Advice needed, confusing situation

[jpatel05]

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Let me start with a little background and keep it short so I'm going to be finishing up my undergraduate in December 2012, I was planning on taking the PCAT in July but I still not sure if I want to because I feel like two months is not enough time to study so maybe September. As far as my grades, I've had to repeat a few courses which I ended up getting B+ in mostly and also have a few C's on my transcript. My GPA right now is 3.1 and I just started working as a tech at Rite Aid. My question to anyone who can help me out is should I retake Organic Chemistry 1 & 2 during the summer because I got Cs in both of them or should I retake two other Bio courses because I do want to show improvement. Everyone has their circumstances for justifying their grades and whatnot but I don't want to go into that, I just want to know how to improve my chances besides obviously applying to many schools. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks! Yes I do want to apply for Fall 2013 incase I did not mention that.

 

[DiveHawaii]

Let me start with a little background and keep it short so I'm going to be finishing up my undergraduate in December 2012, I was planning on taking the PCAT in July but I still not sure if I want to because I feel like two months is not enough time to study so maybe September. As far as my grades, I've had to repeat a few courses which I ended up getting B+ in mostly and also have a few C's on my transcript. My GPA right now is 3.1 and I just started working as a tech at Rite Aid. My question to anyone who can help me out is should I retake Organic Chemistry 1 & 2 during the summer because I got Cs in both of them or should I retake two other Bio courses because I do want to show improvement. Everyone has their circumstances for justifying their grades and whatnot but I don't want to go into that, I just want to know how to improve my chances besides obviously applying to many schools. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks! Yes I do want to apply for Fall 2013 incase I did not mention that.

What are the other two Bio course that you are considering retaking? Are those just general Biology? Did you get C's in those too? If so then I would suggest retaking the Organic chemistry. Not that one pre-req is any less important then another but in this case if you can only retake one then I would go for the Ochem. I think that would help you look better, that you've learned something and have that upward trend in your grades. It's also a plus that you got a tech job because a lot of people can't even get volunteer jobs in pharmacy's for that experience.

 

[jpatel05]

The two classes are Microbiology and Mammalian Phys. I am leaning towards retaking Ochem as well but trying to figure out how I can study for July PCAT and manage to improve in Ochem. Do you think I should hold off on the PCAT till September or do they need to be completed before all the applications and LORs are sent out?

 

[DiveHawaii]

No you don't need to have the PCAT completed before everything else. Everything involved in the application is sent to pharmcas and I believe that your Pharmcas application won't be sent to your designated schools until it is complete, so the order in which you complete everything is not necessarily important. Just keep in mind that after you take the PCAT it takes about a month I think for them to send your final scores to pharmcas. I took my PCAT in September too and that is not late, January would be pushing it! I would say then if you're concerned about not having enough time to study and be able to do well in both Ochem and the PCAT then take the PCAT in september.