Pharmacy school admission statistics

[gwarm01]

Anyone know of a decent source on this subject? Some colleagues and I were discussing the decline in quality of pharmacy students rotating through recently. We've all heard anecdotes of sub-3.0 GPA, score of 30 on PCAT type of students being accepted, and the general consensus is that admission standards have dropped in a lot of schools recently.

The latest data I could find was from 2008: http://www.aacp.org/resources/student/pharmacyforyou/admissions/Documents/PSAR1011_Table8.pdf

Looks like Nova had a mean GPA of 2.71, and this was 7 years ago. Maybe that explains what I'm seeing.

Anyway, I'm just curious if the rumors of the declining standards have any merit. Hard to see the profession progressing forward into more prominent clinical roles if our future colleagues are such low achievers.

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[Son_Goku]

What do you expect? These private institutions are all about the $$$

 

[MyRealNameIs]

You can't possibly believe that schools that have average GPA of less than 3.4 are pumping out clinical pharmacists....

Those students probably are going straight to retail pharmacy.

 

[y0ssarian87]

You can't possibly believe that schools that have average GPA of less than 3.4 are pumping out clinical pharmacists....

Those students probably are going straight to retail pharmacy.

Eh, I don't put too much stock into any one statistic. I personally had a terrible GPA in undergrad (< 2.8), but I'm doing well in pharmacy school -- Rho Chi, PLS, president of a big student org, dual degree program, won a competitive national award for students, great work and internship experiences, lots of research experience, and more. I know a couple other people in my class who are in a similar situation. They had very low UG GPAs, but are killing it in pharmacy school. (Caveat: we all had >95th %ile PCATs.) Generally these people are older with a bit more focus. Many used to be the lazy, procrastinator type, but now have things together after a few years of working. Hard to predict their aptitude for clinical pharmacy from an undergraduate GPA from about 10 years ago that may not have been in a major that's related to medicine or life science.

Edited to add: Obviously my experience is not that of the majority, but several students with grades like mine can do some damage to the class's average GPA. Schools that don't look at the PCAT will generally not have this issue.

 

[NejixRockS]

you can check some of the statistics in the PharmCAS school listings. (http://www.pharmcas.org/school-directory/#/pharmd/general-information)
Thanks god NOVA changed for the good since then. They kicked the old dean and the school has slowly improved over the past few years. The average GPA of the 2019 class is 3.46.

 

[MyRealNameIs]

I am not talking about a few student.
If your school has an AVERAGE gpa of less than 3.4, it is probably not a competitive school. Sure there are some people with low gpa that do well. And I am sure a good admission board will recognize it and pick those students. But if your average student body consists of people with gpa of less than 3.4, it is probably not a good school. Plenty of people with high gpa that wants to be in pharmacy.

 

[y0ssarian87]

I am not talking about a few student.
If your school has an AVERAGE gpa of less than 3.4, it is probably not a competitive school. Sure there are some people with low gpa that do well. And I am sure a good admission board will recognize it and pick those students. But if your average student body consists of people with gpa of less than 3.4, it is probably not a good school. Plenty of people with high gpa that wants to be in pharmacy.

Not sure where you picked an average of 3.4 from as being the indicator of a competitive school or not. Additionally, there are clear discrepancies between the way certain schools report GPA.

http://www.aacp.org/resources/stude...quirements/Documents/PSAR 1516 -- Table 5.pdf

Incarnate Word with a 3.8? Rhode Island with a 4.1? Kentucky with a 3.3?

Welcome to pharmacy school admissions where everything's made up and points don't matter.

 

[Farcus]

when i went to nova, about 2 years ago gpa of my class was 3.4 i think, about 16-20 went for PGY1 including me

 

[gwarm01]

Not sure where you picked an average of 3.4 from as being the indicator of a competitive school or not. Additionally, there are clear discrepancies between the way certain schools report GPA.

http://www.aacp.org/resources/student/pharmacyforyou/admissions/admissionrequirements/Documents/PSAR 1516 -- Table 5.pdf

Incarnate Word with a 3.8? Rhode Island with a 4.1? Kentucky with a 3.3?

Welcome to pharmacy school admissions where everything's made up and points don't matter.

Hey, you inadvertently answered my original question by providing this chart! I couldn't find it on the aacp.org website. Where is it located?

It also shoots down my theory of pharmacy schools closing once students realize how risky being a pharmacist is and stop enrolling. Most schools listed still have 4+ applicants for every seat.

 

[y0ssarian87]

Hey, you inadvertently answered my original question by providing this chart! I couldn't find it on the aacp.org website. Where is it located?

It also shoots down my theory of pharmacy schools closing once students realize how risky being a pharmacist is and stop enrolling. Most schools listed still have 4+ applicants for every seat.

I googled "psar aacp".

I don't know if schools will close, but application numbers have dropped at schools. The application-to-enrollment ratios appear lower in the recent publication. Though, this could be a dilution effect. That is, the pool of pharmacy applicants has stayed the same, but with more schools available to apply to, the number of applications per school have dropped. This is a terrible statistic to use, because it's meaningless with regard to selectivity. It doesn't tell you acceptance rates.

You may find this interesting: http://www.aacp.org/meetingsandevents/pastmeetings/2013/Documents/PharmCASUpdate2013-14AW.pdf

It's a couple of years old, but it shows a relatively consistent number of applicants while number of schools drastically increase. [slide 6]

Additional interesting slides:

So there's your average accepted pharmacy school student: GPA 3.38, PCAT 52nd %ile.

 

[rasdent1234]

Incarnate Word with a 3.8? Rhode Island with a 4.1? Kentucky with a 3.3?

Welcome to pharmacy school admissions where everything's made up and points don't matter.

Rhode Island probably includes students with only HS GPA. Not sure about Kentucky and Incarnate Ward though.

 

[pillpharmer14]

Interesting thread. There is no question that the quality is decreasing due to increasing number of schools. Also, many schools may post their minimum criteria but it's all up to the admissions board. I had multiple classmates that didn't meet our posted minimum criteria that were accepted, and ended up doing well in school and landing hospital jobs. So really the question is how good of a predictor of intelligence/work ethic are the PCAT and GPA combo?

 

[MyRealNameIs]

Not sure where you picked an average of 3.4 from as being the indicator of a competitive school or not. Additionally, there are clear discrepancies between the way certain schools report GPA.

http://www.aacp.org/resources/student/pharmacyforyou/admissions/admissionrequirements/Documents/PSAR 1516 -- Table 5.pdf

Incarnate Word with a 3.8? Rhode Island with a 4.1? Kentucky with a 3.3?

Welcome to pharmacy school admissions where everything's made up and points don't matter.

It was my guess based on the average gpa of decent schools But according to your statistic, I think I was pretty close haha. Average GPA of students accepted is around 3.4 so a school that consists of students that are lower than average is probably not a good school. My point was that a school with average GPA of 2.7 is not the school where many students are graduating to become clinical pharmacists so its silly to be worried about that.

Those schools are 0-6 program that accept high school students. You can't compare 0-6 programs with a 4 year program with gpa

 

[y0ssarian87]

It was my guess based on the average gpa of decent schools But according to your statistic, I think I was pretty close haha. Average GPA of students accepted is around 3.4 so a school that consists of students that are lower than average is probably not a good school. My point was that a school with average GPA of 2.7 is not the school where many students are graduating to become clinical pharmacists so its silly to be worried about that.

Those schools are 0-6 program that accept high school students. You can't compare 0-6 programs with a 4 year program with gpa

But there are no schools with average GPAs listed of less than 3.0, so you wouldn't expect to see schools with GPA that low. If you even glance at the data, you'll notice the range of average entering GPAs is not very wide. It's difficult to make meaningful comparisons between schools that have such small differences in GPA.

Incarnate Word is not 0-6. URI is, but regardless, PharmCAS GPAs cannot be greater than 4.0. They are unweighted. There is no reason for an average GPA to be listed as a 4.1 unless schools are making up their own version of a GPA, which would render comparisons utterly useless. Additionally there are only a few schools listed with an average GPA of less than 3.4, and some of them (like Kentucky) are good programs. If the average admitted student's GPA is 3.4 according to PharmCAS, this makes me think that schools are inflating their entering class GPA.

If I had more time, I'd love to look more closely at the quartiles and range of average school's GPA.

When each school uses a different methodology to calculate average GPA (which I suspect is the case), comparisons cannot be made.

 

[MyRealNameIs]

You are right. GPA is not a good indicator and I concede my point.

But my reply was mainly toward the OP who said Nova had a mean GPA of 2.71 and he is concerned about the declining quality of student. I used 3.4 just as a vantage point instead of saying "decent GPA."

 

[y0ssarian87]

You are right. GPA is not a good indicator and I concede my point.

But my reply was mainly toward the OP who said Nova had a mean GPA of 2.71 and he is concerned about the declining quality of student. I used 3.4 just as a vantage point instead of saying "decent GPA."

I understand. Actually, most of my frustration comes from the apparent lack of transparency and standardization.

 

[Confused321]

So there's your average accepted pharmacy school student: GPA 3.38, PCAT 52nd %ile.

is this average for pharmacy schools only for recent years or has pharmacy schools always had an average of 3.3?
and why is it that 52% is average for admission? is the PCAT weighted less than GPA?

 

[VeeSee]

I know people who were on Ro Chi who went into retail.

Retail pharmacists actually do what pharmacy is. They dispense. The job might suck with an over the top workload and volume but it is what pharmacy actually is.

Clinical is honestly an easier job with less pressure and stress

A hospital can do just fine without a clinical pharmacist, but a retail pharmacy would see many more issues with an unlicensed tech at verification going through the DUR.

The point is that yes the brightest students will likely go for clinical jobs but it doesn't mean that the weak students all go into retail. The best practioners of pharmacy are in retail. There is a reason why retail pays more.

 

[gwarm01]

I know people who were on Ro Chi who went into retail.

Retail pharmacists actually do what pharmacy is. They dispense. The job might suck with an over the top workload and volume but it is what pharmacy actually is.

Clinical is honestly an easier job with less pressure and stress

A hospital can do just fine without a clinical pharmacist, but a retail pharmacy would see many more issues with an unlicensed tech at verification going through the DUR.

The point is that yes the brightest students will likely go for clinical jobs but it doesn't mean that the weak students all go into retail. The best practioners of pharmacy are in retail. There is a reason why retail pays more.

Plenty of dispensing jobs to be had in hospitals as well, and similarly low stress.

 

[VeeSee]

Plenty of dispensing jobs to be had in hospitals as well, and similarly low stress.

I've seen hospital pharmacists play solitaire and put their feet up

its nothing

 

[EyeTeeFarmer]

I know people who were on Ro Chi who went into retail.

Retail pharmacists actually do what pharmacy is. They dispense. The job might suck with an over the top workload and volume but it is what pharmacy actually is.

Clinical is honestly an easier job with less pressure and stress

A hospital can do just fine without a clinical pharmacist, but a retail pharmacy would see many more issues with an unlicensed tech at verification going through the DUR.

The point is that yes the brightest students will likely go for clinical jobs but it doesn't mean that the weak students all go into retail. The best practioners of pharmacy are in retail. There is a reason why retail pays more.

I'm glad everyone liked the fact you steered this conversation off topic. I thought we were just talking about weak students entering pharmacy school, not instigating another tired retail vs. clinical thread.

 

[gwarm01]

I haven't seen a retail vs. clinical thread in years. We are more focused on the oversupply and all of the problems that will cause.

I've seen hospital pharmacists play solitaire and put their feet up

its nothing

Yeah, it's a pretty sweet gig. I like hospital staffing. You get to do a little bit of everything and can even take a coffee break.