How would you feel about schools imposing age limit on prerequisite coursework?

[oldstock]

Hi all,

I am a non-traditional pre-pharmacy student (read: old, 40s ). My prerequisite coursework was really old (done in the 1990s). Some of the pharmacy school I looked at have age-limit on the prereq, esp. science. From what I've seen, they are not consistent on agreeing where the cutofff should be. Some pharmacy schools say no to 6 years or older, some say no to 7 or 10, etc.

I called some of the schools and asked why. They told me that if your courses were that old, your classes/knowledge might be out-of-date and have to be retaken, but could not tell me why they would say no to 6 but not 5 or 4. Also, I told them my PCAT (which I recently took just last year-2013) composite score was in the mid 80s, they still said no and that I had to retake ALL my science prereq.

I have not seen any scientific/peer-reviewed study that supports this age-restriction. But I have read about many examples of people went back to school after a long break from academic work and were successful in their studies later on in medicine, pharmacy, economics, etc.

Let's look at the core of pharmacy science prerequisite and ask ourselves how much advancement that science has made in basic college calculus/algrebra/statistics, general college chemistry or even organic chemistry, general college physics, or general biology/human anatomy from the 1990s or even 1980s? I do not think there has been much change.

These days, new knowledge is readily available at our fingertips. One could easily review and update on the new information, which would show up on the PCAT. Given that we all have to take the PCAT, which in my opinion is already designed to measure your current level of academic knowledge and skills, would a current in-school prepharmacy student that scores 50-60 percentile for his or her PCAT composite be more "qualified" than a person who was out of school for 10 years or even more yet receives composite score of 80-90 percentile on the same test (assuming everything else being equal)?

Anyway, the dean of one of those schools told me to just send in my application, and only sent me a rejection email almost immediately after receiving my Pharmcas application for that my prereq being old. I called and he even commented on my PCAT score that I migh have got "lucky" on the exam that day (LOL ). Another school said that they did not have a policy on that age-limit on prereq now, but they would have one for the next application cycle (Fall 2015). Another school's dean told me that I would not likely be invited for an interview even thought they did not a policy on age of prereq.

I guess I am opposing this age-restriction not because of my prereq being old, but I feel this is a unjustified and short-sighted decision by some pharmacy schools just because they want to limit the increasing number of students applying or try to increase the "qualifications" of students they want to accept?? They seems to disregard the PCAT as an equalizer/standard in selecting "qualified" students? I do not care if you go to such and such schools or what your GPA is. If you are a good student, your performance on the PCAT should be close or the same as those of other students. No excuse should be accepted there for poor performance (like yeah I am doing great in school, I have very good GPA but I have hard time taking standardized tests, blah blah blah). We all go to different schools and they all have different academic standards, and students will have different GPAs. But we all have to take the same PCAT test. If you are a good or better student than me, prove that you are better than me on this test. If the schools wants to just ignore the PCAT, then it is fine not to require the PCAT. But please do not require people to take the PCAT for nothing. If they require the PCAT, must it mean something here? Maybe they should not have this age-limit on on prerequisite then.

Luckily not many pharmacy schools are doing that yet. But I feel like I should say some something to alert pre-pharmacy students and even pharmacy schools about this situation as it seems like it is on a trend. This would discourage many good students from applying and/or take a lot of non-traditional students out of the race and deny them the opportunity of becoming a pharmacist, which I feel they all are deserved to have a shot at. But I have also realized that pharmacy schools have the rights to do almost anything regarding setting up their admission policy (except of course they could not discriminate or deny students based on race and sex). All my reasoning here would not change anything if we could not change their thinking. If we could change their thinking on this matter, that would help many non-traditional students in future application cycles.

So, how would you feel about this age-restriction on prereq? And should a student in my situation repeat all or parts of my prereq (even I would only apply to the schools that do not have this age-limit on prereq)?

A side note: one lesson I have learned again from this is that be smart and get everything right when you are still young. Because if you missed your chance then, it will be a lot harder when you are older (duh). Sigh.

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[Chriskahn]

I had to retake an anatomy course because it just hit the 7 year mark. It sucks but I did forget a lot of material. But it was easier the second time around. I would hate to have to retake all of the chemistry and bio courses all over again but it should be easier than the first time.


I say at this point do what you have to do. Apply to different schools that do not have the time limit again if you can. Try taking a summer speed course at a community college if you want to save time and money. I know a few pre pharmacy students in my state (WA) that are retaking o chem to get a better gpa. Its a speed course that does all 3 o chems in one summer (5 hour long classes 5 days a week) if I'm not mistaken. And it is transferable and counts towards your pre req.

 

[oldstock]

I had to retake an anatomy course because it just hit the 7 year mark. It sucks but I did forget a lot of material. But it was easier the second time around. I would hate to have to retake all of the chemistry and bio courses all over again but it should be easier than the first time.


I say at this point do what you have to do. Apply to different schools that do not have the time limit again if you can. Try taking a summer speed course at a community college if you want to save time and money. I know a few pre pharmacy students in my state (WA) that are retaking o chem to get a better gpa. Its a speed course that does all 3 o chems in one summer (5 hour long classes 5 days a week) if I'm not mistaken. And it is transferable and counts towards your pre req.

I agree that we would not retain much after a class. I don't remember exactly the number, but I remember from reading somewhere that most students would only retain about ~50-60% (?? forgive me if I am wrong here) of what they just learned after the final. After a year or two we are almost the same as how much most of us would remember what we had learned in class. But we always can review the materials and learn it again. If this re-learning shows up on a standardized test like PCAT, evidently in the score for the person taking the test, would it be fair to say the person is adequately prepared on the required materials for schools, no matter how long they were out of school before taking the test? If this were not the case, what would be the point for standardized tests like the MCAT, USMLE step I & II, NAPLEX, etc? In my humble opinion, it is not fair to require a student to retake classes just because their courses are this or that many years old and esp not fair when the person already proved his or her recent competence on standardized exams.

I turned in my application fairly late (Feb 3rd) and was already interviewed with some in February and early March. I was sad this morning sitting around waiting for replies from school when I realized that it would take more than a year or even two for me to repeat ALL of my science prereq. It does not matter if it would be easier the 2nd time around you take the courses. When you are older and non-traditional, this would reduce all the time that you have left (sigh again!) to study things you want to (e.g. pharmacy, dental, or medicine, etc.)

I received one ACCEPTANCE email just NOW, which I promptly accepted (YAY !!) and still have a few more interviews to go to (lucky me). Obviously and luckily there are many schools still thinking like me.

I would like all to know this situation and carefully do research on the schools you are applying to. Do not make my mistake again that you only find out that they want you repeat your prereq after you already applied (I applied 3 of those schools). As I have already secured one acceptance, one lesson I learn is that just apply, even before deciding to retake any class. There are still many open-minded schools out there that could accept a person in my situation. The worst is that one would just lose money for application fees. But if you do not apply, you might lose out the chance of being accepted somewhere. Just like a lottery: if you do not buy, you never win.

Hopefully, this age-limit on prereq would only be required by a minority of schools in the future and not become a trend. We should debate the admission process in general, and this age restriction in particular for a fair and just admission process for all. Again, I think that this age limit on prereq is only the opinions of the schools about what they think a "qualified" student should be, but that is currently not supported by any scientific evidence or research (as I know of). And so, in my opinion, it is not right and fair.

 

[Chriskahn]

Congrats on getting accepted. Personally I hate how certain schools require students to have a bachelors or pre reqs completed within a certain time frame. I want to finish school as quickly as possible. I don't need the "life experience" you get from finishing a degree I'm never going to use.

 

[oldstock]

Congrats on getting accepted. Personally I hate how certain schools require students to have a bachelors or pre reqs completed within a certain time frame. I want to finish school as quickly as possible. I don't need the "life experience" you get from finishing a degree I'm never going to use.

Thank you very much for the understanding bro I hope to get this news out and we all have a good discussion and debate on this subject.

 

[Sparda29]

I don't remember **** from undergrad, and I'm only 6 years removed from undergrad.

 

[oldstock]

I don't remember **** from undergrad, and I'm only 6 years removed from undergrad.

You might only speak for yourself. Everyone's own mileage varies, depending on the individuals. If you already forgot everything from undegrad only 6 yrs ago, I might have to think twice to come to your pharmacy 6 yrs from now, or write to the NABP to ask you to retake the NAPLEX to be sure that you are competent after 6 years jk (ya I just did take the PCAT recently for this pharmacy school admission cycle )

If we want to install a policy (which would affect a large body of people), should that be supported by scientific/peer-reviewed evidence instead of basing on only opinions? We are talking about pharmacy schools, which are teaching pharmacy science, for god's sake (sigh).

 

[oldstock]

Also, I told them my PCAT (which I recently took just last year-2013) composite score was in the mid 80s, they still said no and that I had to retake ALL my science prereq.

...

Anyway, the dean of one of those schools told me to just send in my application, and only sent me a rejection email almost immediately after receiving my Pharmcas application for that my prereq being old. I called and he even commented on my PCAT score that I migh have got "lucky" on the exam that day (LOL ). Another school said that they did not have a policy on that age-limit on prereq now, but they would have one for the next application cycle (Fall 2015). Another school's dean told me that I would not likely be invited for an interview even thought they did not a policy on age of prereq.

*Update: the school whose dean commented that I got "lucky" on the PCAT has just sent me an invitation email for an interview for next week AFTER already rejected me by email almost right when I submitted my PHARMCAS application. I really do not know what to make of this...

The school is non-ranking, low-tier according to US News, http://grad-schools.usnews.rankings...-schools/top-health-schools/pharmacy-rankings , but one of two schools that I applied to whose programs are accelerated 3-year, instead of traditional 4 year program.

Should I go for interview w/ that school ?? Hmm...


So far, I have:

-applied to 9 schools in total

-got 6 interview invitations (including the one above), 4 done so far (the most recent done w/ a top-tier school), 2 more to go this week and next week

-already got accepted for a mid-tier school (US News ranking) : they sent me the acceptance letters only 3 days after the interview

-placed on waiting list for a school that I could not even find it on that US News ranking list (probably non-ranking and very bottom of that list)

-waiting on 3 more schools (1 mid-tier, 2 low-tier) for either interview invitation or rejection (they have not let me what they wanna do yet)

 

[helpme1]

Hi all,

I am a non-traditional pre-pharmacy student (read: old, 40s ). My prerequisite coursework was really old (done in the 1990s). Some of the pharmacy school I looked at have age-limit on the prereq, esp. science. From what I've seen, they are not consistent on agreeing where the cutofff should be. Some pharmacy schools say no to 6 years or older, some say no to 7 or 10, etc.

I called some of the schools and asked why. They told me that if your courses were that old, your classes/knowledge might be out-of-date and have to be retaken, but could not tell me why they would say no to 6 but not 5 or 4. Also, I told them my PCAT (which I recently took just last year-2013) composite score was in the mid 80s, they still said no and that I had to retake ALL my science prereq.

I have not seen any scientific/peer-reviewed study that supports this age-restriction. But I have read about many examples of people went back to school after a long break from academic work and were successful in their studies later on in medicine, pharmacy, economics, etc.

Let's look at the core of pharmacy science prerequisite and ask ourselves how much advancement that science has made in basic college calculus/algrebra/statistics, general college chemistry or even organic chemistry, general college physics, or general biology/human anatomy from the 1990s or even 1980s? I do not think there has been much change.

These days, new knowledge is readily available at our fingertips. One could easily review and update on the new information, which would show up on the PCAT. Given that we all have to take the PCAT, which in my opinion is already designed to measure your current level of academic knowledge and skills, would a current in-school prepharmacy student that scores 50-60 percentile for his or her PCAT composite be more "qualified" than a person who was out of school for 10 years or even more yet receives composite score of 80-90 percentile on the same test (assuming everything else being equal)?

Anyway, the dean of one of those schools told me to just send in my application, and only sent me a rejection email almost immediately after receiving my Pharmcas application for that my prereq being old. I called and he even commented on my PCAT score that I migh have got "lucky" on the exam that day (LOL ). Another school said that they did not have a policy on that age-limit on prereq now, but they would have one for the next application cycle (Fall 2015). Another school's dean told me that I would not likely be invited for an interview even thought they did not a policy on age of prereq.

I guess I am opposing this age-restriction not because of my prereq being old, but I feel this is a unjustified and short-sighted decision by some pharmacy schools just because they want to limit the increasing number of students applying or try to increase the "qualifications" of students they want to accept?? They seems to disregard the PCAT as an equalizer/standard in selecting "qualified" students? I do not care if you go to such and such schools or what your GPA is. If you are a good student, your performance on the PCAT should be close or the same as those of other students. No excuse should be accepted there for poor performance (like yeah I am doing great in school, I have very good GPA but I have hard time taking standardized tests, blah blah blah). We all go to different schools and they all have different academic standards, and students will have different GPAs. But we all have to take the same PCAT test. If you are a good or better student than me, prove that you are better than me on this test. If the schools wants to just ignore the PCAT, then it is fine not to require the PCAT. But please do not require people to take the PCAT for nothing. If they require the PCAT, must it mean something here? Maybe they should not have this age-limit on on prerequisite then.

Luckily not many pharmacy schools are doing that yet. But I feel like I should say some something to alert pre-pharmacy students and even pharmacy schools about this situation as it seems like it is on a trend. This would discourage many good students from applying and/or take a lot of non-traditional students out of the race and deny them the opportunity of becoming a pharmacist, which I feel they all are deserved to have a shot at. But I have also realized that pharmacy schools have the rights to do almost anything regarding setting up their admission policy (except of course they could not discriminate or deny students based on race and sex). All my reasoning here would not change anything if we could not change their thinking. If we could change their thinking on this matter, that would help many non-traditional students in future application cycles.

So, how would you feel about this age-restriction on prereq? And should a student in my situation repeat all or parts of my prereq (even I would only apply to the schools that do not have this age-limit on prereq)?

A side note: one lesson I have learned again from this is that be smart and get everything right when you are still young. Because if you missed your chance then, it will be a lot harder when you are older (duh). Sigh.

True there hasn't been much change to general bio, chem, physics but fields like genetics and immunology (influences how you think about microbio) have been rapidly changing and evolving.

 

[oldstock]

True there hasn't been much change to general bio, chem, physics but fields like genetics and immunology (influences how you think about microbio) have been rapidly changing and evolving.

I agree.

To address that, we should either check the person's standardized test scores such as the PCAT to see if the person is competent and up to date in those areas, or ask if the person has taken courses in those areas recently.

In my humble opinion, to ask a person to repeat all prerequisite is too much and unreasonable. And we should use some scientific standards to define the line to say no to a specific age of a course. As of now, I don't see anything to support that. Everyone's own mileage varies.

 

[oldstock]

*Update: the school whose dean commented that I got "lucky" on the PCAT has just sent me an invitation email for an interview for next week AFTER already rejected me by email almost right when I submitted my PHARMCAS application. I really do not know what to make of this...

The school is non-ranking, low-tier according to US News, http://grad-schools.usnews.rankings...-schools/top-health-schools/pharmacy-rankings , but one of two schools that I applied to whose programs are accelerated 3-year, instead of traditional 4 year program.

Should I go for interview w/ that school ?? Hmm...


So far, I have:

-applied to 9 schools in total

-got 6 interview invitations (including the one above), 4 done so far (the most recent done w/ a top-tier school), 2 more to go this week and next week

-already got accepted for a mid-tier school (US News ranking) : they sent me the acceptance letters only 3 days after the interview

-placed on waiting list for a school that I could not even find it on that US News ranking list (probably non-ranking and very bottom of that list)

-waiting on 3 more schools (1 mid-tier, 2 low-tier) for either interview invitation or rejection (they have not let me what they wanna do yet)

*Update:

-I've just found out now that I was invited for interview at another school, 3 yr program. The email was sent on Wednesday but went to spam folder. They give me two dates in April to choose. I am going to call them tomorrow to schedule the interview.

-total interview offers received: 7 out of 9 schools applied, 4 done so far, 3 more to go

-the schools have not replied either to reject or offer interviews are now down to 2 (1 mid-tier, 1 low-tier)

 

[El Trombopag]

I applied in 2007, 10 years after after finishing biochem undergrad [age 33]. In the interim I was a research technician, primarily doing diagnostic microbiology, infectious disease. I was on over a dozen publications, including 2 first authorships. My first choice school had a microbiology pre-req, but because my undergrad course was over 7 years old, I had to re-take microbiology 101 at the local community college. I met with the head of admissions to try to talk my way out of it. She acknowledged that in my case it was ridiculous, but said that they had to maintain a level playing field with absolutely zero exceptions. I hit the same thing during first year, when many of my classmates could opt out of the first couple quarters of biochemistry. But because my coursework was moldy, I couldn't opt out.
I agree there should be flexibility, but I can understand why administration has it set up that way. When accreditation groups come through, they don't have to song-and-dance their way through admissions criteria if it's all set in stone and standardized.

 

[oldstock]

I applied in 2007, 10 years after after finishing biochem undergrad [age 33]. In the interim I was a research technician, primarily doing diagnostic microbiology, infectious disease. I was on over a dozen publications, including 2 first authorships. My first choice school had a microbiology pre-req, but because my undergrad course was over 7 years old, I had to re-take microbiology 101 at the local community college. I met with the head of admissions to try to talk my way out of it. She acknowledged that in my case it was ridiculous, but said that they had to maintain a level playing field with absolutely zero exceptions. I hit the same thing during first year, when many of my classmates could opt out of the first couple quarters of biochemistry. But because my coursework was moldy, I couldn't opt out.
I agree there should be flexibility, but I can understand why administration has it set up that way. When accreditation groups come through, they don't have to song-and-dance their way through admissions criteria if it's all set in stone and standardized.

That was super ridiculous in your case that they made you retake Microbiology 101 !!

I understand the accreditation concern, but I was both invited to admission interviews (and eventually admitted) and said no to my old prereq by schools are not fully accredited and also by schools that are fully accredited. Plus there are many schools stating very clearly that they have age restriction for old prereq as well as as schools that are stating very clear that they do NOT have age limit on prerequisite and everything else in between those two extremes. So I do not think this is really a concern about accreditation.

Also, why are there the differences among the cutoff lines from different schools? Why some say 5, some say 6, others say 7, or 10? This is just arbitrary. I absolutely have no idea why.

I did ask the schools I was considering to apply to those questions and the schools said I had to retake my prereq could not tell me (or did not want to tell me) why and how they came up and assigned a specific number for their cutoff lines regarding the age of the prerequisite. The schools wanted to interview me either they said that their decisions were based on case-by-case basic or they told me that they thought that there was no reason to ask me to take the courses again if my PCAT was recent and competitive.

My guess is that those age restrictions for prereq have only been recent as the results of more students applying to pharmacy schools (?) as I did not hear about this matter in the past ??

I read a book, Becoming A Doctor, by Melvin Konner, M.D. He decided to apply to medical school at the age of 33, and 6 years as a Harvard anthropology professor and got admitted to all the medical schools he applied to (Ivy league). Interestingly his science prereq was already 15 years old by the time he applied to medical schools. He took the MCAT and nobody was asking him how old his prereq was or asking him to retake anything for his prereq.

Obviously we were not some Harvard professors, but in your case, again, it was super ridiculous to ask you to retake Microbiology 101 !!

 

[KidPharmD]

I would say that the limits are arbitrary and based on experience. However, without one you would have to explain why you didn't admit the 50 year old whos pre-reqs were 20+ years old.
It doesn't matter if schools are fully accredited or not. All schools are working toward accreditation, so they all have to justify admission criteria.

I would propose that the alternative would be allowing you to test out of a prerequisite that was more than 4 years old if you have a BS or less, 6 years if you have a masters, 8 years if you already have a PhD (think continuous education). You would be given a test equivalent to a cumulative final for the course regardless if the information was relevant to the program. The school then treats you as if you had that grade in that course regardless of what you got the first time through.

 

[oldstock]

I would say that the limits are arbitrary and based on experience. However, without one you would have to explain why you didn't admit the 50 year old whos pre-reqs were 20+ years old.
It doesn't matter if schools are fully accredited or not. All schools are working toward accreditation, so they all have to justify admission criteria.

It is me !! not 50 yet but going there in a few years

Lucky me that there are schools which state very clearly in their admission policies that they do NOT have any age limit of prereq (and they must have good reasons for that. They would probably use the PCAT as the indicator to see if one is up-to-date in terms of current knowledge). Some of them do NOT mention this matter at all in their admission policies. Plus I am also lucky and grateful for those schools that consider my application and invite me for admission interview even though they DO have age restriction on prereq.

Again, I know schools' admission policies can be arbitrary and based on experience. But there is nothing standardized about arbitrary and experience, which could be biased.

I would propose that the alternative would be allowing you to test out of a prerequisite that was more than 4 years old if you have a BS or less, 6 years if you have a masters, 8 years if you already have a PhD (think continuous education).

that is a good proposition !!

You would be given a test equivalent to a cumulative final for the course regardless if the information was relevant to the program. The school then treats you as if you had that grade in that course regardless of what you got the first time through.

I am thinking more about a way to standardize the way we measure and evaluate a student's core pre-pharmacy knowledge and one's abilities to recall, utilize, and apply those knowledge, which is important for the preparation, sufficiency, and readiness for one's pharmacy study. So imho, that is even better than a simple cumulative final exam to test out a class regard the prereq. A standardized test that is required and given to every student who is applying to pharmacy schools. Everyone has to take it regardless of what degrees they have, what schools they come from, what specific classes they take or have taken, or how old their prereqs are. This would eliminate the biases from being arbitrary and based on experiences and/or differences between academic standards among all different schools out there.

Is it called PCAT ??

We could design and push the PCAT more and more toward to this purpose and use it as one of the most important factors in the admission process. That would be fair for everyone imho.

 

[oldstock]

*Update:

-I have declined 2 interviews to save the money for the seat deposits at the school I already got accepted

-total interview offers received: 7 out of 9 school applied, 4 done so far, 1 more to go

-1 acceptance (mid-tier), 2 wait lists (2 low-tier)

-2 schools (1 mid-tier, 1 low-tier) still not replying whether they want to offer an interview or reject

 

[KidPharmD]

If you are thinking that the PCAT should be a test of pre-requisite knowledge instead of baseline knowledge, I would agree (think MCAT difficulty). That would certainly help with the amount of students coming in to the programs (or at least differentiate the lower schools better).

However, I think there is value in judging a candidate based on their pre-requisite coursework. We do the same thing with resident candidates. It matters what school you go to (think UNC or UCSF vs random for-profit). It matters what your grades were. Some grades matter more than others. The difference here is that when a candidate is 10 years removed from their education, the interim is usually spent practice as a pharmacist (if it wasn't, I would be shocked if anyone even interviewed them). As far as I know, you never say what you did between school and pharmacy applications.

Second, the PCAT is not a good measure of your knowledge base. It is more like the ACT/PSAT than it is like a super-cumulative final. The PCAT score is heavily influenced by test-taking ability.

So yes, if the PCAT changes to measure more of your knowledge base needed for pharmacy school (MCAT or NAPLEX for undergrad) then it might be able to carry more weight and restrictions on pre-reqs could be lifted. However, until then expect admission committees to find other ways to identify applicants that will do well in pharmacy school. If you don't like the requirements your choices are to re-take a class or to apply somewhere else. I know you have chosen the second option.

I will give you an example. Myself and <10 of my other classmates were the only ones with a undergraduate genetics class. When it came time to take pharmacogenomics we sailed through while most of the rest of the class struggled (think hardest class vs not really studying). All of the information that was difficult was covered in Biology (freshman), but we had all taken Genetics as Seniors. This was only the difference in 2 years vs 4-5 years removed from a class. Granted you might attribute this to those who had degrees with a biology focus (major or minor) vs the ones with no degree or a 3-and-1 degree (which covered most of the rest of the class) but I don't think that was the case as we also had student with biology focuses that excluded a genetics requirement.

 

[SuperXMSat]

Is it called PCAT ??

I think the big flaw with using the PCAT scores in specific topics like microbiology would be the fact that the Bio section only has 40 or so questions and only a specfic percentage of that is microbiology specifically (I forget exactly how much....20%? 30%?). That leaves a pretty small sample size of questions to base the threshold of understanding and comprehension of a subject. To alleviate this a "comprehensive final exam" for a subject would work just fine. Just find a way to standardize the so-called "final exam" and maybe that could be used as a better evaluator for pre-req course retention. Although I have to admit that this entire issue might be a moot point since having "expired" pre-reqs might be a case of an outlier. How many applicants would have to deal with this situation? 2%? 5%? I can't imagine it being large enough that it is worth the Admissions Committees changing their process and requirements by too much. Just some thoughts I figured I'd mention. Also, good luck on the rest of the admissions process

 

[CardinalGirl210]

Even though you make a good point about older students doing very well date taking a break from school, that's not the norm. I think more people associate an older student with the stereotypical scenario of them being baffled at everything and saying "I haven't done this since 1988. I don't remember." Having a refresher course will only make a mature student that is motivated excel even further than expected.

In my class, our oldest student (now 43) has one of the highest gpa's and got a residency. On the flip side, we had a guy in his 59s our p1 year that dropped out after 4 weeks because he wasn't passing anything and it was just too hard for him. It's very relative to the person but having the most current knowledge that your younger peers will already have is a plus! The pre-reqs should be easier if you've gone through them already and you may be able to shorten it from 2 years to 1.5 or 1 with summer classes. Best of luck!

 

[oldstock]

If you are thinking that the PCAT should be a test of pre-requisite knowledge instead of baseline knowledge, I would agree (think MCAT difficulty). That would certainly help with the amount of students coming in to the programs (or at least differentiate the lower schools better).

I am with you here that it could at least differentiate the lower-tier schools better.

But I do not think it is helping much with the amount of students coming into the many pharmacy programs out there. There are many talks here already complaining about more students with low stats getting in. I think it gotta do more with the numbers of new schools opening up than anything else. (I was in a heated debate about whether we should or should not require a bachelor degree for pharmacy school admission. IMHO we could ask for a ton of additional requirements such as a bachelor degree or making the PCAT the difficulty level of the MCAT, but those would not prevent the low-stat students getting in as many new schools out there still need to fill up their seats.)

From what I saw on the PCAT, it is heading there to the way the MCAT is. Before taking the PCAT last year, my cousin gave me MCAT prep book and I did not use anything else but it as a guide to study for the PCAT. I saw many similarities, esp. the reading comprehension section.

However, I think there is value in judging a candidate based on their pre-requisite coursework. We do the same thing with resident candidates. It matters what school you go to (think UNC or UCSF vs random for-profit). It matters what your grades were. Some grades matter more than others.

I think so too. But I am different than you in that I only view how well the candidate did in their study in general and prereq in particular as signs that the candidate might be a good standing students in their own study majors at their respective schools and possessing good study skills and habits.

I keep a skeptical mind in the comparison of the quality of coursework and/or GPAs of one student from one schools to those from different schools, or from different majors or the combination of all of those things. Schools have different academic standards as we know. And there is no standard out there to judge or compare those things.

Let's also say it matters where you go to pharmacy school. What standards out are there to rank pharmacy schools now? US News ranking (which I take with a grain of salt) ?? None as I know of.

Therefore, I think the entire process of judging and compare the quality of coursework and/or GPA based on what school you go to or your GPA are still currently susceptible to prejudices and biases. At least until we have an official standardized ranking for schools, majors, and coursework.

I know it is true that residency selection committees and/or pharmacy school adcoms still look at and base their decisions where you go to school and your GPA. That is why I keep thinking about standardizing the whole admission process and maybe the residency selection/application process. A standardized process that you can could eliminate prejudices and biases.

The difference here is that when a candidate is 10 years removed from their education, the interim is usually spent practice as a pharmacist (if it wasn't, I would be shocked if anyone even interviewed them). As far as I know, you never say what you did between school and pharmacy applications.

I am new here and careful of not giving away too much my identity. I could tell you that for the last 3-4 years I went back to school for a degree in Accounting initially. I did take a couple of more advanced science/bio courses, but I did not repeat my prereq. On the side, I did use my cousin's textbooks (which were recent) to review for my prereq.

Second, the PCAT is not a good measure of your knowledge base. It is more like the ACT/PSAT than it is like a super-cumulative final.

Even the MCAT is not a super-cumulative final. We still need to preview everything for core prereq knowledge to prepare for those exams such as the PCAT and MCAT. Even students who are fresh out of their pre-req struggling with the PCAT. There are many threads here @ SDN discussing that already, e.g.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/low-pcat.1033516/#post-14462921

The PCAT score is heavily influenced by test-taking ability.

I agree. But then again, final exams are also influenced by test-taking ability. There are all different strategies for taking different tests of all sorts. Test-taking ability is a skill that we as students all need to develop. We all have to be good test takers for good grades too.

So yes, if the PCAT changes to measure more of your knowledge base needed for pharmacy school (MCAT or NAPLEX for undergrad) then it might be able to carry more weight and restrictions on pre-reqs could be lifted. However, until then expect admission committees to find other ways to identify applicants that will do well in pharmacy school. If you don't like the requirements your choices are to re-take a class or to apply somewhere else. I know you have chosen the second option.

Like I said, I saw on the current PCAT many similarities to the MCAT, esp. the reading comprehension. It is heading toward the direction of the MCAT.

I did choose the second options. I did research for the schools that would not outright reject me for the age of my prereq and applied. I am so lucky and grateful for the adcoms at all the schools who invited me and subsequently admitted me into their programs. Obviously they did not really concern about the age of my prereq and did see something worthwhile there on my application to consider me for admission to their pharmacy programs.

On the other hand, out of the 4 interviews that I did go to (I received 7 interview offers out of 9 school applied, declined 2, 1 more to go; the other 2 remaining schools have not given me answers whether they would like to offer me an interview or reject me), I have only received 1 acceptance. I think I did pretty well in all of my interviews but one (but so does almost everyone think that they aced their interviews). It is hard to say what happened there without direct feedback from the schools. It is interesting that I got accepted to the school I thought I bombed the interview !!

Regardless, I am very happy with the result of my application. It does not affect me now that I am already accepted to a very good/established pharmacy school. But I would like to discuss this matter and learn more about the process.

I will give you an example. Myself and <10 of my other classmates were the only ones with a undergraduate genetics class. When it came time to take pharmacogenomics we sailed through while most of the rest of the class struggled (think hardest class vs not really studying). All of the information that was difficult was covered in Biology (freshman), but we had all taken Genetics as Seniors. This was only the difference in 2 years vs 4-5 years removed from a class. Granted you might attribute this to those who had degrees with a biology focus (major or minor) vs the ones with no degree or a 3-and-1 degree (which covered most of the rest of the class) but I don't think that was the case as we also had student with biology focuses that excluded a genetics requirement.

I don't see enough info in your example to judge for myself the effects of the age of coursework in that example. I understand that you say you and a few of other students had a undergraduate genetic class, and you guys did very well while the rest of the class who did not have a genetic class in their undegrad were struggling. I understand that you took the genetic class as seniors thus it was 2-3 year after the general biology you all took in the first or second year of college.

But I do not think we can do a comparison between those who had the course and those who never had the course to examine the effects of the ages of coursework. I think the only reason that you and a few other students did well there in that Pharmacogenomics was that you guys had a prior and additional or advanced knowledge that the rest the class did not have. Unless genetics was specifically a required prereq at your school, I do not think this is really a concern as the professor of that Pharmcogenomics class would provide enough background information for the course.

 

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I think the big flaw with using the PCAT scores in specific topics like microbiology would be the fact that the Bio section only has 40 or so questions and only a specfic percentage of that is microbiology specifically (I forget exactly how much....20%? 30%?). That leaves a pretty small sample size of questions to base the threshold of understanding and comprehension of a subject.

I do not think any standardized exam is big enough to test every little things to measure one's absolute/total understanding and comprehension and/or the mastery of a subject, e.g. SAT/ACT, PCAT, MCAT, NAPLEX, USMLE, etc. But we do have to review our everything of our core knowledge of the subjects being tested to prepare for those exams.

To alleviate this a "comprehensive final exam" for a subject would work just fine. Just find a way to standardize the so-called "final exam" and maybe that could be used as a better evaluator for pre-req course retention. Although I have to admit that this entire issue might be a moot point since having "expired" pre-reqs might be a case of an outlier. How many applicants would have to deal with this situation? 2%? 5%? I can't imagine it being large enough that it is worth the Admissions Committees changing their process and requirements by too much. Just some thoughts I figured I'd mention. Also, good luck on the rest of the admissions process

It also does not affect me now. At the end, some schools thought I was good enough for their pharmacy programs (I am already accepted into a very good school). I would only like to make people aware of this issue and document my experience so that someone in similar situation might learn from it. I also would like do discuss and debate this to understand and learn more about the admission process.

 

[oldstock]

Even though you make a good point about older students doing very well date taking a break from school, that's not the norm. I think more people associate an older student with the stereotypical scenario of them being baffled at everything and saying "I haven't done this since 1988. I don't remember."

that is a misconception and myth that I would like to debunk.

Having a refresher course will only make a mature student that is motivated excel even further than expected.

I agree and disagree at the same time with you here. Yes I agree that having a refresher course could make a student more motivated. Esp. more in the case if you are young. Regardless of being young or old, I think it is more depending on the individuals, which you even said in your example I quote below.

In my class, our oldest student (now 43) has one of the highest gpa's and got a residency. On the flip side, we had a guy in his 59s our p1 year that dropped out after 4 weeks because he wasn't passing anything and it was just too hard for him. It's very relative to the person but having the most current knowledge that your younger peers will already have is a plus! The pre-reqs should be easier if you've gone through them already and you may be able to shorten it from 2 years to 1.5 or 1 with summer classes. Best of luck!

this I can say that happens in any age range. Young or old !!

I agree with having the most current knowledge is a plus. We are discussing on how to determine whether a pharmacy school applicant has the up-to-date prereq knowledge required for pharmacy schools. Repeating courses, taking PCAT or "compehesive final exam(s)" ?? My position is that I am for one standardized exam which is designed to test the students' mastery of prereq knowledge, and we could tweak the PCAT and push it more and more toward this goal. Repeating prereq courses would be impractical for older and other non-traditional students imho. If the 59 year old guy in your example has to retake the prereq (ALL if I had to guess), he might as well just quit the idea of even trying to apply already right from the beginning.

 

[KidPharmD]

I think so too. But I am different than you in that I only view how well the candidate did in their study in general and prereq in particular as signs that the candidate might be a good standing students in their own study majors at their respective schools and possessing good study skills and habits.

I keep a skeptical mind in the comparison of the quality of coursework and/or GPAs of one student from one schools to those from different schools, or from different majors or the combination of all of those things. Schools have different academic standards as we know. And there is no standard out there to judge or compare those things.

You don't think that Adcom's know which schools produce better pharmacy students on average? They keep track of all that. Where you went, how you did, and then how that translated to you as a pharmacy student. That is how they compare schools. It is also why schools tend to give preference to undergrad schools they have experience with over those they do not.

Let's also say it matters where you go to pharmacy school. What standards out are there to rank pharmacy schools now? US News ranking (which I take with a grain of salt) ?? None as I know of.

Therefore, I think the entire process of judging and compare the quality of coursework and/or GPA based on what school you go to or your GPA are still currently susceptible to prejudices and biases. At least until we have an official standardized ranking for schools, majors, and coursework.

I know it is true that residency selection committees and/or pharmacy school adcoms still look at and base their decisions where you go to school and your GPA. That is why I keep thinking about standardizing the whole admission process and maybe the residency selection/application process. A standardized process that you can could eliminate prejudices and biases.

It DOES matter where you go to school. You want to know how residencies determine where you go? Start with the US ranking (those after all are based or perceptions of deans of other schools which are based on years of expierence), then take into account age of the program, admission criteria, graduation rates, NAPLEX pass rates, rates of residency acceptance, past experience with graduates. Pharmacy education is a small world, and residency education is even smaller.

Adcom's don't want a standard process. UK, UTHSC, UNC, Duke, UCSF, Wingate, Mass, SLCOP, etc. all want decide for themselves what is important in a pharmacy school applicant. They all want to decide how selective to be. I am not sure what you want to standardize. Just like undergraduate universities have drastically different admission criteria, so do pharmacy schools. Would you rather they drop the requirement for recent pre-reqs and then continue to use that to decide who to interview? I guarantee that is what would happen.

I am new here and careful of not giving away too much my identity. I could tell you that for the last 3-4 years I went back to school for a degree in Accounting initially. I did take a couple of more advanced science/bio courses, but I did not repeat my prereq. On the side, I did use my cousin's textbooks (which were recent) to review for my prereq.

Even the MCAT is not a super-cumulative final. We still need to preview everything for core prereq knowledge to prepare for those exams such as the PCAT and MCAT. Even students who are fresh out of their pre-req struggling with the PCAT. There are many threads here @ SDN discussing that already, e.g.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/low-pcat.1033516/#post-14462921

I can't give my full opinion and be nice at the same time. The PCAT isn't everything, and it isn't the best measure of future performance in pharmacy school, but maybe there are reasons that people score low. Remember that these are not flat scores like the ACT/SAT, 1/2 of the people who take the test will score <50%. What matters is which group the particular school wants to admit, and whether they determine pre-reqs or the PCAT to be a better predictor of future performance.

I agree. But then again, final exams are also influenced by test-taking ability. There are all different strategies for taking different tests of all sorts. Test-taking ability is a skill that we as students all need to develop. We all have to be good test takers for good grades too.

Test taking skills, by which I mean the ability to get correct answers without actually knowing the answer, will be less relevant in a high quality pharmacy school. There is a lot of current educational research that is geared toward designing tests that truly gauge a student's knowledge of a set of material. We are constantly refining test questions to eliminate the ability of students to score well without knowing the material, and allow students that truly know the material to showcase their knowledge.

I did choose the second options. I did research for the schools that would not outright reject me for the age of my prereq and applied. I am so lucky and grateful for the adcoms at all the schools who invited me and subsequently admitted me into their programs. Obviously they did not really concern about the age of my prereq and did see something worthwhile there on my application to consider me for admission to their pharmacy programs.

Good for you. I'm glad.

On the other hand, out of the 4 interviews that I did go to (I received 7 interview offers out of 9 school applied, declined 2, 1 more to go; the other 2 remaining schools have not given me answers whether they would like to offer me an interview or reject me), I have only received 1 acceptance. I think I did pretty well in all of my interviews but one (but so does almost everyone think that they aced their interviews). It is hard to say what happened there without direct feedback from the schools. It is interesting that I got accepted to the school I thought I bombed the interview !!

All this means is that applicants are horrible judges of how an interview went (everybody is bad at this, interviews are designed this way). It also means that you aren't the super stellar candidate who has their pick for a school (but very few people are). By this person, I mean 3.8+gpa, 95%+ PCAT, good undergrad, BS degree, extracurriculars, traditional student, open and professional personality. I wasn't this person either. Neither were some of the smartest practioners I know, but this is still what Adcom's dream about.

Regardless, I am very happy with the result of my application. It does not affect me now that I am already accepted to a very good/established pharmacy school. But I would like to discuss this matter and learn more about the process.

I am glad you are happy with your acceptance at a particular school. I hope it turns out as good as you believe, and you become an excellent practitioner.

 

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You don't think that Adcom's know which schools produce better pharmacy students on average? They keep track of all that. Where you went, how you did, and then how that translated to you as a pharmacy student. That is how they compare schools. It is also why schools tend to give preference to undergrad schools they have experience with over those they do not.


It DOES matter where you go to school. You want to know how residencies determine where you go? Start with the US ranking (those after all are based or perceptions of deans of other schools which are based on years of expierence), then take into account age of the program, admission criteria, graduation rates, NAPLEX pass rates, rates of residency acceptance, past experience with graduates. Pharmacy education is a small world, and residency education is even smaller.

I have just posted a post that I want to reuse here,

To rank the schools, I am using those links below as guides,

http://pharmacy-schools.findthebest.com/

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankings...-schools/top-health-schools/pharmacy-rankings

I have to say that I am not taking those rankings too seriously. But you have probably seen people are talking about where you go to school would matter more in the future in terms of residency and/or employment prospects. For examples,

I know. new schools they are, though.

It just doesn't make it look good for pharmacy is all I'm saying. My opinion. And clearly other people feel similarly judging by how many preceptors and educators I've heard saying they don't want to precept students from newer schools. I don't want to turn this thread into a new school vs. whatever debate., though. I'm just pointing out recent events and all lumped together, it doesn't look good.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/lawsuit-against-california-northstate-cp.915119/

I can only speak for two health systems I have worked for over the past 4 years. We do not take any students for internships from the newish pharmacy school in our state, nor do we interview them for residencies. Our clinical pharmacy team is made up of all pharmacists from established programs in state and out of state, some residency trained and others hired after years of experience. Same goes for my previous hospital as well.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/the-four-ca-schools-opening-up.1056428/#post-15039840
I do not think it is right to judge a pharmacy graduate based on the schools he or she went to, but to judge him or her on his or her own merits (e.g. what he has done in pharmacy school and for his pharmacy school like GPA, researches, extracurriculars, recommendations, NAPLEX, etc.) There are many who are thinking like I do here,

As someone pointed out, St. Joe's and Midway are non-profits. So could we generalize and say that all non-profit pharmacy schools are bad? No.

A pharmacy professor from UGA was involved in some VERY shady stuff a few years ago that resulted in the NAPLEX being suspended for a time... we don't view that as an indictment against all public, state-supported pharmacy schools, do we?

I don't think there are even that many proprietary pharmacy schools. Fewer than five, I think. The two I'm most familiar with are doing very well.

There are new schools that struggle, to be sure. But there are also established schools that are consistently bottom of the barrel on NAPLEX scores and have recurrent issues with maintaining accreditation and retaining faculty.

My point is that generalizations aren't that useful. Or accurate.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/lawsuit-against-california-northstate-cp.915119/page-3

My sister graduated from northstate in its inaugural class. She passed her boards and law exams for California and national all first try. And now she's doing very well. Just pick whatever school you think is a good fit for you

this whole generalization, stereotype, and prejudice makes me remember similar cases in racial profiling. Is it right to profile a person instead of basing our judgements of the person on his/her own merits/actions instead ??


But it is true that this whole stereotype and prejudice is very much alive in many ways anyway, unspoken and/or unofficially. So the bottom line is better safe than sorry, i.e. to go for the school that many people rank highly if you can to avoid future complication. (Sigh )


Sorry for my rants, but I think there are 3 important factors to base your decision to select/rank the schools you want to go here:

1. schools' rankings

2. tuition

3. research-orientation

UMB scores pretty consistently on the 2 ranking lists/links I found above. If you could be sure about obtaining Maryland residency, UMB would be my #1 pick for overall sores for the school's ranking, cheap in-state tuition, and research. I recently was interviewed at a school whose residency policy allowed out of state students to change/apply for in-state status after a year. But the admission school representative there cautioned us that the university would make it very hard to obtain in-state status. Find out in details what you have to do to obtain the in-state status and how many or what percentage of out-of-state student were successful doing that in the past.

Rutgers would be my #2 pick for overall score in ranking, supercheap in-state tuition, and research. If you found out that your chance of getting Maryland's in-state tuition is less than 60%, I would go to Rutgers.

USF would be my #3 pick for ranking and negative points for superhigh tution (not sure about reseach), but I am ready to scratch this off the list anytime just because of the sky-high tuition alone.

Jefferson is my last pick, #4, for ranking and also negative point for high tuition (I dont know about its research programs there).

So, check with UMB about your chance for in-state tuition and the details of how to do it. If you can get it, then you should go to UMB. If you cannot, you should go to Rutgers.

GL

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/usc-vs-rutgers-vs-jefferson-vs-maryland.1062435/

Adcom's don't want a standard process. UK, UTHSC, UNC, Duke, UCSF, Wingate, Mass, SLCOP, etc. all want decide for themselves what is important in a pharmacy school applicant. They all want to decide how selective to be. I am not sure what you want to standardize.

oh they surely can be as selective as they would like. But being selective has nothing to do with the standardization of the selection process imho. I would like to see criteria and factors for the admission/selection process to be more transparent, evidence-based, and objective instead of mysterious, opinion-based/arbitrary, and subjective. Therefore there is a need for standardizing of the selection factors and the procedure used to rank or score a candidate.

Just like undergraduate universities have drastically different admission criteria, so do pharmacy schools. Would you rather they drop the requirement for recent pre-reqs and then continue to use that to decide who to interview? I guarantee that is what would happen.

I am not following you here. Please elaborate if you could.

I can't give my full opinion and be nice at the same time.

You have been fine and very professional. I know when people are being professional and when they are resorting to personal attack. I do appreciate very much your information, ideas and opinions here.

The PCAT isn't everything, and it isn't the best measure of future performance in pharmacy school, but maybe there are reasons that people score low. Remember that these are not flat scores like the ACT/SAT, 1/2 of the people who take the test will score <50%. What matters is which group the particular school wants to admit, and whether they determine pre-reqs or the PCAT to be a better predictor of future performance.

I agree with most of what you said here wholeheartedly. The PCAT is not everything, but it should be one of the most important factors if not the most important to be used in the admission process. I have said already that I saw many similarities between the current PCAT and the MCAT, esp. the reading comprehension section. We also are very much agreeing that the MCAT is a good exam to measure the core knowledge for premedical students. The current PCAT is already very similar to the MCAT in that term and moving more and more toward the direction of the MCAT imho.

The PCAT's percentile is also a ranking which based on the proprietary algo from Pearson to rank where a test taker stands against the rest of the test takers pool. I agree with you that "what matters now is which group the particular school wants to admit" here. There is a broad spectrum here. On the one hand,, most (all?) pharmacy schools in the state of California do NOT use the PCAT. On the other hand, in my own experience, the schools I have applied to did not care about the age of my prererq and instead relied heavily on my recent PCAT score. And many other schools are in between.

On

"whether they determine pre-reqs or the PCAT to be a better predictor (may I add "indicator") of future performance"

the PCAT do not have to be the sole factors used to predict a student's future performance. Its main job would be a test to measure the competency and mastery of the core knowledge that a student must have for the preparation of pharmacy study.

Test taking skills, by which I mean the ability to get correct answers without actually knowing the answer, will be less relevant in a high quality pharmacy school. There is a lot of current educational research that is geared toward designing tests that truly gauge a student's knowledge of a set of material.

Pardon me if I am wrong, but you seem to imply that it is easy to get correct answers and good scores on the current PCAT if you are a really good test taker without actually knowing the real answers. For the current PCAT, I do not how you would get "lucky" on a test that is 4-5 hour long with that many questions. Common statistics say that if you do not know the real answer for a question, you have 50% chance to get it right. In my own experience, the chance is way less than 50% on standardized exams if you have to guess your way out on the exams.

There are many students, again, who are fresh out of their pre-req or graduation, really struggling with the PCAT. They seem to be of the opposite opinion,

I'm a bit embarrassed to be back here but here I am. I decided recently that I should give pharmacy one more go but this time apply to more than one school (aiming for almost every single school in Canada). The PCAT is going to play a critical role this time (the school I applied to before did not require it).

The problem is that my oldest university class was 6 years ago. I had As in all my chemistry classes but today is Day 1 of my PCAT preparation and all is not well. The periodic table does not look as familiar as I remember it and I'm slowly going through Dr.Collins, even the basics like atomic mass / number I have had to think about when these things used to be second nature.

I took the PCAT before and I can attest to the fact that doing well in the core science classes is the best way to score high. During my first attempt at the PCAT, I already knew half of everything in Dr.Collin's but now it's all a blur.

What can I do? I'm preparing to take it in the summer of 2014 which I hope gives me enough time (I'm outside of school and working full time now so study time is not what it used to be). I'm currently using Dr.Collins + MCAT Audio Osmosis. I have the Kaplan book too but heard many bad reviews about it (I heard it's basically a copy of the MCAT prep books).

I was just wondering if anyone else has been in a similar predicament, how they handled it and what they did to prepare. I'd appreciate any insight.

I've been out of college for 6 years (hadn't had gen bio and gen chem in almost 10) and took a Kaplan class this summer and hired a private tutor through them. During my diagnostic test I panicked a bit as I realized that I recognized all these questions, but had no clue how to solve them anymore. I can't say enough how much Kaplan helped me, especially having the private tutor!! I ended up taking the PCAT in Oct, scoring 89 composite (91 in Chem, 85 in Bio). It's a lot of work if you want to get the most out of the class, but well worth it. I work full-time and felt like all my time outside of work was either in the kaplan class, studying/preparing for the class, or with my tutor.

I too had been out of school for a long time when I decided to reapply for pharmacy school. I was scared at first about the PCAT because it had been over 5 years since I took any chemistry classes. But what I did was buy a Kaplan PCAT book and studied on my own. I was working full time and had to take care of two kids while doing this. I would study as much as I could at home but I also took the book to work and studied during my lunch break. Plus, I went to my local library and checked out books about chemistry, biology, and any other subject I felt I needed to review. I specifically remember checking out Organic Chemistry for Dummies. Those library books helped me immensely.

I looked into taking a Kaplan course but I felt it was too expensive for me to spend that much money. The most I spent was maybe 50-60 bucks for the Kaplan study guide which I bought on Amazon.

I don't remember my exact scores but I do recall doing really good in Chemistry and Biology. I actually did better than the first time I took the PCAT & that was when I was in school…lol. Nevertheless, I was accepted to two pharmacy schools and am currently half way through my 3rd year.

I wish you the best!

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/taking-the-pcat-after-being-out-of-school-for-3-years.1044489/#post-14681373

We are constantly refining test questions to eliminate the ability of students to score well without knowing the material, and allow students that truly know the material to showcase their knowledge.

This is really interesting. IMHO the types and designs of test questions only could do so much. Test formats are also very important. Let me tell you a little story

My father, who is now a retired M.D., received his medical education via the French medical system. He entered medical school after high school, took an exam in order to keep his seat after year 1 (;others who failed would get kicked out). For his M.D. degree, he had to do a thesis and successfully defended it. It was very competitive.

"Right after graduating from High School with a Baccalaureat, any student can register at a university of medicine (there are about 30 of them throughout the country). At the end of first year, an internal ranking examination takes place in each of these universities in order to implement the numerus clausus. First year consists mainly of theoretical classes such as biophysics and biochemistry, anatomy, ethics or histology. Passing first year is commonly considered as challenging and requires hard and continuous work. Each student can only try twice. For example, the Université René Descartes welcomes about 2000 students in first year and only 300 after numerus clausus."

"Towards the end of the medical program, French medical students are provided with more responsibilities and are required to defend a thesis"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Medicine#France

Anyway, he told me that for his regular final exams, he and other medical students had to pass, first, an oral exam in the subjects being tested. Medical school students there picked a professor (via a random process) for the oral exam. Students could not proceed to the written tests without passing the oral exams first. Students must pass both oral and written exams to receive a pass for a course.

That would take out all the lucky guessers and allow a student to showcase his/her knowledge, wouldn't you agree ??

IMHO, each exam format has their own advantages and disadvantages. Multiple choice exams can test a vast range of details and subjects but you can guess some answers. Essay exams would eliminate most guessing, but limited in terms of the ranges of details and subjects you can test with. Oral exam would also eliminate guessing even further, but again be limited in term of the amount of knowledge could be tested since it and essay exams are both limited in time allowed for the whole exam process.

I think a combination of multiple choice, written, oral exams to assign grades or pass/fail students for classes, and even a thesis to research/defend as the "ultimate cumulative/comprehensive final exam" before one can receive his/her PharmD degree would be a very excellent way to thoroughly test a student's competency/mastery of his/her knowledge of pharmacy.

Call me crazy, but I think even the NAPLEX could be made into 3 parts: multiple-choice, written, and oral. We could call those parts "step 1", "step 2", "step 3" for the NAPLEX. One would not be allowed to proceed to the next step without passing the one that is before and in sequence. If this combination of test formats do not kill all the "lucky" guessers and let a pharmacy graduate to show case his/her knowledge of pharmacy, I do not know what could

Good for you. I'm glad.

Thanks

All this means is that applicants are horrible judges of how an interview went (everybody is bad at this, interviews are designed this way). It also means that you aren't the super stellar candidate who has their pick for a school (but very few people are). By this person, I mean 3.8+gpa, 95%+ PCAT, good undergrad, BS degree, extracurriculars, traditional student, open and professional personality. I wasn't this person either. Neither were some of the smartest practioners I know, but this is still what Adcom's dream about.

At the end, I got in and it is good enough for me. But for the sake of future applicants, we need to understand more about the admission/selection process. The whole process needs to be more transparent and standardized imho.

I am glad you are happy with your acceptance at a particular school. I hope it turns out as good as you believe, and you become an excellent practitioner.

Thank you very much for the well wish !! I only got in because I and also the adcoms who admitted me believed that I had the potentials to be a successful student in pharmacy school and an excellent pharmacist in the future. I will plan everything carefully but try to take one step at a time and do it well and not get too far ahead of myself.

 

[KidPharmD]

Not going to re-run through your very thorough post. Just a couple of things.

RE: School Rankings - Education will always consider some schools better than others. There is a good reason for it, they are. Just as an A in Intro to Biology is not the same if you took the class at Jim's Community college instead of Yale, A 4.0 at a school known for producing a class that struggles to pass the NAPLEX is not the same as a 4.0 at a school with a 100% first time pass rate. Rankings are based on other school's deans and faculties' impression of a college, but those impressions are based on something more concrete.

I am not following you here. Please elaborate if you could.

Here I am saying that standard application criteria (age of pre-reqs) would mean that a school might publish on set of criteria (we don't care how old they are because we aren't supposed to) and then actually use another set (don't invite anyone for an interview who's pre-reqs are >6years old)

RE: PCAT/Test-taking skills: I would postulate that these presented examples are of people who do not have good "test-taking skills." Standardized tests allow some students to be able to reduce possible answers without actually knowing the answer. It is a flaw in the question design that is hard to eliminate. Sometimes, students might be able to eliminate all wrong answers on the basis of something else other than the knowledge/skill in the subject. People who are naturally good at this will know what I am talking about. There are a lot of things that can reduce someone's skill on a test. Nervousness can certainly make some things hard to remember.

RE: Test Design - Your story is very interesting but will never happen here. Oral exams are mostly a thing of the past. There is too much subjectivity in grading them, and no way to dispute a grade. Non-MC tests are also subject to grader bias. Unless you are going to have one person grade all the NAPLEX questions, or be okay with waiting several MONTHS to get your score, they will continue to be mostly MC tests. The idea of a multiple choice test gives several advantages : they are graded quickly, they can be graded by anyone including a computer, there are clear right answers, and they mimic our licensing exams. You would be surprised at how a well written question can measure someones knowledge. People who attempt these questions and don't know will be less likely to get it right than someone that randomly picks an answer without reading the question. We do test analysis to determine how well a question differentiated the high scoring students from the low scoring students.

I think most other pharmacy students would also want to slap you for suggesting they take an oral exam for each class.

 

[oldstock]

Reading your replies again, I wish you might probably be someone who is sitting in some adcoms or residency selection committees somewhere because our discussions might make some difference in future admission or selection process. Fingers crossed

Not going to re-run through your very thorough post. Just a couple of things.

RE: School Rankings - Education will always consider some schools better than others. There is a good reason for it, they are. Just as an A in Intro to Biology is not the same if you took the class at Jim's Community college instead of Yale, A 4.0 at a school known for producing a class that struggles to pass the NAPLEX is not the same as a 4.0 at a school with a 100% first time pass rate. Rankings are based on other school's deans and faculties' impression of a college, but those impressions are based on something more concrete.

I think it is very common that people think that "Just as an A in Intro to Biology is not the same if you took the class at Jim's Community college instead of Yale." People are assuming there is lesser quality or difficulty at a community college or "no name" university compared to Ivy leagues colleges. But there is not always the case. I am lazy to do a search here, but there are many posts here on SDN from people who took classes at both community colleges and universities attesting that they received better quality and higher level of difficulty at their community colleges vs at their home universities. A course at Harvard university might not be assumed to automatically be better than a course from, let's say, University of Louisiana. Colleges and universities all have different academic standards and it is hard to compare.

Likewise, a high GPA, e.g. 4.0, at a school (A) that has a low pass rate on the NAPLEX is not the same as 4.o at a school (B) with 100% first time pass rate. And I agree those are not the same. But can we compare those two individuals from those two schools using GPAs ?? No imho. In another word, can we tell by looking at the GPA, which is the same in this case, 4.0, and automatically conclude that the student from school (B) is better than the one from school (A) ?? No again imho. Why ?? The reasons are not only those two schools have different academic standards but also the common perception that school (B) is better than school (A) is only a right comparison if we are comparing the two schools and not the individuals. School (B) is better than school (B) in terms of academic performance, e.g. first time pass rate on the NAPLEX, does not automatically allow us to conclude an individual from school (B) with a 4.0 GPA is better in terms of academic performance than an individual from school (A).

Schools' stats are calculated based on ranges of individual data. It is fine to compare schools using the schools' stats but not the individuals. Because we simply do not know where the individuals sit on those ranges. For an example, let's say school (A) of the above has 75% first time pass rate on the NAPLEX and school B has 100% pass rate. It would mean that school (A)'s 75% pass rate was calculated from the data probably ranging from, let's say, 50% to 100%. That would mean that someone from school (A) could have scored 100% on the NAPLEX. We could conclude that all people from school B scored 100% but do we know which one at school (A) scored 100% ?? No we do not. So randomly say John Smith from school (B) is a better student/candidate than John Doe from school (A) is just a wrong deduction, let alone to find out that Smith and Doe both scored 100% on the same NAPLEX. Nothing that is equivalent here that we can use to compare Smith and Doe, e.g. schools or GPAs, but their individual NAPLEX scores.

If you look at cases of (police's) racial profiling, this is very similar. The police just cannot decide to pick or stop a person just because he is of a race or ethnic group that has high stat numbers of, let's say, crime. The police has to base his decision to pick or stop a person on what that person has just done, e.g. has he or she done anything suspicious rather belonging to a race or ethnic group ?? Similarly, the police cannot ignore checking out a person or what that person has been doing just because that person belongs to a group/race that has low stats of, e.g. crime.

All I am saying here is we should be open-minded and judge an individual based on his or her own merits, and on things we can compare. Again, colleges and university all have different academic standards. Thus a GPAs from one school/major is not equal to one from another school/major, let alone comparing the GPA of different majors from different school at the same time. They are not equivalent to use in our comparison, why use them ??

Things that are equivalent that we can use to compare a person to another person are plenty: ACT/SAT, PCAT, MCAT, LSAT, NAPLEX, UMSLE, etc. But here you can see why I would like to see selection factors to be more standardized. We can easily compare standardized things because we are likely comparing oranges to oranges and not apples.

So again, what GPA or schools could tell us about the individual ?? IMHO GPA only can tell how well the person performs academically at his or her respective school according the academic standards there. The school the individual went to does not tell much about the individual. For an example, if one donated $5M dollars to Harvard, would you agree that Harvard would accept that person's sons or daughter easily ?? In that individual case, did the person who got accepted to Harvard based on his/her parents' donation to Harvard earn their admission based on his or her own merits, e.g. superior academic performance on the SAT/ACT ?? We do not know unless we look at those standardized test scores of the individual. In many extreme cases, we all know that many got accepted and went to Ivy league colleges and universities just because they or their families are super rich and very well connected.

So, simply being a Harvard student does not tell us really anything unless we look at and examine the individual carefully and base our decisions on things we can compare. The same would apply for a person who goes to a "lowly" community college.

I am not opposing to look at an individual's GPA or schools to see a bigger picture of that person, but we should not be narrow-minded or generalizing. When we have to do an actual comparison, we should use things that are standardized. We, pharmacy people, are people of science. We use standardized metrics/units to compare things in science. We use double-blinded criteria and process to minimize biases and prejudice in scientific research/studies. Similarly, I think our admission/selection/ranking criteria and process should be standardized as well to ensure we are comparing apples to apples and avoiding stereotypes and eliminating/minimizing biases and prejudice. Perceptions and impressions are still very susceptible to biases and prejudice as they are subjective by their nature.

Here I am saying that standard application criteria (age of pre-reqs) would mean that a school might publish on set of criteria (we don't care how old they are because we aren't supposed to) and then actually use another set (don't invite anyone for an interview who's pre-reqs are >6years old)

I do not think that is smart for them to that. I am not saying that it is not happening somewhere sometime. It might. But if words are out, they are open themselves up big time for lawsuits. Serious ones. Or that would undermine their credentials greatly. Or both.

RE: PCAT/Test-taking skills: I would postulate that these presented examples are of people who do not have good "test-taking skills." Standardized tests allow some students to be able to reduce possible answers without actually knowing the answer. It is a flaw in the question design that is hard to eliminate. Sometimes, students might be able to eliminate all wrong answers on the basis of something else other than the knowledge/skill in the subject. People who are naturally good at this will know what I am talking about. There are a lot of things that can reduce someone's skill on a test. Nervousness can certainly make some things hard to remember.

RE: Test Design - Your story is very interesting but will never happen here. Oral exams are mostly a thing of the past. There is too much subjectivity in grading them, and no way to dispute a grade. Non-MC tests are also subject to grader bias. Unless you are going to have one person grade all the NAPLEX questions, or be okay with waiting several MONTHS to get your score, they will continue to be mostly MC tests. The idea of a multiple choice test gives several advantages : they are graded quickly, they can be graded by anyone including a computer, there are clear right answers, and they mimic our licensing exams. You would be surprised at how a well written question can measure someones knowledge. People who attempt these questions and don't know will be less likely to get it right than someone that randomly picks an answer without reading the question. We do test analysis to determine how well a question differentiated the high scoring students from the low scoring students.

You seem to be worrying about people can guess on standardized tests generally, which are multiple-choice exams, but not the multiple-choice exams used for regular exams in schools or NAPLEX, which are also mutiple choice. I agree that the ability to guess on a multiple-choice is an inherent flaw of all MC tests, which is very hard to eliminate. I also agree that a well written question can measure someone's knowledge very well. So I think that standardized tests like the SAT/ACT, PCAT, MCAT, NAPLEX, USMLE, etc. will always have that flaw and their questions all could be written well to minimize that flaw. Again, I see many many threads here on SDN attesting the fact that one will not score high on the current PCAT if the person has to guess on the exam without actually knowing the answers. If you read those threads closely, those people there are not discussing about improving their test taking skills, they mainly are discussing about how to review and study the materials for the exam.

Oral exam is not a thing from the past. It is very alive and well in advanced learning. It is there simply because it is considered the highest form of exam (Yes, this is evident in your saying that most pharmacy students would want to slap me for suggesting an oral exam for pharmacy classes ). One example: the defending of one's PhD thesis. The thesis committee can ask, orally of course, the PhD candidate there anything in their fields with the sky is the limit. One would not be able to walk out with the PhD degree until the committee feel you know your materials enough or well enough. That is the highest form, the most challenging of examinations in order to award a candidate the highest/terminal degree or diploma in academia. To maintain objectivity and fairness, the thesis committee would not only be comprised of PhDs/professors at the same school of the PhD candidate but also of other PhDs/professors from different schools or from different and related fields.

Written/essay exams are not without shortcomings (and neither oral nor MC exams are). But while written exams could be susceptible to grader's bias, there are many ways to minimize that. In my father's days, all written exams there were graded by a panel of trained graders/professors according to one grade standard and scale (i.e. applied for everyone). For an example, if one mentions one specific thing which is right, he or she earns the point for that, etc. It would be slower to grade but then again it is not that bad if you really want to eliminate or reduce guessing on exams. In fact, we all know how "scary" it is if we have to take an essay exam vs an all MC exam

The only reason that we see the popularity of MC exams is that it is convenient. It is convenient for test takers as all MC exams will allow people to guess for answers to some degrees (though statistically only 50% chance or less if they do not really know the real answers) and test takers do not have to wait long for the test results. Like you pointed out, MC exams are quicker and easier to grade and that is convenient for the graders.

All test or exam formats will always have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. We can pick our own poison if we have to choose only one format. But to truly measure and showcase one's competency and mastery of a particular subject or knowledge, a combination of MC, written/essay, and oral exams is not a bad idea

I think most other pharmacy students would also want to slap you for suggesting they take an oral exam for each class.

dang, I have just said again to ask for a combination of MC, written/essay, and oral exams to test people again. I should go hiding now

 

[KidPharmD]

Reading your replies again, I wish you might probably be someone who is sitting in some adcoms or residency selection committees somewhere because our discussions might make some difference in future admission or selection process. Fingers crossed

I can neither confirm, nor deny this assumption.

I think it is very common that people think that "Just as an A in Intro to Biology is not the same if you took the class at Jim's Community college instead of Yale." People are assuming there is lesser quality or difficulty at a community college or "no name" university compared to Ivy leagues colleges. But there is not always the case. I am lazy to do a search here, but there are many posts here on SDN from people who took classes at both community colleges and universities attesting that they received better quality and higher level of difficulty at their community colleges vs at their home universities. A course at Harvard university might not be assumed to automatically be better than a course from, let's say, University of Louisiana. Colleges and universities all have different academic standards and it is hard to compare.

Reputations at schools are what people use to gauge performance at a particular institution. Because the education provided at higher education are drastically different, then you must use something to differentiate from one institution to another. This is really only used when cases are extreme or Adcoms have a lot of experience with a particular institution.

Likewise, a high GPA, e.g. 4.0, at a school (A) that has a low pass rate on the NAPLEX is not the same as 4.o at a school (B) with 100% first time pass rate. And I agree those are not the same. But can we compare those two individuals from those two schools using GPAs ?? No imho. In another word, can we tell by looking at the GPA, which is the same in this case, 4.0, and automatically conclude that the student from school (B) is better than the one from school (A) ?? No again imho. Why ?? The reasons are not only those two schools have different academic standards but also the common perception that school (B) is better than school (A) is only a right comparison if we are comparing the two schools and not the individuals. School (B) is better than school (B) in terms of academic performance, e.g. first time pass rate on the NAPLEX, does not automatically allow us to conclude an individual from school (B) with a 4.0 GPA is better in terms of academic performance than an individual from school (A).

The idea is that School B produces better graduates on average than School A. So, while a residency committee might judge an individual as an exception to either of these rules, we start with the assumption that the rule is true. We can't interview everyone, and candidates resumes get more and more impressive every year. This is especially true of lower tier schools. We have noticed that many of the new schools have a lot more organizations right off the bat. While these organizations might not be active at the national level it does give students the opportunity to hold more offices than at an established school where each office comes with a significant amount of work. Thus, what we know of a school also colors how we view an entire CV.

Schools' stats are calculated based on ranges of individual data. It is fine to compare schools using the schools' stats but not the individuals. Because we simply do not know where the individuals sit on those ranges. For an example, let's say school (A) of the above has 75% first time pass rate on the NAPLEX and school B has 100% pass rate. It would mean that school (A)'s 75% pass rate was calculated from the data probably ranging from, let's say, 50% to 100%. That would mean that someone from school (A) could have scored 100% on the NAPLEX. We could conclude that all people from school B scored 100% but do we know which one at school (A) scored 100% ?? No we do not. So randomly say John Smith from school (B) is a better student/candidate than John Doe from school (A) is just a wrong deduction, let alone to find out that Smith and Doe both scored 100% on the same NAPLEX. Nothing that is equivalent here that we can use to compare Smith and Doe, e.g. schools or GPAs, but their individual NAPLEX scores.

You have confused pass rate and score. A 75% pass rate would mean that 75 out of every 100 students passed while the other 25 failed regardless of actual score ranges. We also can't usually use individual NAPLEX scores because they aren't taken until long after the match. So, we use previous year's pass rates to determine how well a school prepares their class for the NAPLEX and to predict the likelihood that a student will pass the NAPLEX on the first try.

If you look at cases of (police's) racial profiling, this is very similar. The police just cannot decide to pick or stop a person just because he is of a race or ethnic group that has high stat numbers of, let's say, crime. The police has to base his decision to pick or stop a person on what that person has just done, e.g. has he or she done anything suspicious rather belonging to a race or ethnic group ?? Similarly, the police cannot ignore checking out a person or what that person has been doing just because that person belongs to a group/race that has low stats of, e.g. crime.

This is an entirely inappropriate comparison. If you are comparing Adcom's and Residency committee's methods to the racism that underlies racial profiling you are sadly mistaken. This isn't even okay as a hyperbole. A more apt comparison would be the fact that police are more diligent reviewing license plate numbers for warrants in a area of town with a high crime rate versus the area with the lowest amount of crime. This is not a reflection of the individual, but that in certain areas of town you are less likely to find someone with warrant than others. In this case, an officer does not ignore a warrant in the low crime area, or arrest someone without cause in a high crime area; it only affects their review of other data available to them. We don't exclude based on school or invite based on school alone but it does color our review of other information available to us.

All I am saying here is we should be open-minded and judge an individual based on his or her own merits, and on things we can compare. Again, colleges and university all have different academic standards. Thus a GPAs from one school/major is not equal to one from another school/major, let alone comparing the GPA of different majors from different school at the same time. They are not equivalent to use in our comparison, why use them ??

I agree with all but the last sentence here. They are not equivalent, but we know how they are inequivalent. We know that one school is more rigorous than other, or assigns grades in a different way. We know that this school produces more graduates ready for residency/pharmacy school than another. Again, both residency programs and pharmacy schools get so many applications, we have to use every available piece of information to decide who we want to interview and who we don't.

Things that are equivalent that we can use to compare a person to another person are plenty: ACT/SAT, PCAT, MCAT, LSAT, NAPLEX, UMSLE, etc. But here you can see why I would like to see selection factors to be more standardized. We can easily compare standardized things because we are likely comparing oranges to oranges and not apples.

Except, at the moment, these things are insufficient. LSAT, UMSLE, MCAT aren't relevant here. ACT/SAT doesn't measure everything we need to know, and neither does the PCAT. I might say I will only interview those with a PCAT of 70 or above. However, this might exclude the person with a 69% on the PCAT (who had trouble on exam day) but also has a BS and masters in chemistry from UC-Berkley. While it might include someone with great test taking skills who got a 71% who only has the minimum pre-reqs from a community college. These two students do not have the same amount of potential for excellence in pharmacy school based on paper alone. Yet, I might miss out on interviewing one and regret interviewing the other.

So again, what GPA or schools could tell us about the individual ?? IMHO GPA only can tell how well the person performs academically at his or her respective school according the academic standards there. The school the individual went to does not tell much about the individual. For an example, if one donated $5M dollars to Harvard, would you agree that Harvard would accept that person's sons or daughter easily ?? In that individual case, did the person who got accepted to Harvard based on his/her parents' donation to Harvard earn their admission based on his or her own merits, e.g. superior academic performance on the SAT/ACT ?? We do not know unless we look at those standardized test scores of the individual. In many extreme cases, we all know that many got accepted and went to Ivy league colleges and universities just because they or their families are super rich and very well connected.

Yet we can judge these people in the context of what we know about the rigor of their program. Harvard has one of the top Chemistry programs in the U.S. So, if they went to Harvard and got a B.S. in chemistry and expect to graduate summa cum laude, then I would prefer their application over one with similar numbers but a program known to have a weak chemistry program (no graduate degrees for example). It may also be true that the harvard student that had no business attending that school will only squeak by on their classes. The likelihood of school being the sole criteria used to interview one candidate and reject another is so remote it isn't hardly worth talking about.

So, simply being a Harvard student does not tell us really anything unless we look at and examine the individual carefully and base our decisions on things we can compare. The same would apply for a person who goes to a "lowly" community college.

If you can name me a community college with a chemistry program as rigorous as any of the top 50 schools, then I would love to see it.

I am not opposing to look at an individual's GPA or schools to see a bigger picture of that person, but we should not be narrow-minded or generalizing. When we have to do an actual comparison, we should use things that are standardized. We, pharmacy people, are people of science. We use standardized metrics/units to compare things in science. We use double-blinded criteria and process to minimize biases and prejudice in scientific research/studies. Similarly, I think our admission/selection/ranking criteria and process should be standardized as well to ensure we are comparing apples to apples and avoiding stereotypes and eliminating/minimizing biases and prejudice. Perceptions and impressions are still very susceptible to biases and prejudice as they are subjective by their nature.

Then get into academia and do that study. This is not pharmacy science, it is educational science. It has also worked to keep some of the best schools at the top of their game for years. The system works, so no one is looking to make it different.

I do not think that is smart for them to that. I am not saying that it is not happening somewhere sometime. It might. But if words are out, they are open themselves up big time for lawsuits. Serious ones. Or that would undermine their credentials greatly. Or both.

I don't imagine that would be a battle you could win. As long as you weren't excluded based on a protected class, you can't expect to not be judge on anything else the adcom deems relevant. We do it already. We tell you the minimum to apply, but we don't tell you how we weigh each item on your application. We might also not tell you that although we will take a PCAT of 60% on the application, you will have to be pretty special to get in with anything less than an 80%.

You seem to be worrying about people can guess on standardized tests generally, which are multiple-choice exams, but not the multiple-choice exams used for regular exams in schools or NAPLEX, which are also mutiple choice. I agree that the ability to guess on a multiple-choice is an inherent flaw of all MC tests, which is very hard to eliminate. I also agree that a well written question can measure someone's knowledge very well. So I think that standardized tests like the SAT/ACT, PCAT, MCAT, NAPLEX, USMLE, etc. will always have that flaw and their questions all could be written well to minimize that flaw. Again, I see many many threads here on SDN attesting the fact that one will not score high on the current PCAT if the person has to guess on the exam without actually knowing the answers. If you read those threads closely, those people there are not discussing about improving their test taking skills, they mainly are discussing about how to review and study the materials for the exam.

I am also not saying that test-taking skills are something that will take you from a 30% to a 80%, but they might be the difference between a 70% and a 85%. People who score 90%+ on the PCAT also don't come to SDN looking for help, regardless of how much they actually knew. I should give some context (this is not to brag). I would be one of those students with exceptional test taking skills. High scores on ACT with no studying, Had a PCAT book for 1 week and hadn't finished it, and scored high. These tests might have been a measure of exceptional knowledge, but I don't think they were. They were a measure of my ability to perform well under the conditions of a standardized exam.

Oral exam is not a thing from the past. It is very alive and well in advanced learning. It is there simply because it is considered the highest form of exam (Yes, this is evident in your saying that most pharmacy students would want to slap me for suggesting an oral exam for pharmacy classes ). One example: the defending of one's PhD thesis. The thesis committee can ask, orally of course, the PhD candidate there anything in their fields with the sky is the limit. One would not be able to walk out with the PhD degree until the committee feel you know your materials enough or well enough. That is the highest form, the most challenging of examinations in order to award a candidate the highest/terminal degree or diploma in academia. To maintain objectivity and fairness, the thesis committee would not only be comprised of PhDs/professors at the same school of the PhD candidate but also of other PhDs/professors from different schools or from different and related fields.

And thesis committees don't review anywhere near the number of candidates that there are for any level of Pharmacy education.

Written/essay exams are not without shortcomings (and neither oral nor MC exams are). But while written exams could be susceptible to grader's bias, there are many ways to minimize that. In my father's days, all written exams there were graded by a panel of trained graders/professors according to one grade standard and scale (i.e. applied for everyone). For an example, if one mentions one specific thing which is right, he or she earns the point for that, etc. It would be slower to grade but then again it is not that bad if you really want to eliminate or reduce guessing on exams. In fact, we all know how "scary" it is if we have to take an essay exam vs an all MC exam

I imagine your father also took fewer and shorter exams than we do today. Or at least that was true of American education in years past.

The only reason that we see the popularity of MC exams is that it is convenient. It is convenient for test takers as all MC exams will allow people to guess for answers to some degrees (though statistically only 50% chance or less if they do not really know the real answers) and test takers do not have to wait long for the test results. Like you pointed out, MC exams are quicker and easier to grade and that is convenient for the graders.

All test or exam formats will always have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. We can pick our own poison if we have to choose only one format. But to truly measure and showcase one's competency and mastery of a particular subject or knowledge, a combination of MC, written/essay, and oral exams is not a bad idea

For large schools or large exams, MC exams are also the only feasible form of examination. Other exams would be prohibitively complicated to administer, grade, and review. We do however still administer oral, short answer, and essay exams to rotation students where we generally have <3 a month per preceptor.

It is exciting to see someone so passionate about the workings of pharmacy education. I can tell you how and why it works now, but the future might be in your hands. Consider a career in Academia while at pharmacy school, and possibly working someday with ACPE.

 

[Mur7ay]

Don't most school already impose some kind of limit

 

[oldstock]

I can neither confirm, nor deny this assumption.




Reputations at schools are what people use to gauge performance at a particular institution. Because the education provided at higher education are drastically different, then you must use something to differentiate from one institution to another. This is really only used when cases are extreme or Adcoms have a lot of experience with a particular institution.

I am glad to hear that.

The idea is that School B produces better graduates on average than School A. So, while a residency committee might judge an individual as an exception to either of these rules, we start with the assumption that the rule is true. We can't interview everyone, and candidates resumes get more and more impressive every year. This is especially true of lower tier schools. We have noticed that many of the new schools have a lot more organizations right off the bat. While these organizations might not be active at the national level it does give students the opportunity to hold more offices than at an established school where each office comes with a significant amount of work. Thus, what we know of a school also colors how we view an entire CV.

Using those assumptions run the risks of excluding good or excellent candidates from "low-tier" schools. Again, if we had to rank schools, I would like to see an official ranking published by the ACPE according to a set of categories (like those they set for accreditation) rather than opions/assumptions/experiences formed from small sets of data.

You have confused pass rate and score. A 75% pass rate would mean that 75 out of every 100 students passed while the other 25 failed regardless of actual score ranges. We also can't usually use individual NAPLEX scores because they aren't taken until long after the match.

So why are we not matching after the candiate already took the NAPLEX to use their individual scores to compare ??

So, we use previous year's pass rates to determine how well a school prepares their class for the NAPLEX and to predict the likelihood that a student will pass the NAPLEX on the first try.

Like I mentioned above, why not waiting until they all took the NAPLEX to use their individual scores to compare ?? Maybe we should have a deadline for the NAPLEX for the match ??

This is an entirely inappropriate comparison. If you are comparing Adcom's and Residency committee's methods to the racism that underlies racial profiling you are sadly mistaken. This isn't even okay as a hyperbole. A more apt comparison would be the fact that police are more diligent reviewing license plate numbers for warrants in a area of town with a high crime rate versus the area with the lowest amount of crime. This is not a reflection of the individual, but that in certain areas of town you are less likely to find someone with warrant than others. In this case, an officer does not ignore a warrant in the low crime area, or arrest someone without cause in a high crime area; it only affects their review of other data available to them. We don't exclude based on school or invite based on school alone but it does color our review of other information available to us.

Again I am glad to hear that.

I agree with all but the last sentence here. They are not equivalent, but we know how they are inequivalent. We know that one school is more rigorous than other, or assigns grades in a different way. We know that this school produces more graduates ready for residency/pharmacy school than another. Again, both residency programs and pharmacy schools get so many applications, we have to use every available piece of information to decide who we want to interview and who we don't.

I agree. But my point is that we should use more of the things that are equivalent in our direct comparisons of different candidates. Other subjective/inequivalent things should weigh less in our comparisons.

Except, at the moment, these things are insufficient. LSAT, UMSLE, MCAT aren't relevant here. ACT/SAT doesn't measure everything we need to know, and neither does the PCAT. I might say I will only interview those with a PCAT of 70 or above. However, this might exclude the person with a 69% on the PCAT (who had trouble on exam day) but also has a BS and masters in chemistry from UC-Berkley.

Nothing to prevent the person to retake the exam for a better score. I hope this individual in the example does not have trouble every time he or she has to take a standardized exam

While it might include someone with great test taking skills who got a 71% who only has the minimum pre-reqs from a community college. These two students do not have the same amount of potential for excellence in pharmacy school based on paper alone. Yet, I might miss out on interviewing one and regret interviewing the other.

I can see where you stand here. You do not think a student from a CC could be a better student than a student from a 4-year college/university, at least on paper.

Yet we can judge these people in the context of what we know about the rigor of their program. Harvard has one of the top Chemistry programs in the U.S. So, if they went to Harvard and got a B.S. in chemistry and expect to graduate summa cum laude, then I would prefer their application over one with similar numbers but a program known to have a weak chemistry program (no graduate degrees for example). It may also be true that the harvard student that had no business attending that school will only squeak by on their classes. The likelihood of school being the sole criteria used to interview one candidate and reject another is so remote it isn't hardly worth talking about.

Again, I am glad to hear that. But in my previous posts, I did quote many here, as insiders, who said that they did not even call for interviews for residency/clinical jobs or want to precept pharmacy students from "newish" schools. This the biased reality I am worrying about.

If you can name me a community college with a chemistry program as rigorous as any of the top 50 schools, then I would love to see it.

I don't need to name any name here as the names of the schools have nothing to do with the individual performance of a student. I would rather look at standardized things like PCAT or NAPLEX test scores. If you are a good student and master of your knowledge, then show me that on a standardized exam, same as everyone else. To anyone that says test score has nothing to do with real performance or potentials of a student, I say real life/real jobs are even bigger tests

Then get into academia and do that study. This is not pharmacy science, it is educational science. It has also worked to keep some of the best schools at the top of their game for years. The system works, so no one is looking to make it different.

While the current system is still working, it does not mean that there is no downside to the system or there is no room to improve. I am not saying this is pharmacy science. Since I was just a pre-pharmacy student a few months ago and am going to be a pharmacy student soon, I am concerning about how pharmacy school/residency admission process works. I would like to see a transparent, fair, and scientific process for all in pharmacy school admission and/or residency selection process.

I hope I will be in a position to do something regarding the process or research. But I would like to get the message out and see more people interested and participate to improve the system. I am under no illusion that I can do this alone

I don't imagine that would be a battle you could win. As long as you weren't excluded based on a protected class, you can't expect to not be judge on anything else the adcom deems relevant. We do it already. We tell you the minimum to apply, but we don't tell you how we weigh each item on your application. We might also not tell you that although we will take a PCAT of 60% on the application, you will have to be pretty special to get in with anything less than an 80%.

yes I know that.

I am also not saying that test-taking skills are something that will take you from a 30% to a 80%, but they might be the difference between a 70% and a 85%. People who score 90%+ on the PCAT also don't come to SDN looking for help, regardless of how much they actually knew. I should give some context (this is not to brag). I would be one of those students with exceptional test taking skills. High scores on ACT with no studying, Had a PCAT book for 1 week and hadn't finished it, and scored high. These tests might have been a measure of exceptional knowledge, but I don't think they were. They were a measure of my ability to perform well under the conditions of a standardized exam.

You underestimate yourself here how much you retain your prior knowledge. Since you are already a student with an exceptional test taking skill, I would bet you are also an exceptional student overall. You might be one of those students who have photographic memory, who just need to glance over the materials once or twice and could recall and apply the knowledge anytime later.

Had you told me that you scored high on ACT without spending a day in high school or scored high on the PCAT without taking any course in college, I would have thought that those standardized tests were useless.

Again, there is no good or excellent student who is not a good test taker imho. Test taking is a skill one must have for good grades in schools, unless the schools administer no test. Different test/exams or formats require different test taking strategies. But as a student, one must be good and skilled at test taking to advance in schools.

So, how do we find/know a good student at a school? Tests. Same with the PCAT or ACT.

And thesis committees don't review anywhere near the number of candidates that there are for any level of Pharmacy education.

well, I do not see how that could work as an excuse. In my previous post, you see from my quote from Wikipedia that the French, the German, and British do require one to defend thesis for their MD degrees. Their classes are the same sizes here like the ones in the States. If there is a will, there is a way. I see that we just do not want to do that.

I imagine your father also took fewer and shorter exams than we do today. Or at least that was true of American education in years past.

On the one hand, I do not see that's gotta do with anything here. On the other hand, fewer exams force students to have to cover for a wider base of knowledge which will require a lot of effort of a student to master that wider range of knowledge. I remember there was a few times where I only 2 exams for an entire class, 1 mid term and 1 final, and nothing else. This is a "nightmare" for a lot of students if they only have 1 or 2 exams for the whole class

I don't think the exams there were any shorter. Regardless, because the exams would be in written or oral formats, they would be always more limited in the total numbers of questions or subjects that can be covered in the same amount of time vs. multiple-choice exams. Also, the students would have no clue what to be asked, thus they had to study more and harder to cover everything that are taught. This does not take a way my point that written/oral exam will take out those great test guessers you are worrying about.

Again, MC exams are popular these days just because they are convenient. For both test takers and test designers/graders imho.

For large schools or large exams, MC exams are also the only feasible form of examination. Other exams would be prohibitively complicated to administer, grade, and review. We do however still administer oral, short answer, and essay exams to rotation students where we generally have <3 a month per preceptor.

one word: convenient

It is exciting to see someone so passionate about the workings of pharmacy education. I can tell you how and why it works now, but the future might be in your hands. Consider a career in Academia while at pharmacy school, and possibly working someday with ACPE.

I am not sure what I am going to in the future. But you might be in a position to do something now

Anyway, I am also excited to see us exchanging ideas here. (I had thought to myself that this thread might have been mostly a monologue, but it is not.) It is great to hear and learn from someone who is at a higher position than me in pharmacy admission/slection process.

I started this thread mostly because I was thinking about my situation and the admission process and those biases, stereotypes, or prejudice regarding the admission process in my case. Reading more posts here on SDN, I found out there were more and more people talking about not interviewing/hiring or precept students from "newish" schools. Honestly, I was shocked. There are certainly biases, stereotypes, or prejudice out there in the admission/selection process and I am now fully aware that they are alive and well in many many places. I hope to see our admission/selection process become more transparent and fair for everyone according to scientific/standardized standards, hopefully just in time for me in the future

 

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Update:

-I have received another acceptance from a top-tier school. Total acceptance now is 2 (1 mid-tier, 1 top-tier)

-received 7 interviews out of 9 applied, 4 done, 1 more to go, declined 2, waitlisted 2 (low-tier)

-the 2 remaining schools still not letting me know if they wanna interview or reject me

 

[blueheron]

I am glad to hear that.




Using those assumptions run the risks of excluding good or excellent candidates from "low-tier" schools. Again, if we had to rank schools, I would like to see an official ranking published by the ACPE according to a set of categories (like those they set for accreditation) rather than opions/assumptions/experiences formed from small sets of data.




So why are we not matching after the candiate already took the NAPLEX to use their individual scores to compare ??




Like I mentioned above, why not waiting until they all took the NAPLEX to use their individual scores to compare ?? Maybe we should have a deadline for the NAPLEX for the match ??




Again I am glad to hear that.




I agree. But my point is that we should use more of the things that are equivalent in our direct comparisons of different candidates. Other subjective/inequivalent things should weigh less in our comparisons.




Nothing to prevent the person to retake the exam for a better score. I hope this individual in the example does not have trouble every time he or she has to take a standardized exam




I can see where you stand here. You do not think a student from a CC could be a better student than a student from a 4-year college/university, at least on paper.




Again, I am glad to hear that. But in my previous posts, I did quote many here, as insiders, who said that they did not even call for interviews for residency/clinical jobs or want to precept pharmacy students from "newish" schools. This the biased reality I am worrying about.




I don't need to name any name here as the names of the schools have nothing to do with the individual performance of a student. I would rather look at standardized things like PCAT or NAPLEX test scores. If you are a good student and master of your knowledge, then show me that on a standardized exam, same as everyone else. To anyone that says test score has nothing to do with real performance or potentials of a student, I say real life/real jobs are even bigger tests




While the current system is still working, it does not mean that there is no downside to the system or there is no room to improve. I am not saying this is pharmacy science. Since I was just a pre-pharmacy student a few months ago and am going to be a pharmacy student soon, I am concerning about how pharmacy school/residency admission process works. I would like to see a transparent, fair, and scientific process for all in pharmacy school admission and/or residency selection process.

I hope I will be in a position to do something regarding the process or research. But I would like to get the message out and see more people interested and participate to improve the system. I am under no illusion that I can do this alone




yes I know that.




You underestimate yourself here how much you retain your prior knowledge. Since you are already a student with an exceptional test taking skill, I would bet you are also an exceptional student overall. You might be one of those students who have photographic memory, who just need to glance over the materials once or twice and could recall and apply the knowledge anytime later.

Had you told me that you scored high on ACT without spending a day in high school or scored high on the PCAT without taking any course in college, I would have thought that those standardized tests were useless.

Again, there is no good or excellent student who is not a good test taker imho. Test taking is a skill one must have for good grades in schools, unless the schools administer no test. Different test/exams or formats require different test taking strategies. But as a student, one must be good and skilled at test taking to advance in schools.

So, how do we find/know a good student at a school? Tests. Same with the PCAT or ACT.




well, I do not see how that could work as an excuse. In my previous post, you see from my quote from Wikipedia that the French, the German, and British do require one to defend thesis for their MD degrees. Their classes are the same sizes here like the ones in the States. If there is a will, there is a way. I see that we just do not want to do that.




On the one hand, I do not see that's gotta do with anything here. On the other hand, fewer exams force students to have to cover for a wider base of knowledge which will require a lot of effort of a student to master that wider range of knowledge. I remember there was a few times where I only 2 exams for an entire class, 1 mid term and 1 final, and nothing else. This is a "nightmare" for a lot of students if they only have 1 or 2 exams for the whole class

I don't think the exams there were any shorter. Regardless, because the exams would be in written or oral formats, they would be always more limited in the total numbers of questions or subjects that can be covered in the same amount of time vs. multiple-choice exams. Also, the students would have no clue what to be asked, thus they had to study more and harder to cover everything that are taught. This does not take a way my point that written/oral exam will take out those great test guessers you are worrying about.

Again, MC exams are popular these days just because they are convenient. For both test takers and test designers/graders imho.




one word: convenient




I am not sure what I am going to in the future. But you might be in a position to do something now

Anyway, I am also excited to see us exchanging ideas here. (I had thought to myself that this thread might have been mostly a monologue, but it is not.) It is great to hear and learn from someone who is at a higher position than me in pharmacy admission/slection process.

I started this thread mostly because I was thinking about my situation and the admission process and those biases, stereotypes, or prejudice regarding the admission process in my case. Reading more posts here on SDN, I found out there were more and more people talking about not interviewing/hiring or precept students from "newish" schools. Honestly, I was shocked. There are certainly biases, stereotypes, or prejudice out there in the admission/selection process and I am now fully aware that they are alive and well in many many places. I hope to see our admission/selection process become more transparent and fair for everyone according to scientific/standardized standards, hopefully just in time for me in the future

So what you are trying to say is that everything should be standardized, and the PCAT or other standardized test could be an acceptable sole comparison?

You are also implying that interviews are pointless, because they are certainly biased. The whole point is to try to get a feeling for your character. If you have a 4.0 BS and a 99 composite, but come in acting like you are gonna run the place, they are gonna pass. Even if they could certainly handle the program and do well academically.

Bottom line, the school sets criteria for what they think will produce the most successful pharmacists in the industry. If that means they want a BS, minimum 3.5 and 85 composite, it is their right, same as saying they want courses less than 7 years old. Sure it could exclude some candidates that could make decent pharmacists, but they would likely have a stronger program. Would you rather hire someone from UNC where the average student had the above credentials, or someone from South College's first class, who I've never heard of turning someone away?

 

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So what you are trying to say is that everything should be standardized, and the PCAT or other standardized test could be an acceptable sole comparison?

You are also implying that interviews are pointless, because they are certainly biased. The whole point is to try to get a feeling for your character. If you have a 4.0 BS and a 99 composite, but come in acting like you are gonna run the place, they are gonna pass. Even if they could certainly handle the program and do well academically.

Bottom line, the school sets criteria for what they think will produce the most successful pharmacists in the industry. If that means they want a BS, minimum 3.5 and 85 composite, it is their right, same as saying they want courses less than 7 years old. Sure it could exclude some candidates that could make decent pharmacists, but they would likely have a stronger program. Would you rather hire someone from UNC where the average student had the above credentials, or someone from South College's first class, who I've never heard of turning someone away?

Let me start off by saying that I am not looking for a fight. I am not saying you do, but I would like to discuss this issue with you and learn about the process.

I did NOT say that standardized test should be the ONLY acceptable comparison. I am saying that we should standardize the admission/selection process to avoid biases, prejudice, and stereotypes. A standardized process would allow us to compare oranges to oranges and not oranges to apples imho. There are many things (e.g. school ranking, GPA, age of prereq, etc) in the process that we can standardize.

I also did NOT say that interviews are pointless. I agree with you that the purpose of interview is to learn/get a feeling about characters. But in my experience, some schools are weighing the interviews heavier than other schools. I saw some schools based their final decision SOLELY on the interviews while some graded the interviews and assigned values to include in their calculation for a total score on which they based their final decision on. For the schools basing their final decision solely on the interviews, my question is that if you really think that you could learn about the whole person in that short period of time ?? Interviews are something that is getting better as time goes on imho. I know I did better and better in later interviews vs my earlier ones.

I did NOT say that schools could not set their own criteria. But I am saying that they should base their criteria on something more concrete (i.e. it would be great if the criteria are based on solid scientific evidence, e.g. age for prereq, where the line should be, how long before a person do not remember a thing they learned before, how to remedy, etc) and not something that is totally arbitrary.

Just some examples I read here from the posts on SDN, I already think that school's rankings are arbitrary for the time being. NAPLEX pass rates are used in school ranking. Someone pointed out that,

My touting of Maryland is well established so I see no need to rehash. But I will say this much - unless NAPLEX pass rates are truly atrocious (<80%), then its rather meaningless. Some schools flat out do not teach to the NAPLEX - Maryland doesnt. Their curriculum barely acknowledges the existence of the NAPLEX. Other schools specifically teach to the exam. As a result, pass rates are different, but not statistically different. So at the end of the day, your ability to pass the exam is less about the school and more about the student - you. The curricula at all schools meet standards set by the ACPE so where schools distinguish themselves is in the ancillary benefits they offer. Its not about the classroom (there is truth to the idea that a pharmd is a pharmd) - its about what you do with your time advancing yourself professionally outside of the classroom and some schools are simply superior in that regard. Between a wide array of rotations to research, administration to teaching, advocacy to networking - not all schools are made equal. So I recommend you take a long hard look at where you want to go in life (with a pharmd, that is) and which school will clear the brush and pave the road. No sense wasting time doing those things yourself.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/usc-vs-rutgers-vs-jefferson-vs-maryland.1062435/

so how would we agree on what schools are better than others based on NAPLEX pass rates ?? Here I see a need for standardizing of the process, in this example: school ranking.

As for your last question, "Would you rather hire someone from UNC where the average student had the above credentials, or someone from South College's first class, who I've never heard of turning someone away?", my answer is that, if I were the one sitting in those selection committee, I would rather look closely at the individual candidate to learn more what the person has done for his/her pharmacy education (e.g. the person's score on the NAPLEX) and to advance his/her career (e.g. work/school experience and recommendation) to see a bigger picture than looking ONLY at what school he went to to make my judgement.

But again, the reality you have pointed out in your last question, in my knowledge , are alive and well in many many places. If you read my posts above, I did several quotes about this reality. There are already talks about not even call to interview for residency if the pharmacy graduates are from low-tier schools and not even want to precept student from "newish" schools. This is a "unspoken" or "unofficial" reality that I am fully aware of. Is it fair to ALL ?? I would like to leave it to you to answer. Just in my humble opinion, a standardized process could help in those situations.

 

[blueheron]

I'm not fighting, I just have no idea where you are coming from asking why isn't the selection process such and such way. My take on this is based on going through school with dozens of pre-whatever friends, earning a chemistry degree, and working in academia.

You mentioned already a couple times above about getting rid of bias in selections, which would mean getting rid of interviews, especially non closed file interviews. You also said in your first post that a poor PCAT can negate a good GPA regardless of the situation. And unless you have a double standard, this means someone with a 2.0 and 98 should just get right in, because it seems you think should be heavily weighted.

One could say GPA or grades are arbitrary, say between a 2.9 and 3.0, or a C- and C. But would you argue that schools should allow C- for prereqs or not have a 2.5 cutoff? I remember things better from last semester than the courses I took in 2007, simple as that. Sure, I took cell biology in 2008 and made a 97 on the PCAT, but that doesn't mean I would ace a cell test like I did back then. You forget things you don't use every day. It's common sense that the longer you've had the course, the more you will forget. You seem to think this is not the case. Sure the difference between 6 and 7 years might be arbitrary, but somewhere in there your memory of a subject will degrade without normal use, and you have to draw the line somewhere. That's the standard you are talking about, just not the one you want. It's the same across the board for the school that sets it.

But of course even the PCAT doesn't say you have mastery, it just compares you to a norm group. If most people missed 75% of the questions and you only missed 50% but got a 90, does that prove you will make a good student? Obviously not.

If I didn't like the criteria of a school, I would apply somewhere else. Simple as that. I almost didn't apply to my school because they required anatomy/physiology and another close state school doesn't. I'm not complaining that they "arbitrarily" want 30 hours more prereq coursework. I could ask what does a few extra courses (especially non-science) do to make me a better pharmacist? Should I demand scientific concrete evidence, or just see that my school has a MUCH higher job placement rate, and much higher "ranking" I might add as well. Reputations develop for a reason, and that's why I chose to do a little more to go there. I would only hire someone from 2 of the 6 schools in my state based on reputation/quality, and all have better than 80% NAPLEX that have graduated classes. If you look at the job placement rate, most people must be along the same train of thought.

 

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I'm not fighting, I just have no idea where you are coming from asking why isn't the selection process such and such way. My take on this is based on going through school with dozens of pre-whatever friends, earning a chemistry degree, and working in academia.

You mentioned already a couple times above about getting rid of bias in selections, which would mean getting rid of interviews, especially non closed file interviews. You also said in your first post that a poor PCAT can negate a good GPA regardless of the situation. And unless you have a double standard, this means someone with a 2.0 and 98 should just get right in, because it seems you think should be heavily weighted.

One could say GPA or grades are arbitrary, say between a 2.9 and 3.0, or a C- and C. But would you argue that schools should allow C- for prereqs or not have a 2.5 cutoff? I remember things better from last semester than the courses I took in 2007, simple as that. Sure, I took cell biology in 2008 and made a 97 on the PCAT, but that doesn't mean I would ace a cell test like I did back then. You forget things you don't use every day. It's common sense that the longer you've had the course, the more you will forget. You seem to think this is not the case. Sure the difference between 6 and 7 years might be arbitrary, but somewhere in there your memory of a subject will degrade without normal use, and you have to draw the line somewhere. That's the standard you are talking about, just not the one you want. It's the same across the board for the school that sets it.

But of course even the PCAT doesn't say you have mastery, it just compares you to a norm group. If most people missed 75% of the questions and you only missed 50% but got a 90, does that prove you will make a good student? Obviously not.

If I didn't like the criteria of a school, I would apply somewhere else. Simple as that. I almost didn't apply to my school because they required anatomy/physiology and another close state school doesn't. I'm not complaining that they "arbitrarily" want 30 hours more prereq coursework. I could ask what does a few extra courses (especially non-science) do to make me a better pharmacist? Should I demand scientific concrete evidence, or just see that my school has a MUCH higher job placement rate, and much higher "ranking" I might add as well. Reputations develop for a reason, and that's why I chose to do a little more to go there. I would only hire someone from 2 of the 6 schools in my state based on reputation/quality, and all have better than 80% NAPLEX that have graduated classes. If you look at the job placement rate, most people must be along the same train of thought.

I am not demanding anything. I do have the rights to think or question for myself why things are the way they are or not the way they should be, etc. Those posts of mine above are merely my ideas/thoughts/reasoning and suggestions. Those ideas/thoughts/reasoning and suggestions are surely not complete yet. But you seem to miss my points completely. I am not going to rerun and argue again every little details here (e.g. the PCAT or GPA).

If you read my posts, you have to realize that I did do my research and apply only to the schools which would be more likely to accept me than not. And like you, I did talk to many people, including pre-etc students, pharmacists, medicals doctors, college professors, etc. Like you, I also did earn a degree in Biology, good GPA and PCAT, and get accepted to a top-tier school.

But that does not mean I am right because I did all of those things. Neither are you. I would like to see my thoughts and arguments stand on their own merits. Likewise, simply being a student of such and such school does not automatically make one a superb or bad pharmacist imho. But then again, I am fully understand and aware of what you are saying there. Personally, I belong to the "merit" camp and not the "brand" camp. Reality is that there are people standing on both sides.

For the last part, I think, maybe you do not miss my points, it is just that you might not be open to what I am saying here, no matter what I say. The things you are saying above just confirm the reality I already know.

Thanks again for your comments !!

 

[blueheron]

Sometimes merit and brand are the same. Which is why instead of going to the school in my city, I am moving 400 miles away. It is a degree mill. I work with people who taught there and quit because they weren't allowed to fail people. "They paid good money to go here," the dean said. They also accept anyone who pays them. Not saying every person there doesn't have potential, but if that was the only thing I knew about them that's how I'd make the choice. Even you refer to schools by tiers, so must be smart enough to know all PharmDs are not created equal.

I am open to your ideas, I just fail to see how they help is all. I also fail to see how the original question is a problem, and addressed that already. I personally think the system works pretty well, but I only applied to one school, so you've more experience there. I'm just interested to see how the first classes of our three newest schools are going to fare.

 

[oldstock]

Sometimes merit and brand are the same. Which is why instead of going to the school in my city, I am moving 400 miles away. It is a degree mill. I work with people who taught there and quit because they weren't allowed to fail people. "They paid good money to go here," the dean said. They also accept anyone who pays them.

Like you just said, merit and brand are the same sometimes. There are always exceptions to the rules. But in general, I think merits and brands are not the same.

I have never heard of the situation you have mentioned. If it were true, it would be really an outrageous thing to know. I would be shocked too !!

If you do not mind, can you tell what school it was ??

Not saying every person there doesn't have potential, but if that was the only thing I knew about them that's how I'd make the choice. Even you refer to schools by tiers, so must be smart enough to know all PharmDs are not created equal.

I am sure that if you or I had an opportunity to be in a position to hire or interview, we would have more information to base our judgments and to make our decisions than only the schools the candidates went to.

Regarding the PharmD, I agree with you all PharmD are not created equal. But I think it is more about the individual than the school the person went to. In this case, DrDrug2012, which I quoted a couple of posts above, said it very well already.

I am open to your ideas, I just fail to see how they help is all. I also fail to see how the original question is a problem, and addressed that already. I personally think the system works pretty well, but I only applied to one school, so you've more experience there. I'm just interested to see how the first classes of our three newest schools are going to fare.

Thank you very much for being open-minded. It is not very easy to have a good discussion and debate. Not that I am any good at it, but I am learning how to do it as well.

My original concern was about how some pharmacy schools assigned some specific values to their age limit for prereq. I was curious how they came up with their numbers, on what kind of things that they based their numbers on. The reality is, they do not have the same number for cut off but vary depending what schools we are looking at. So according to one school, they think a person already forgot or lost their materials after 6 years, another might think it is still ok for that same person unless his or her prereq is older than 10 years on, etc.

I did not fight that. I did not demand them to change their admission policies. Instead, I did a research to come up with a list of schools which were more likely than not to accept me and that my prereq, being the way it was, would fit right in.

So the whole thing was about me wondering and being curious about the whole admission process in general, how it could be transparent and fair to all.

Later I heard talks about how it was important for what pharmacy school one went to. How pharmacist insiders would admit they would only interview or hire pharmacy graduate fore residency based solely on the names of the schools, or how pharmacists would turn away pharmacy students from "newish" schools and refuse to precept them. And I was shocked to hear about those things.

My mind is stuck on the idea of how we would guarantee and ensure fair and equal opportunities for everyone. If the system is that of private corporations, I would have no question. The pharmacy education system already has to adhere to standards set by ACPE, AACP, etc. I hold it to higher standards than corporations. Is there any need to have more standardization regarding the admission process and residency selection process ?? I think there are many cases to support for the need for more standardization for those processes as adcoms or residency selection committees still have to compare many different things that are nonequivalent. Thus their decisions might be biased and the result is that many good or excellent individuals or candidates did not have their chances to shine based on their own merits. The current system is not broken, but it is not perfect and there is still a lot of rooms to improve imho.

Regarding my application for pharmacy schools, I did not think that I could get in with only one shot. So I had to apply to many different schools accordingly. My hat to anyone who got it with one shot. That is excellent !!

Thanks again for being open to my ideas. I am open to your ideas as well !!

 

[oldstock]

this is an interesting threads about "no name" schools vs big name schools.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...y-for-underdogs-aka-me.1057979/#post-14964830

the take from this again, for me is we should compare apples to apples and not oranges

 

[oldstock]

Update:

-I have received another acceptance from a top-tier school. Total acceptance now is 2 (1 mid-tier, 1 top-tier)

-received 7 interviews out of 9 applied, 4 done, 1 more to go, declined 2, waitlisted 2 (low-tier)

-the 2 remaining schools still not letting me know if they wanna interview or reject me

Update:

-received another interview invitation today: total interview invitations is 8 / 9 applied, 4 done, 2 more interviews to go, declined 2

-2 acceptance (1 top-tier + 1 mid tier), 2 waitlist (2 low-tier)

-1 remaining school which I have not heard anything from since my PHARMCAS application on Feb 3rd (either rejection or interview offer)