Hi this is my first post so here goes,
I am currently a junior in high school and am looking into good pre-med programs or early assurance programs and i like the one offered at Albany College of Pharmacy, Has anyone been accepted in to this program ? If so could you list your stats or post your views on it? Any input would be appreciated thanks!
Here's my view of the program. I don't believe that acceptance into the program is very hard but in order to get the early acceptance you need to maintain that 3.4 at ACP (that's what it was called prior). That's the hard part at ACPHS. Remember that these are the best and brightness students here from high school.
To the best of my knowledge no one has gotten accepted to medical school through the early assurance program with AMC and believe me it was tried. I'm pretty sure this is the fact since my friends graduate from the said program this last summer. Either route (pre-law and pre-med) will put you on track to earn a BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences. The education is pretty much your 2 years of basics sciences and then some pharmacy based courses and research based courses culminating in hopefully a poster presentation/publication (which is awesome). I will say that it provides you with a stellar background in the sciences and allow you to excel in medicine compared to other similar programs. The difficulty of the program will give you a low GPA or lower than if you had gone to another institution.
This will make you uncompetitive for other medical programs (MD 3.8 GPA) if you do choose to apply. You would probably be about average if you went (DO 3.3-.4). There is also a high attrition rate at the school - which has declined in the last few years due to restructuring. The school was actually put on probation for a time due to their attrition rate (I'm sure you can find threads on this). This was probably because the first two years are weeder years where the courses are generally harder (no curve). Weeding those who can and those who can't from their pharmacy program because it's pretty much an automatic acceptance into their professional program. Pass students would get Bs or Cs at this institution only to get As when they transferred elsewhere or As at their previous location only to get Bs and Cs here. I think they start out tough so that you develop those study habits when you are in your professional year (pharmacy), you can take it all in stride and excel.
There were I believe 13-14 people in the BSPS program in the class of 2010 but only 2 of the original 13-14 actually made it through the program. The rest were transfer students. However to be fair, four transferred to PharmD programs from my understanding. There is one thing to be said about this college and that is that they have a reputation in the area for turning out very competent pharmacists.
There were 5 graduates of the program last year. Of the 5 grads last year... 2 (MD) and 3 DO acceptances. Of the 2 MD - one went to the Caribbean (not top three - stats on Caribbean - 50% get residencies within 5 years) and the other made it into AMC
thumbup
. That's actually pretty good since its usually 50-50 odds of getting into medical school for those that apply even discounting the Caribbean (4/5 or 80%) .
I would like to say that medical schools know that ACPHS is difficult and will make allowances for you. But the truth of the matter is that most medical school don't know about ACPHS since it isn't a school associated with pre-med for the most part. Reputation takes time to build up.
It has a reputation for its pharmacy graduates in the area but not one for medical.
So hopefully from this you can make an informed decision. If you feel up to the challenge, I honestly do believe you would get a great education and certainly impressive ECs to put into your application. From what I understand, the professors are top noch and there are excellent research opportunities. But on the flip side... it's a hell lot more difficult to get through this program and do well than say go to most other comparative programs at other institutions. This is the general consensus from my friends.
Whoa, I think I just pretty much gave you analysis of the school and the whole program from beginning to end. I've tried to make this as objective as possible and hope that this will help many in making their decision. Shoot me an message if you have any questions regarding what I have written or if there is a section that should be made more objective.
