I believe you've mistaken to understand the growing competition for pharmacy school admission in the recent years.
The reason why so many pharmacy schools are opening now is because of the dramatic increase in the number of pharmacy applicants. Schools are businesses too and they see the growing demand in students wanting to become pharmacists as an opportunity for their institution. There is money to be made and a growing elderly population that needs the care of pharmacists.
As long as our elderly population keeps growing rapidly, we will anticipate a possible shortage in certain health care professionals. Hence, more health care professionals like doctors, pharmacists, dentists, nurses, etc are needed and more schools are required to train these professionals.
The competition for pharmacy admission is nothing like what it was 10 years ago, 5 years ago, or even a year ago. Ask any pharmacy school administrator, and they will tell you there is a dramatic increase in the number of completed applications they received in past three year.
For many applicants with a possible blemish on their transcripts or statistics, a back up school is absolutely required. Most of us understand why HICP was a disaster worth noting. But if it were to happen again, rest assure, many of us do want to become pharmacists bad enough to take similar risks. (The schools know this)
Since this school has a D.O. program, I too consider it better than just a stand alone school. To me, it's worth the risk. I'm sure many of you may agree.