will input your professor's email onto your application. Doing so will automatically kick off a LOR request form from PharmCAS to your professor, which your professor will complete. (You can explain that part in your email to your professor.) Once your professor responds back and submits the LOR to PharmCAS, the date it was submitted will be indicated on your application.

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Thanks! This is really helpful.

Cyn0612 said:

I am applying for Fall 2011. I am in the process of writing an email to my professors for recommendation letters. I know the application process doesn't start until June, but I don't want to wait for too long. Can any of you prior applicants tell me how would I inform my professor? Is PharmCAS supposed to send my professor the form? If that be true, do I have to wait until June to do this? Thanks

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Personally I would recommend asking them in person.

I had my professor write it in advance and have them save the file on their computers until PharmCAS opened up. As soon as the application cycle started, i had them send it in and it was done very fast.

Hey everyone, so I have 6/7 activities out of a possible 10 that can be listed on pharmcas but I was wondering if I should leave it at that or add stuff I did from high school, or does that look lame? I was under the impression that it's stupid but my aunt who is on an admissions committee for the MS in toxicology/pharmacology at her school said that I should. It's good stuff but I don't want to look like padding my resume..so what do you all think? I mean it's like involvement with academic-type competitions, some research, tutoring, varsity soccer, etc. I didn't pursue all of these things in college though. I'm 20 and this stuff was anywhere from 4-6 years ago. I know this is a probably a stupid topic but I just don't want to do anything dumb lol, I'm sorry if it is and thanks in advance

No. I think it says somewhere on PharmCAS to only include college work.

samurai361 said:

Hey everyone, so I have 6/7 activities out of a possible 10 that can be listed on pharmcas but I was wondering if I should leave it at that or add stuff I did from high school, or does that look lame? I was under the impression that it's stupid but my aunt who is on an admissions committee for the MS in toxicology/pharmacology at her school said that I should. It's good stuff but I don't want to look like padding my resume..so what do you all think? I mean it's like involvement with academic-type competitions, some research, tutoring, varsity soccer, etc. I didn't pursue all of these things in college though. I'm 20 and this stuff was anywhere from 4-6 years ago. I know this is a probably a stupid topic but I just don't want to do anything dumb lol, I'm sorry if it is and thanks in advance

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woah you are applying to a ton of schools for having such a good gpa! but yeah, i've read more than a few times that for grad school admissions/ job applications, you only put what you did in colllege

NO.

Once you move on to the "next" level - hardly anyone cares about how you did before that. Examples - once you've gone through a semester of college - no one cares what your high school GPA was or what your SAT or ACT scores were anymore, you're in college what matters is how you do there. Once you've had a job or two in a field - most prospective employers don't cares if you graduated with a 4.0 or a 2.5 - they care about your performance at your previous jobs...

IMO putting too many EC's can actually decrease the strength of your application. Far better to have only a few EC's but be able to show that you were active in all of them and that in at least one you made a (significant) difference/contribution. An over exaggeration here but, if you say you were a full time student, worked 20 hours, and were a member of 10 organizations (simutaneously) - many people will realize that there simply is not enough time to actively participate in that many activities and come to the (logical) conclusion that you joined many of those organizations for the sole purpose of trying to make yourself look good.


One exception if you have an activity that you did while in high school and continued to do it while in college (and hopefully still do) - then, not only should you list it (it's a college activity), but also list that you did it continuously from whenever you started it til present (or when you stopped doing it).

Also it's ok to talk about things before college in your PS or other essays (if they are relevant). Example (completely made up and not very high quality writing but you get the idea):
When I was fourteen years old I was seriously ill and was prescribed medication for it. A pharmacist noticed a rare drug interaction between two medications I was prescribed and ... Because of this I became interested in pharmacy and...

b1234 said:

NO.

Once you move on to the "next" level - hardly anyone cares about how you did before that. Examples - once you've gone through a semester of college - no one cares what your high school GPA was or what your SAT or ACT scores were anymore, you're in college what matters is how you do there. Once you've had a job or two in a field - most prospective employers don't cares if you graduated with a 4.0 or a 2.5 - they care about your performance at your previous jobs...

IMO putting too many EC's can actually decrease the strength of your application. Far better to have only a few EC's but be able to show that you were active in all of them and that in at least one you made a (significant) difference/contribution. An over exaggeration here but, if you say you were a full time student, worked 20 hours, and were a member of 10 organizations (simutaneously) - many people will realize that there simply is not enough time to actively participate in that many activities and come to the (logical) conclusion that you joined many of those organizations for the sole purpose of trying to make yourself look good.

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Good example and analysis...Case in point leave the HS stuff behind, only include a few good EC's from college

OK, so I have already taken the PCAT and got a pitiful score on my first go. I am planning to retake it in August.

Q: If I submit my application in June before I retake the PCAT, will schools be able to see my old pcat score? Or will it say "pending..." for example and show all scores once I get my new scores. If schools do not for example, can I still submit early for california schools, and then choose to submit later for other schools or do I have to submit my application all at once to every school I want to apply to?

Also, since I am taking the PCAT in August 21st, this means schools wont get to see the new score until 6 weeks later, early october then?

Thanks everyone, I thought so too. I guess family thinks whatever you do is cool even if it's not lol.

My understanding is that all PCAT scores are given to PharmCAS. I'm not sure when they show up. My school only looks at the better score and doesn't take the bad one into account (my first time was pretty bad). Once you submit your PharmCAS application I don't think that you are allowed to make changes except for the academic update. I think you can submit (just make sure that you have everything in there that you can) and as scores and transcripts come in to PharmCAS they will put it all together and send it to the schools. I hope this helps some!?