Do partime and fulltime students make any different when you apply?

Started by Asian Girl
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Asian Girl

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Hello, I am new in this forum and please forgive me if I ask stupid question.

I m a partime student now and I will finish all requirement courses soon. I m planning to apply to pharmacy school next year (as a transfer student). Are they going to against me because I was a partime student when I am taking those courses? If that's a case then I should become a full time one for next year. What do you think?

Thanks in advance.
 
Asian Girl said:
Hello, I am new in this forum and please forgive me if I ask stupid question.

I m a partime student now and I will finish all requirement courses soon. I m planning to apply to pharmacy school next year (as a transfer student). Are they going to against me because I was a partime student when I am taking those courses? If that's a case then I should become a full time one for next year. What do you think?

Thanks in advance.
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I think the important thing is to show that you can handle the rigors of pharmacy school. I think that when adcoms look at your transcripts they look at your course load for a semester. If you're working full time and going to school part time, I think that should be good enough, but if all you're doing is school part time, that might not look as good.
 
Asian Girl said:
Hello, I am new in this forum and please forgive me if I ask stupid question.

I m a partime student now and I will finish all requirement courses soon. I m planning to apply to pharmacy school next year (as a transfer student). Are they going to against me because I was a partime student when I am taking those courses? If that's a case then I should become a full time one for next year. What do you think?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Not a lot of people usually reply to posts like this - simply because this topic has been discussed a lot previously. If you want to hear lots of opinions - use a search function and find topics in which people already asked this question - I remember seeing one yesterday in fact. In short : it depends on the reason you are taking part-time school - you'll need to show to adcoms you can handle the pressures of pharm school.
 
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I've known people with impeccable grades who were denied admission because they had only gone to school part-time. Despite working full time, raising teenagers, etc, the pharmacy school felt they hadn't demonstrated that they could handle a heavy course load.

so yes. it will count against you.
 
Asian Girl said:
Hello, I am new in this forum and please forgive me if I ask stupid question.

I m a partime student now and I will finish all requirement courses soon. I m planning to apply to pharmacy school next year (as a transfer student). Are they going to against me because I was a partime student when I am taking those courses? If that's a case then I should become a full time one for next year. What do you think?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

This question really varies on the admissions committee that is looking at your application - some schools place high value on having a decent courseload, while others mainly want to see that you've performed well in your pre-requisite coursework. The most important thing is to make sure that you do the coursework right the first time - even if that means you need to take less than 12 units some semesters. In my opinion, you're much better off explaining that you had to take 6 units with good grades because of family/work instead of explaining why you failed a class and had to retake it.
 
its going to be hard to demonstrate that you can handle the pharm school courseload if you've been going to school part time previously. I mean, if you state that you had other priorities in life that prevented you from attending school fulltime, wouldn't those same priorities prevent you from giving your full attention to the pharm coursework in the near future?

I truly don't know, I'm just thinking out load atm.
 
I do think there is a difference to be accepted between full and part time students. Because I want to get into this field so bad so I am going to take fulltime credits in Fall 08 then it will look good on my application. That meant I have to cut my work hours to partime (poor kids, their mom has no money to take them to Chuckie Chesse any more 🙂j.k). Besides that, I have 13 years experience in hospital field that will be a plus credit on my app also. Do you think thats a good idea?
 
Yes, it will make a difference. Between a part-time student and a full-time student who have the same pre-reqs GPA, a full-time student will be in a higher position. I have a friend who just went to school part time, so the only thing she did was just study, eat, hang out, sleep. She had nothing else to worry about, so nothing could distract her or prevent her from study. Therefore, having good grades is a must for her, literally. Another friend who went to school full time and also worked full time. She had to try much harder than the other friend who just went to school part time to get good grades. Now, do you see the difference? If I were the adcoms, I would definitely consider the one who handles more workload. The professional pharmacy program is full time (about 16+ credits/semester). That's why it's not guaranteed that a part time student who did good in the pre-reqs will also do good in the pharmacy coursework.
 
What if one is in between the transfer process? For example, I'm a 2nd yr student in the process of transferring to a UC. I basically ran out of courses to take for lower division requirements. Will they take that into account?
 
The most i took was last Spring semester, 12 credits: Org2, Bio2, AP2 and all 3 labs. Mostly to prove to myself i could do it and to take just 3 labs a week. If I took 2 sciences in the summer that would be 4 days of lab, I rearranged to take 1 science & 2 'extras' in the summer.

I drew up a 6-semester, 2-year schedule that i showed to a UF admissions counselor, who told me the pace and the sequence was perfect. She said getting A's in the required sciences plus calc was the most important thing. Most semesters were 2 science, 2 labs, and one 'extra' like Speech - 11 credits. Lucky for me I had a year's worth of extras already done.

One thing i've seen many times is that there is no GPA conversion formula that AdComs use for "i worked 50 hours a week and kept a 3.11 average" - those people just don't get in. They go and get 4-year degrees in biology or gerontology or something like that.

You need the support of family to help pay for things and keep your work hours low. You need the help of family AND friends to understand when you say "no" to weekend road trips, Ybor City late-nite partying and so on. Otherwise [i know at least 2 dozen ppl in this category] you will hear an admissions committee say "no" instead.

My $.02
 
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It will not matter. I know people have taken part-time post-bac loads simply because most courses are sequential and well they may have a job or other responsiblilities.

Grades are most important. Taking a Part-time load and making straight B's is not acceptable.
 
I've only taken 11 credits per semester and I was accepted...

From my experience it didn't matter whether part-time or full-time
 
You never really know, but I would just say to take as many classes as you can handle and still be able to get good grades. I took 12 credits my first semester, and thought it was too easy and jumped up to 18 credits the next semester. Now I'm doing 16 credits and planning on doing 19 credits both semesters for the next school year to finish pre-reqs and core requirements.

It's all a matter of what you can handle and how well you are able to manage your time.
 
I outlined my courseload for the rest of my undergrad career, and it's around 11 credits a semester.

Would adding a class that's not a pre-req to my schedule--just for the sake of a harder courseload--look bad?

Keep in mind that I'd be working as a pharmacy tech as well as another job on the side.
 
If you can handle one extra non-pre-req course, then why not? It's not like adcoms will look at an extra course in your curriculum as a bad thing, unless that one extra course lowers the grades in all your other courses.

I decided to up my schedule next semester to 23 credits from 19. lol
 
Each school is so different that generalizations are difficult to make. However, I work full-time nights, own a house, and took 20 hours straight science one semester, right after I had taken 15 hours over summer. Adcoms took notice in a positive way, but whether they might view the converse in a negative opinion is up to the particular adcom. Some schools are definitely more lenient towards non-traditional students. UMKC is particularly biased against them. Go fig.
 
from what i know it does make a difference. a friend of mine had stellar stats but was only in school part time. his exam percentile is above 90% and gpa is around 3.7, applied three years and still didnt get in
 
What if one is in between the transfer process? For example, I'm a 2nd yr student in the process of transferring to a UC. I basically ran out of courses to take for lower division requirements. Will they take that into account?
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