A very odd trend I've noticed

[AdmissionsMan]

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A lot of the people who have messaged me for advice and concerns have had one thing in common. Terrible GPA's but wonderful PCAT scores.

Do a lot of you pre-pharmacy majors experience this and do you know of any others who have been accepted like that. I've noticed that in admissions but they aren't as common as they appear to be online.


I think the most outrageous I've heard is someone with a 2.5 GPA and a 99 PCAT score. Personally I don't look highly upon that just because it appears to me to be laziness. I can't judge difficulty of curriculum from other schools than my own so I don't see how others could judge it too.

 

[pharm B]

I treat it like a lot of pre-meds do. You have to be more competitive than the person sitting next to you who's also pre-pharmacy. By accepting a low GPA, you're conceding that you think it's just not that hard to get in.

I wonder if you see the low GPA/ high PCAT more in the "2 years of pre-reqs & straight into pharmacy school" crowd.

The one thing I noticed most about the posts on here and the PCAT scores from August is the abysmal use of the English language. I'm not sure if pharmacy appeals to people like that more than medicine would, but it looks like a trend on here.

 

[sugarxoxo]

Yes, and also the opposite.. Above average GPA with low PCAT. How do you think they will interpret that compared to people with good PCAT but low GPA?

 

[Praziquantel86]

It's laziness - I was the same way in High School. I would do great on tests (standardized or otherwise), but I couldn't be bothered with doing any homework or the like. I got an 800 on the SAT verbal, yet managed to have a C+ average in English. How the hell does that happen? Luckily, I shaped up once college hit and realized that I was going to waste my life away.

Hopefully these people shape up too...

 

[yappy]

That is an interesting trend. Maybe those students figure since they have a low GPA they must score really high on the PCAT to get into pharmacy school?

 

[apteryx]

I'm in that category I guess (relatively good PCAT, relatively bad GPA). 86 Comp/~3.0 GPA. I attribute it to a lack of focus in my early college years, not knowing what I wanted to do while taking courses at a community college. I didn't persevere then, and focused mainly on working 50+ hours a week, since money was more immediately gratifying than spending time after school studying for something I didn't want to do. Now after too many years of flip-flopping, I'm graduating with a Bachelor's in Chem from SUNY Buffalo in May 2010. Too bad my meandering right out of high school impacted my later grades. Community college GPA is something like 2.75, while University GPA is >3.75. I would hope colleges would look at my later years a little more favorably (with upper-level courses) than how I did 6 years ago in computer science and exercise science (what was I thinking?) Obviously, someone who has performed well throughout their whole college experience should be looked upon more favorably than I, but on the other side of the coin, there must be some merit to someone who has navigated a tumultuous time of their life and knows what they really want. Or maybe I'm just an idiot.

So, that's my story. I obviously can't say everyone has the same as me, but hopefully it helped you out somehow.

 

[Tinkerbell22]

I don't think it's necessarily always laziness, but if you have a sub 3.0 GPA and a 90+ PCAT then yeah, there is probably some type of special circumstance going on. If not laziness, then there are probably those extreme cases that people don't really want to talk about (death, illness, etc).

Everyone's application is going to be a different mix of GPA, PCAT, EC's, volunteering, work, etc... so I guess that's why so much time and effort goes into deliberating over the applications to determine who should be admitted.

 

[phathead]

I have a 2.9 GPA/94 PCAT and it is not due to laziness on my part AT ALL. I have been busting my ass every single day for the past three years getting to where I'm at. I've earned a 3.5 GPA in my last three semesters while working full time, volunteering and doing research.

I am the antithesis of lazy.

 

[medicalCPA]

I too have noticed that there are lots of people with such stats, and others with the opposite (i.e., high grades and low PCAT scores). I believe that the grades one sees on paper are just one dimension to the applicant, and I would not be hasty to conclude that just because an applicant has low grades that applicant is lazy. Maybe they had to work in college because they had no other way to support themselves. Maybe a family member died. Maybe they suffered/suffer from an illness that impacted their grades. No one but the applicant knows the true reason for low grades, and I would hope that an adcom member would at least read such an applicant's PS to understand their reasons before deciding to reject said applicant.

Personally, if I were on an admissions committee, I would look more favorably on low GPA, high PCAT than on a high GPA, abysmal PCAT. I'm talking someone who presents a 3.9-4.0 GPA, yet scores in the 20's - 40's. To me, such a score would bring your entire undergraduate grades into question.

 

[delano2000]

That is an interesting trend. Maybe those students figure since they have a low GPA they must score really high on the PCAT to get into pharmacy school?

I wonder which category would have precedence over the other, the low GPA and excellent PCAT score or the high GPA and relatively low PCAT score?

 

[diastole]

I have a lower GPA (around a 3.0-3.1) and a fantastic PCAT. I'm a total slacker. The thing is that I've learned to redirect my laziness. The low part of my GPA is from grades more than a decade ago. Recently, I have been excelling in school. I just refocus my laziness into areas that don't affect school. Sure my shower really needs to be cleaned and my oil needs to be changed but my schoolwork gets done.

 

[delano2000]

I have a lower GPA (around a 3.0-3.1) and a fantastic PCAT. I'm a total slacker. The thing is that I've learned to redirect my laziness. The low part of my GPA is from grades more than a decade ago. Recently, I have been excelling in school. I just refocus my laziness into areas that don't affect school. Sure my shower really needs to be cleaned and my oil needs to be changed but my schoolwork gets done.

I am so hoping for a good PCAT score.

 

[desmoulins45179]

I think the most outrageous I've heard is someone with a 2.5 GPA and a 99 PCAT score. Personally I don't look highly upon that just because it appears to me to be laziness. I can't judge difficulty of curriculum from other schools than my own so I don't see how others could judge it too.

I have a 3.24 gpa with a 94 pcat. My overall 3.24 isn't great but my math/sci gpa is about a 3.00 (might be a little lower, like 2.98 - pharmcas hasn't calculated it yet). While my gpa isn't terrible (I've seen worse) it isn't really good either.

 

[AdmissionsMan]

I just spoke with someone over the phone who has a 99 PCAT score and a 2.59 GPA and after reading this thread I decided to find out if there were any circumstances that would have contributed to this.


They said nothing. I'm sure this has to be a case of laziness.

 

[mg9004]

I'm in this category (hopefully)- I have a low GPA- but high in sciences. I started college at my parent's insistence- due to that I didn't take it seriously and spent a lot of money to screw myself. Now I'm older I appreciate the opportunity to go to college and turned things around- though my undergrad GPA for my bachelors haunts me. I'm hoping admissions will overlook the fact I was a young unfocused kid.

 

[phathead]

I just spoke with someone over the phone who has a 99 PCAT score and a 2.59 GPA and after reading this thread I decided to find out if there were any circumstances that would have contributed to this.


They said nothing. I'm sure this has to be a case of laziness.

I have repeatedly explained my problems both here, in my applications and on my blog.

I was lazy and over confident my first two years in college. I had never had to study in high school and thought that would carry over to college. I also decided to focus more on having fun rather than doing school work. I tried blaming everyone else but myself for my problems, but we all know that wasn't a correct assumption.

That's why my GPA is so low. I was immature and cocky and have been paying for it since then. I actually have gone back over those classes on my own to prepare for the PCAT just in case I missed something.

Today I am pulling down an A in genetics and now know how to properly conduct myself as a college student. I know I screwed up, there is no denying it. Hell I know my mistakes as an eighteen year old may prevent me from following the career I want (which literally keeps me up at night, but that's another discussion).

But to just look at my overall GPA and my PCAT and declare that it is all due to laziness is a vast oversimplification of the situation.

 

[delano2000]

I think it will vary by person.

 

[Jetninjin]

Personally, if I were an on an admissions committee, I would look more favorably on low GPA, high PCAT than on a high GPA, abysmal PCAT. I'm talking someone who presents a 3.9-4.0 GPA, yet scores in the 20's - 40's. To me, such a score would bring your entire undergraduate grades into question.

.... or it could mean that they're just not good at standardized tests, or that they do not perform well when surrounded by 30 people smacking their gum, no access to water and one teeny tiny little 10-minute pee break.

 

[jmcfa002]

I think it could depend on the institution too. Some teachers enjoy failing/giving low grades to a majority of the class. An above average student could get knocked down by a few way-above average students. If one has bad luck, they might get all teh crappy teachers of their school and get a low GPA? Just a theory I guess.

I'm kinda the opposite though. Decent (sorta) gpa, 3.6, kinda low pcat comp, 82. I both didn't study enough, and I don't do well on standardized tests. Not sure how I'll be looked at...

 

[gokeygirl2121]

.... or it could mean that they're just not good at standardized tests, or that they do not perform well when surrounded by 30 people smacking their gum, no access to water and one teeny tiny little 10-minute pee break.

oh this is quite literally my favorite post ever, and i completely agree. cheers to the bad test takers of the world (not that i'm ignorant enough to complain about my score because it's not awful, but i am not a super strong test taker and dread any sort of admissions process that weighs heavily on standardized testing.) for those of you who judge low PCAT scores, it's probably because you are good test-takers and can't relate to those who are not!

 

[Jetninjin]

I think it could depend on the institution too. Some teachers enjoy failing/giving low grades to a majority of the class. An above average student could get knocked down by a few way-above average students. If one has bad luck, they might get all teh crappy teachers of their school and get a low GPA? Just a theory I guess.

It's interesting that you say this. At my school there are a lot of foreign exchange students. In genchem for example, I sat next to a Chinese guy who seemed to really know his stuff. A few weeks later, I went into the graduate student lounge looking for my TA, and the Chinese student was hanging out there!! Come to find out he already had a chem degree from a university in China but AMCAS wouldn't accept his grades, so he was retaking all his premed courses at my school - and TAing another class since his official status was grad student.

Talk about blowing the curve lol...

 

[milgaroo]

I think it will vary by person.

Yes, I too believe this will vary by person. Although 'laziness' may be a considerable factor, I do know that a lot of the students go through unforeseen circumstances, or may just go to a school where the curriculum is more difficult. When a student graduates from a school that curves highly (bc the averages are always around 30-40s), it is certainly difficult for him/her to achieve an A when everyone in the class is pre-med vs. a student who went to an average school who's professor gives out not so hard tests and allows all the students to do well (with a flat scale).

Many people do not like standardized tests, nonetheless, these help to evaluate (at least a little better) the knowledge of students other than their gpa alone.

 

[Sparda29]

I was accepted with a 2.8 GPA and 73 PCAT. What was the reason for the low GPA? Laziness probably. In high school, I never studied and was ranked 31 out of 596 in my class. My parents always argued with me that if I studied, I would be #1. I figured that I could do the same in college and roll with a 3.5. And then I met Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. Chemistry was the one class I barely passed in high school, and I didn't know how to tackle Organic Chem until my 3rd try at it.

 

[Passion4Sci]

I was accepted with a 2.8 GPA and 73 PCAT. What was the reason for the low GPA? Laziness probably. In high school, I never studied and was ranked 31 out of 596 in my class. My parents always argued with me that if I studied, I would be #1. I figured that I could do the same in college and roll with a 3.5. And then I met Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. Chemistry was the one class I barely passed in high school, and I didn't know how to tackle Organic Chem until my 3rd try at it.

Memorize stuff until your eyes bleed worked for me.

 

[phathead]

Memorize stuff until your eyes bleed worked for me.

I've learned that just memorizing O Chem actually hurts you. My prof taught us to learn the mechanisms behind them so that you could be prevented with compounds you'd never been before, but generally know what will happen because of the electron movement involved.

This was IMMENSELY helpful in biochem rather than just memorizing reactions

 

[Thumper17]

To be honest, I think undergraduate institution and grading scheme play just as much into it as laziness in these high PCAT/low GPA cases.

I got a 96 on the PCAT but my GPA is ~3.05, and while there are some things I could have done better on in college, I was by no means lazy. I did research 20 hours a week, took a full science science schedule at my states flagship University (which is ranked top 10 nationally in microbio, my major and the reason I decided to go there), and dealt with the fact that all of my classes were meant to be 20% A, 30% B, and 50% C-F. That is how the departments wanted the grade breakdown apparently.

I have been finishing up a few prereqs at the local community college, and to be honest there is no comparison. I could show up for class, do the bare minimum as far as homework goes, and still pull 98% in every class while working 50 hours a week. Granted, not all CCs and universities are the same, but I wish the PCAT had a section that required you to report the institution at which you did the bulk of your undergraduate studies. At least that way we could see trends in which schools prepared students for pharm school and which did not do so.

The fact that people with 4.0 out of a CC will be heavily favored over university students with a 3.0-3.4 GPA is insane to me.

Okay, rant done 😀

 

[naseuy]

I have a 3.24 gpa with a 94 pcat. My overall 3.24 isn't great but my math/sci gpa is about a 3.00 (might be a little lower, like 2.98 - pharmcas hasn't calculated it yet). While my gpa isn't terrible (I've seen worse) it isn't really good either.

Great to see someone else who likes Doctor Who on SDN.

 

[apteryx]

my cc was harder than my university. Thankfully the class sizes were smaller to make up for it. 300-level chem courses are a joke at SUNY Buffalo compared to the 200-level chem courses at CC. Just differs by area I assume. And I'm not dull enough to acknowledge that most CCs are easier than universities, but mine is one of the exceptions I guess.

 

[SHC1984]

A lot of the people who have messaged me for advice and concerns have had one thing in common. Terrible GPA's but wonderful PCAT scores.

Do a lot of you pre-pharmacy majors experience this and do you know of any others who have been accepted like that. I've noticed that in admissions but they aren't as common as they appear to be online.


I think the most outrageous I've heard is someone with a 2.5 GPA and a 99 PCAT score. Personally I don't look highly upon that just because it appears to me to be laziness. I can't judge difficulty of curriculum from other schools than my own so I don't see how others could judge it too.

High PCAT + low GPA = very lazy, love to party etc. (nothing wrong with that)
Low PCAT + high GPA= very hardworking, does very well at memorizing, however does very poorly at conceptual/critical thinking questions. (again nothing wrong with that)

 

[SHC1984]

I have repeatedly explained my problems both here, in my applications and on my blog.

I was lazy and over confident my first two years in college. I had never had to study in high school and thought that would carry over to college. I also decided to focus more on having fun rather than doing school work. I tried blaming everyone else but myself for my problems, but we all know that wasn't a correct assumption.

That's why my GPA is so low. I was immature and cocky and have been paying for it since then. I actually have gone back over those classes on my own to prepare for the PCAT just in case I missed something.

Today I am pulling down an A in genetics and now know how to properly conduct myself as a college student. I know I screwed up, there is no denying it. Hell I know my mistakes as an eighteen year old may prevent me from following the career I want (which literally keeps me up at night, but that's another discussion).

But to just look at my overall GPA and my PCAT and declare that it is all due to laziness is a vast oversimplification of the situation.

In high school I was very lazy and had a 3.2 GPA...my parents were always mad at me, but I didn't care. However, I decided one day that I wanted to be successful in the future so I decided to start working hard and making good grades. My parents will always tell me that if I make bad grades I will NOT be successful in the future...I will end up broke and working at a dead end job etc. So I decided to listen to them and graduated college with a 3.9 GPA. My PCAT score was also decent. I had 90+ on bio, chem, and math...68 verbal...bombed the reading section and ended up making somewhere in the mid 80s total score.

however, now I realize grades mean very little in determining how
successful someone will be in the future. In fact it means NOTHING. I have friends that partied all the time and graduated with a 3.1 GPA from college and they now make more money than I will EVER make in my lifetime. One of them dropped out of college and opened up a game room in texas and now he owns 6 loan agencies places kind of like Title max (to give you an example) he makes somewhere btw 10k-20K a month and that's his NET salary. He had a 2.0 GPA and dropped out of college and he now makes more than MOST people will ever make. And thats just one example, I have two other friends that went into investment banking and make a killing. And the list goes on and on and on...And I admire those people the most. I think damn, I wish I PARTIED all through college and make 6 six figures NOW! I was crazy to have worried about grades so much in undergrad b/c it does NOT help me in life at all.

So grades do not matter at all. There are people that make 2.0 GPA and will end up making MORE money than everyone here. I use to be a gunner in undergrad, but now when I see a gunner in class I think they are just a bunch of fools. If they think getting a 4.0 will = them being RICH in the future then they will be VERY diaspointted when they get out into the real world.

 

[AdmissionsMan]

So grades do not matter at all. There are people that make 2.0 GPA and will end up making MORE money than everyone here. I use to be a gunner in undergrad, but now when I see a gunner in class I think they are just a bunch of fools. If they think getting a 4.0 will = them being RICH in the future then they will be VERY diaspointted when they get out into the real world.

Good point, a lot of the most successful business men I know made C's in business school.

They weren't the 4.0 or even the 3.5 student but their 7 figure salary makes up for that.

 

[Passion4Sci]

I am a gunner just because it's more fun that way.

Besides, everyone knows you don't need awesome grades to succeed in business necessarily.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Go.

 

[Jetninjin]

High PCAT + low GPA = very lazy, love to party etc. (nothing wrong with that)
Low PCAT + high GPA= very hardworking, does very well at memorizing, however does very poorly at conceptual/critical thinking questions. (again nothing wrong with that)

You forgot one:
Low or High PCAT + Low or High GPA + knowing nothing about a particular person's circumstances but judging them anyway = bloviator 😛😛😛

 

[SHC1984]

good point, a lot of the most successful business men i know made c's in business school.

They weren't the 4.0 or even the 3.5 student but their 7 figure salary makes up for that.

+10000000!

 

[SHC1984]

You forgot one:
Low or High PCAT + Low or High GPA + knowing nothing about a particular person's circumstances but judging them anyway = bloviator 😛😛😛

I wasn't judging. I STATED there was NOTHING WRONG WITH LOW STATS. You will NEVER hear me say...people with high stats are better than people with low stats because THEY ARE NOT. If you read my above post you will realize that I think grades mean little to nothing.

 

[yappy]

Sometimes grades can mean getting into pharmacy school or not...

 

[Tinkerbell22]

Thumper- I totally agree.

I was going to say something nearly exactly like this... I hate to be the bud of a controversy because I know that nearly all of us are prepared to defend our stats to the death... but I really think that the whole lower GPA and high PCAT thing depends on the university and major of the applicant.

I'm not trying to say that CC students can't be extremely successful in pharmacy school, because there are a lot of reasons why someone might not be able to attend a university (money, location, marriage, etc), but I've done pre-reqs at a local college (has the power to grant bachelor's degrees, but not a university) and they were nothing near the difficulty of university courses.

I also think that it's easier to do well in your prereqs if you are a non science major because you can really spend the majority of your time studying for the core prereqs. As a science major I had to take a lot of non required courses at the same time, like neuroscience and endocrinology, to fulfill my degree.

If you are at a major state or larger private university that has a medical school you are also in competition with other students who are really bright. My school was the same way with the bell shaped curve thing, so no matter what, only a certain percentage of the students get A's in most of the classes.

My GPA is still in the competitive range for UF, but I feel like I definately could have had a way better GPA if I was at an 'easier' school, or had a different living/life situation. I'm glad I did well on the PCAT because I feel like it gives students who learned a lot in school a chance to prove their ability even if they may have hit a few road bumps during their undergrad.

To be honest, I think undergraduate institution and grading scheme play just as much into it as laziness in these high PCAT/low GPA cases.

I got a 96 on the PCAT but my GPA is ~3.05, and while there are some things I could have done better on in college, I was by no means lazy. I did research 20 hours a week, took a full science science schedule at my states flagship University (which is ranked top 10 nationally in microbio, my major and the reason I decided to go there), and dealt with the fact that all of my classes were meant to be 20% A, 30% B, and 50% C-F. That is how the departments wanted the grade breakdown apparently.

I have been finishing up a few prereqs at the local community college, and to be honest there is no comparison. I could show up for class, do the bare minimum as far as homework goes, and still pull 98% in every class while working 50 hours a week. Granted, not all CCs and universities are the same, but I wish the PCAT had a section that required you to report the institution at which you did the bulk of your undergraduate studies. At least that way we could see trends in which schools prepared students for pharm school and which did not do so.

The fact that people with 4.0 out of a CC will be heavily favored over university students with a 3.0-3.4 GPA is insane to me.

Okay, rant done 😀

 

[Sparda29]

Memorize stuff until your eyes bleed worked for me.

Yeah, that was Game Plan #2. Game Plan #1 was just to skim over the notes 1 hour before the exam. (Hey, it worked for Anatomy and Physiology, I thought it would work for Organic Chem).

Game Plan #3 and the winning plan was do every problem in the textbook.

 

[Passion4Sci]

Repetition I take for granted when I say "memorize until my eyes bleed."

I treat it like mathematics. Practice and memorize... practice and memorize.

 

[njac]

A lot of the people who have messaged me for advice and concerns have had one thing in common. Terrible GPA's but wonderful PCAT scores.

Do a lot of you pre-pharmacy majors experience this and do you know of any others who have been accepted like that. I've noticed that in admissions but they aren't as common as they appear to be online.


I think the most outrageous I've heard is someone with a 2.5 GPA and a 99 PCAT score. Personally I don't look highly upon that just because it appears to me to be laziness. I can't judge difficulty of curriculum from other schools than my own so I don't see how others could judge it too.

I had a 2.9 and a 97 composite. Part of it was laziness, and also the fact that not everyone is focused when they start college at 18. But I took a year off and when I went back to school I was hardly a 4.0 student, but I didn't have any more Cs and things were definitely on the upswing.

Also, there was a difficulty component. My very first math class in college was Calc II. I took physics for physics majors (first major). Those really can't be compared to College Algebra and physics for biology majors. But applying to a pharmacy school other than your own school is hard because "Physics 151" might be their "Physics for Dummies". Case in point: At the University of Arizona "Math 129" is Calc II. At the University of New Mexico "Math 129" was "Fundamentals of Math" (ie: Math for Dummies. Or Fisher Price 'My First Math Credit'). At UofA OChem was a 200-level course and was the weed-out course. At UNM OChem was 300-level, and the general chemistry was where they weeded out.

YMMV, just my experience.

 

[njac]

I also mentioned at my interview (school didn't require PCAT at that time) when they asked why I took the PCAT - "I'm good at standardized tests. I'll pass the boards on the first try."

oh wait - I was right!

 

[Jetninjin]

Everyone always talks about how difficult ochem is but I really never understood why .... it's not a hard course, just a lot of learning where electrons are wont to travel, pattern recognition, and some critical thinking when you get to the whole "sure this would work but what would be the BEST reagent?" stuff. I got As both semesters with a lot less work than in genchem, I'll tell you that!

The hardest sections in ochem for me were ones where stereochemistry played a major role --- to this day, my visual-spatial ability is teh suck and I am totally lost without molecular models lol!!

Physics was an order of magnitude more of a pain in my butt than ochem. That one .... I'd rather not discuss

 

[adam022]

oh this is quite literally my favorite post ever, and i completely agree. cheers to the bad test takers of the world (not that i'm ignorant enough to complain about my score because it's not awful, but i am not a super strong test taker and dread any sort of admissions process that weighs heavily on standardized testing.) for those of you who judge low PCAT scores, it's probably because you are good test-takers and can't relate to those who are not!

Agree to not being great on standardized test taking.
High GPA, low PCAT

 

[Tinkerbell22]

I'm having this problem with my pre-reqs for UF. UM is a private FL school, so my undergraduate courses have very different lettering and numbering than the state schools, which all seem to line up pretty uniformly.

I'm especially having a problem determining whether my Calc class will be accepted because like you, I took Calc I Advanced Placement and then Calc II as a freshman. Calc I and II at UM are MTH 111 and 112, but Calc at UF has a bit of a different description in the title, and different numbering as well. My courses should be accepted because they were the courses for pre-med students, plus I went a step beyond and did Calc II in addition to the required Calc I... but then again I don't want to risk it.

I'm stressing out so much because Nova is making me take a "Quantitative Analysis" course as a pre-req to finish my MBA because they said NONE of my math courses were sufficient. I'm so confused as to how Calculus I, Calculus II, and Biobehavioral Probability and Statistics (all pre-med and BS required courses) don't sastisfy the math requirement for business? lol

I had a 2.9 and a 97 composite. Part of it was laziness, and also the fact that not everyone is focused when they start college at 18. But I took a year off and when I went back to school I was hardly a 4.0 student, but I didn't have any more Cs and things were definitely on the upswing.

Also, there was a difficulty component. My very first math class in college was Calc II. I took physics for physics majors (first major). Those really can't be compared to College Algebra and physics for biology majors. But applying to a pharmacy school other than your own school is hard because "Physics 151" might be their "Physics for Dummies". Case in point: At the University of Arizona "Math 129" is Calc II. At the University of New Mexico "Math 129" was "Fundamentals of Math" (ie: Math for Dummies. Or Fisher Price 'My First Math Credit'). At UofA OChem was a 200-level course and was the weed-out course. At UNM OChem was 300-level, and the general chemistry was where they weeded out.

YMMV, just my experience.

 

[matt48]

I highly doubt someone who has a 2.6 GPA can get a first Pcat score of 99. Pcat can be taken multiple times, and only the highest score counts, so it is very possible to get a high Pcat score through test taking experience and practice. GPA, however, is hard to pull up once you accumulate more than 2 years of course work.

 

[confettiflyer]

Yay I get to repeat myself again. I had a 3.0 + 92 PCAT, the 3.0 is explained away by a ridiculous amount of partying/tail chasing my first two years of college.

I was an 18-19 year old single guy who was out of the house and had money to burn...and had no concept of adcoms & admission stats (hell I didn't even know what I wanted to do).

Then I hit halfway through 3rd and into 4th year and realized I should probably shape up and get stuff done, managed to be eligible to graduate early but finished an academic minor & a nearly 4.0 that final year. Took two years to work FT & clean up pre-requisites/PCAT/apply.

Had I figured out what I wanted to do earlier & enforced the study habits I had 3rd year undergrad and beyond, I'd probably have perfect stats. But damn, I had one hell of a college experience

 

[confettiflyer]

And to f/u yes I subscribe to the idea that GPA/PCAT stats are a necessary tool in terms of academia, but beyond that....they're worthless.

The moment you leave school, you leave those numbers behind. It's taking me longer and longer to recollect my Rx school stats...at some point, after some prolonged run of not posting in pre-pharm, I'm seriously just not going to remember squat.

As long as I get what I need and these stats minimally get me to the next step, then I'm happy with them.

 

[njac]

My 97 pcat was the first and only time I took it, with minimal studying. Some of us test well.

 

[pharmRxn]

is there really a trend or are you mistaken with the 3/3 writing scores?
the 3/3 is referring to the writing section not the gpa.

 

[Tinkerbell22]

My 97 pcat was the first and only time I took it, with minimal studying. Some of us test well.

I took the PCAT in June of 2008 and it was very easy IMO. I've always been good at standardized tests, but I think if you actually LEARN the stuff in undergrad (whether your grades reflect that or not) it's not hard. At some schools it's easy to screw up a few courses with C's because you might get 2 exams (midterm and final) and that's it. If you have one bad day then you're done. But if you've already taken most of the prereqs, and retain all of the basic bio and chem information I think most student do better that way. Most science disciplines build upon the same basic principles, so if you have those permanently stored into your brain (rather than cramming for everything and forgetting everything you learned) I think it helps.

The Kaplan book helped refresh everything for me too. I highly recommend it.

The only section that was hard for me was the Quantitative Ability because I ran out of time and guessed a lot. I had an A+ in Calculus I and a B+ in Calculus II (and that's only because I literally ONLY showed up to take the exams) so I think that's the only thing I wish I would've known about the PCAT prior to taking it. You sort of need to rush through the math IMO. The other sections I finished so early that I sat there eating cheetos in the bathroom because I was starving.