how does having pharmacy experience affect pharmacy school admissions? esp. USC

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[Farmercyst]

I do not know if my application is competitive enough at this time to apply for pharmacy school, specifically USC, this summer.

here are my states
GPA: 3.41 overall
science GPA: approx 3.2
pharmacy related experience: I have volunteer work in the community but not related to pharmacy or medicine. I am CPhT but not employed or volunteering. It is difficult to get hired or even find volunteer opportunities within a pharmacy.

Does having no pharmacy experience affect my admissions? Has anyone gotten into pharmacy school, specifically USC, without having volunteered or worked at a pharmacy?

To say it won't affect your admissions would be silly, but yes you can get in without it. I did, but my GPA was higher than yours. Two primary reasons for stressing experience are 1) that you know what you're getting into and still are okay with it, and 2) you have some knowledge of the field and issues in the profession. The two are related, but not necessarily to the point where you will have information on both with any given experience.
For instance, you can do a fair amount of research on issues related to pharmacy that need to be dealt with to improve the profession. But just like many things, until you have practical application and see them in real life, they don't mean as much.
Herein I feel lies the deal with no experience. If you can explain some of these things and know at least a little about what you're talking about, then you should be okay. At least at USC noone is expecting you to know the ins and outs of the profession and all the little details. We do expect, that if you have experience, you at least paid some attention to the trouble spots, and have a good feeling about the job as a whole. With no experience, have you done any research into pharmacy? What have you learned. And "why pharmacy" becomes pretty much THE primary question. If you can't answer that, then there's not much point to showing up to the interview.

I went in knowing a little about the job of technicians, a little about medicinal chemistry, and quite a bit about customer service and how my old job related to pharmacy practice. I think I was able to sufficiently state that while I had no experience in pharmacy, I knew enough about what I was getting into, and had experienced some of the problems mentioned within the pharmacy profession in another unrelated field and was comfortable with the decision I had made to pursue pharmacy. (probably more eloquently than this rambling post)

 

[koercive]

Like farmercyst said, become familiar with the pharmacy profession.

I got in with no experience besides shadowing. I recommend that you do get work experience as your GPA is a bit on the lower side compared to USC's current average.

I would say it's not hard to find some kind of pharmacy related experience. If you are absolutely unable to find a job in your area, you can always begin by shadowing/interviewing a pharmacist. Look online, call hospitals, pull up a local directory (yahoo or google local), ask around (friends who work at a pharmacy), etc. and something will come up.

 

[Passion4Sci]

You need Pharmacy experience for no reason other than not getting $75,000 into a Pharmacy program only to discover you really hate Pharmacy.

Only a handful of schools, like UoP, absolutely, 100% require it.

But it's always good to have.