Hello, all
Before I give any advise, I must say I am 2007 NOVA graduated Pharmacist, currently practicing in Jersey City, NJ.
Also, congratulation to those who got admitted to PharmD program. And good luck to those who are trying next year.
I want to participate in couple of discussion here. First with NOVA. I am proud of being NOVA alumni. However, if I have to chose again, I would not recommend NOVA. For couple of reason:
1) NOVA does not challenge you enough. Majority of the students are repeaters. Meaning, they have applied 2-3 times for admission, and not just in NOVA but various other universities. NOVA has tendency of admitting repeaters. These are average group of students. And that has forced NOVA to keep passing grade to 70%. If you are smart and talented than you should considered other university where you can be challenged. However, if you are like me, who decided to pursue the career while having family than you should consider NOVA because you will be able to balance out your career and family life.
2) You are going to pay almost 100K for your education. You would insist of having professor who take class. Why would you pay 100K to get educated from a professor who is practicing in Puerto Rico ?
3) Pharmacy is already saturating. Even in South Florida, turn to Classified, and try to find a Pharmacy Job in 250 miles radius. You will hardly find a one. I know colleagues of mine who are working as Pharmacy Technicians at Walgreen and CVS in hope to find a Pharmacy position in near future. You have to take 3 years of your college time in consideration when hoping for Job. Future is clinical residency. And NOVA has the lowest ratio of student getting residency.
4) As far as the admission process is concerned, NOVA is one of the most unorganized institute I have attended. You must submit whatever is required. If you are plan to submit anything extra; such as SOP, GRE score, PCAT than make sure you have comparably higher score. Because if you submit they will wight your profile on base of the score, and you will be asked to explain your lower score during interview.
Final word, judge yourself on base of your experience, education, talent, future plan, family, geographical preference and than decide. NOVA is not the end of the world. There are far more better colleges than NOVA. In today's world Quality of education is far more important than length and cost of the education. In all PharmD university, the differeces are all about couple of thousands and couple of semester, but good university will you put you further ahead than others.
Good luck to all.