Any advice appreciated

[samuricool]

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Here is my story, about eight years ago I was doing horrible in school. I was working a full-time job and another part-time one and trying to go to school full-time. (dumb, yeah I know that now) Well needless to say, my gpa suffered. When I decided that I needed to take some time away from school, my gpa was already down to a 1.8 and I had been placed on academic probation. Well one year away from school turned into two years, and two turned into three years and somehow three years turned into five years. Finally after five years of my academic sabbatical I got back into school (this was two years ago now) at community college.

At the community college I have retaken all of my science courses because I wanted to see if I could do better than what I had done before. Previously I had a C's and B's, since I have improved all of those to A's and B's (mostly A's). Now I have all but the last physics class done for pre-req's and will transfer all of my classes to a state university to complete my B.S. in the spring of '09. The nice part about all of this is that when I transfer them back I will be eligible for what my university calls a fresh start. My previously 1.8 gpa from eight years ago will be wiped clean, and any class where I had less than a C- will disappear also and whatever my grades I get in the autumn will be my new gpa.

I have been reading over about every thread in these forums looking for any sort of helpful information (and my gosh, thank you for all of those out there who have posted things in regards to making pre-pharm and filling out applications easier for others) and the first thing I have seen that will help out anyone is to apply early. My gpa will only be reset at the end of autumn quarter, which will be around December for me. So, should I wait until then when all of those terrible classes will come off my record or should I still go ahead and apply early despite the look of my previous academic record? I would just hate for a pharmacy school to look at my gpa from 8 years ago and reject me without even being able to look at my gpa now (which is a 3.68) before the old one can be wiped clean.

Any advice appreciated!

 

[medicalCPA]

I almost never give this kind of advice anymore, but my advice to you would be to wait, especially if you do well on the PCAT (if you take it). A late, good application is better than an early, crappy one.

 

[cystapharm]

your new GPA is high so if you average it in with the crappy GPA I woudn't suppose it will bring down your cumulative that low would it?
I used to have a 1.5 GPA adn was on academic probation but brought my grades up and now I am at average for pharmacy school. you don't need to have a 3.68 to get in trust me!

 

[samuricool]

I almost never give this kind of advice anymore, but my advice to you would be to wait, especially if you do well on the PCAT (if you take it). A late, good application is better than an early, crappy one.

This is pretty much what I thought. I remember reading one of the "guides to applying to pharmacy school" that someone posted on here, and of course he says to apply early. One of the analogies that he gives is that they should want to concider you when there are only a handful of applicants with 100 spots to fill rather than when there are only 10 spots left to fill. And because of my situation (and the fact that pharmcas of course wants to torture me and calculate my gpa from 8 years ago) that I dont want to have to wait until those 10 spots are left, hypothetically speaking of course.

Also, after reading through the pharmcas instruction booklet (wow wish I had that hour of my life back) it seems that it wont matter to pharmcas when my state school grants me the fresh start and wipes the slate clean. I.E. pharmcas will still use the actual grades I received and not remove those that were just expunged.

your new GPA is high so if you average it in with the crappy GPA I woudn't suppose it will bring down your cumulative that low would it?
I used to have a 1.5 GPA adn was on academic probation but brought my grades up and now I am at average for pharmacy school. you don't need to have a 3.68 to get in trust me!

Well knowing that someone was in a similar situation certainly makes me feel a little better! However, I have about equal classes taken at both schools, so I figure that with my 3.68 now and my previous 1.8 it will probably just average out (2.7 and some change).

Thanks for the replies!

 

[omnione]

Does your school wipe your previous grades off your transcripts and permanent record? If not, then you'd still have to report the grades during that bad period in PharmCAS.

 

[Sleekdes]

I almost never give this kind of advice anymore, but my advice to you would be to wait, especially if you do well on the PCAT (if you take it). A late, good application is better than an early, crappy one.

I totally agree! That's what my academic adviser had told me as well.

 

[samuricool]

Does your school wipe your previous grades off your transcripts and permanent record? If not, then you'd still have to report the grades during that bad period in PharmCAS.

They do not get wiped off completely, instead of the previous grade earned it is marked with some other letter, like a "Z" I think. In either case as I have read on the pharmcas instruction booklet they want the original letter grade, so Im still doomed.