Do pharmacy schools take where you attended undergrad into consideration?

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lizp

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I graduated from UC Berkeley, which is the #1-ranked public university in the states. However, I graduated with a 2.8 GPA which I know is not a competitive GPA for pharmacy school.

My question is: Will the fact that I graduated from a top public university help me out? Or do pharmacy schools not take it into consideration at all?
 
Also, I'm re-taking a couple prereqs that I got C/C- on at a cc...and so far they have been easy A's. These same classes at Berkeley were MUCH harder. I'm wondering if the Admissions Committee will recognize that the classes taken at some schools may be a lot more difficult than classes taken at another (like a cc)
 
This is just my opinion, but your grades should be more important than the school you went to. And I don't think the prestige of the school is enough to make up for bad grades....

Again, this is just my opinion (and I'm not familiar with how American pharmacy schools rank applicants, so take what you will from my statements).
 
lizp said:
I graduated from UC Berkeley, which is the #1-ranked public university in the states. However, I graduated with a 2.8 GPA which I know is not a competitive GPA for pharmacy school.

My question is: Will the fact that I graduated from a top public university help me out? Or do pharmacy schools not take it into consideration at all?
Click to expand...

I'm sure it'll be taken into consideration especially in California, where the reputation of Cal precedes itself. Whether it's enough to get you over the "3.0 floor", is anyone's guess, but it's likely. If you had any reasons other than "it was hard", you could also work that into your personal statement and/or discuss it @ interviews.


That said, where do you want to apply? There will likely be Cal students who did the same classes you did but achieved much higher grades also vying for positions in the schools... How do you persuade the AdComms to give you a spot over a similar Cal student who got mostly As?

Do you have any ECs?
 
lizp said:
I graduated from UC Berkeley, which is the #1-ranked public university in the states. However, I graduated with a 2.8 GPA which I know is not a competitive GPA for pharmacy school.

My question is: Will the fact that I graduated from a top public university help me out? Or do pharmacy schools not take it into consideration at all?
Click to expand...

Rankings are written on the same paper as Charmin, so you need to take that for what it's worth.

Eventually this thread will bog down into a 'My school is better than your school' debate, but before that answers the question is generally no. Rankings themselves can be extremely biased depending on who does them and it does not matter a ton which uni you go to.
 
I understand, I was just asking because while attending Cal, the notion that "Graduating from UC Berkeley will take you a long way and will open so many doors!" has been pounded into our heads by our counselors and professors. So I'm HOPING that's true and that I can get a high PCAT score to offset my low GPA.

As far as pharmacy experience and EC's:
I have been working as a clerk in the pharmacy department of an independent store for the past two months. I also interned at a pharmaceutical company one summer.
And while in college, I was a member of a community service fraternity.
 
Funny. My undergrad is ranked at #121 overall and #60 for public universities and I got into 1 top 5 and a top 10 pharmacy school...and I took most of my pre-reqs @ CC. I'd say it is safe to assume that what university you went to means:
turd.png


unless it is Harvard or something 🙂
 
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rxlea said:
Funny. My undergrad is ranked at #121 overall and #60 for public universities and I got into 1 top 5 and a top 10 pharmacy school...and I took most of my pre-reqs @ CC. I'd say it is safe to assume that what university you went to means:
turd.png


unless it is Harvard or something 🙂
Click to expand...

Yeah, but those pharmacy school rankings are the biggest pieces of **** ever.
 
lizp said:
I understand, I was just asking because while attending Cal, the notion that "Graduating from UC Berkeley will take you a long way and will open so many doors!" has been pounded into our heads by our counselors and professors. So I'm HOPING that's true and that I can get a high PCAT score to offset my low GPA.

As far as pharmacy experience and EC's:
I have been working as a clerk in the pharmacy department of an independent store for the past two months. I also interned at a pharmaceutical company one summer.
And while in college, I was a member of a community service fraternity.
Click to expand...

With plenty of experience, EC's and a high PCAT score (and some awesome essays), you have a shot but you shouldn't limit yourself to just Cali schools...you need some safety schools too.
 
lizp said:
I was talking about PUBLIC universities and was going by this:
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-top-public

And I wasn't trying to say that my college is better than anyone else's, I'm just asking if pharmacy schools see it that way
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Ah gotcha.

It may be true when you're looking for jobs and whatnot when people want brand recognition. For this type of thing though, it does not.

Case in point, I was accepted to 4 schools and my undergrad isn't even listed on any of those lol
 
I think it may play a little role in CA schools, especially if you go to a UC like Berkeley. Though I hope not because I go to a CSU.
 
I think it does play somewhat of a role too. We received a list of our classmates and which school they came from during the Welcome reception. I want to say at least 75% was from a UC, although there were only about 50-60 students on the list at that time..

dnguyen401 said:
I think it may play a little role in CA schools, especially if you go to a UC like Berkeley. Though I hope not because I go to a CSU.
Click to expand...
 
I'm going with Passion4Sci on this one.

Rankings/reputation are not useless or inaccurate, rather just imprecise. General truths do exist but say 10 consecutively listed schools can't really be differentiated. Colleges are not made equal and to disregard the quality (based on generally accepted metrics like rankings and reputation) altogether when holistically reviewing profiles is rather shortsighted.

On that note, riding on the coattail of a school ain't gonna cut it. Like P4Sci says, there are gonna be Cal students with way better GPAs and assuming all else is equal, they're gonna get the preference. The only time when it'll be useful is when you're being compared to someone with similar stats, but they had to make a decision between you and someone graduating from some random CSU.
 
School reputation can mean a lot on a regional level...or with certain programs although usually more so in highly specialized fields...
 
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b1234 said:
School reputation can mean a lot on a regional level...or with certain programs although usually more so in highly specialized fields...
Click to expand...

School ranking is equal to the amount of grant/fund that is poured into school's research department. The grant, that a school receive, can potentially benefit students who are willing to conduct research.
 
Retaking classes at a cc doesn't exactly help your case. Most encourage you retake the class at the same school(or university level). People who I've spoken to strongly believe retaking at a cc is an 'easy way out' for not being able to get the needed grade at the university level
 
I actually visited a school (east coast) which explicitly told us they do take into consideration where we went to college, however I'm sure it was more based upon whether we went to a 2 year vs. 4 year school, completed a bachelor's degree, etc. I think you might get a little preference if you went to a top tier school versus a bottom tier school and happened to be a competitive applicant regardless, but yeah... the school itself isn't going to make up for major GPA points when there will be students from top schools above the 3.0 range.
 
nnnn32125 said:
Retaking classes at a cc doesn't exactly help your case. Most encourage you retake the class at the same school(or university level). People who I've spoken to strongly believe retaking at a cc is an 'easy way out' for not being able to get the needed grade at the university level
Click to expand...

It's cheaper too though =/
 
lizp said:
I graduated from UC Berkeley, which is the #1-ranked public university in the states. However, I graduated with a 2.8 GPA which I know is not a competitive GPA for pharmacy school.

My question is: Will the fact that I graduated from a top public university help me out? Or do pharmacy schools not take it into consideration at all?
Click to expand...

:laugh: Unless you attended Harvard, Yale or Princeton for undergrad, it does not really matter where you go. Only those three schools would give you a WOW factor and help you out. LOL...
 
SHC1984 said:
:laugh: Unless you attended Harvard, Yale or Princeton for undergrad, it does not really matter where you go. Only those three schools would give you a WOW factor and help you out. LOL...
Click to expand...

Maybe in some fields... for the most part it wouldn't impress me, especially not if you came from a rich family... normally in the sciences MIT among others are more highly regarded... There are plenty of schools out there also that have different reputations for undergrad and for grad.
 
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Cheaper to do it right the first time.
 
I think it most certainly should. Taking your science/math courses at a major public institution as opposed to your states local community/technical/vocational/anybody who wants to get in can school should weigh heavily into the decision of the adcoms. Even aside from that, I wish admissions would dig even deeper. For instance I learned several months ago tha the grading scale for general chem courses at the University of Louisville is 80-100, while the grading scale at my school (UK) is the normal 90-100. Seems a little unfair, don't you think 😀
 
SHC1984 said:
:laugh: Unless you attended Harvard, Yale or Princeton for undergrad, it does not really matter where you go. Only those three schools would give you a WOW factor and help you out. LOL...
Click to expand...

lawl i have yet to see or hear of a harvard, yale or princeton, or even MIT and Johns Hopkins grad applying to pharmacy school. i'm sure there are some, but i doubt there are many.
 
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