USC TAP(Pre-Pharmacy Program)

From my experience, some of the TAP students aren't necessarily as bright as you would think. In an ochem lab, there was a student who kept trying to get answers out of the TA and wanting to take shortcuts at every step and not turn in his products. My TA got fed up and just told him flat out that he'd never want him touching any of his meds . But I think with any program, you don't always weed out the kids who aren't as focused as others or want to be in the profession for other reasons. I'm not sure what their GPAs are or if they had to do amazing things during high school to get in, but they didn't seem like exceptionally smart or better than the other biology kids.

To better answer your question, I believe they put a cap on how many they accept. The number of pre-pharmacy students is very small compared to the number of pre-meds (and getting into the BacMD program is one of the hardest things to get into, I can say that for sure), but I don't think the interest in the program is that low. That's a little less than 10% of the class, which seems reasonable.

I don't think it was that hard to get in. When I interviewed for it, the advisor told me about 100 students apply and around 40 get in? I could be wrong, but if you want to know for sure, try emailing them.

My gpa was 4.1 but I think the main thing that got me in was my volunteer and shadowing experience at hospitals, which led to my decision to apply. Having a clear cut explanation to why I wanted to go into pharmacy really helped. If you're applying, good luck!