Applying or not? (UofT)... mature app

[whyandrew]

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Hi all, new here

I'm seriously considering applying for UofT pharm with the deadline coming up very soon... but can't quite make up my mind & have some questions. Hopefully some of you can give me some advices.


My background:.............
Well, I'm old now . I have a BSc honour in biochem. I then went to grad starting as MSc but was promoted directly to PhD. Then things went downhill for me. My research projects simply failed one after another. (There's always a luck factor in any research, and MUCH more so in the particular field I was in.) I just simply did not have any luck whatsoever, despite having the talents (even my PI and lab postdoc acknowledged that). And to add insult to injuries, just when I wanted to give it a last "push" for another couple years in 2008... completely out of nowhere, I suffered a L5/S1 herniated disc, leading to sciatica along my whole right leg. This pretty much took me out for a whole year in 2008. After 1 last attempt in yet another project in 2009, which AGAIN faced completely unexpected difficulty that no-one in the lab even had any idea about, I finally withdrew from the PhD program 🙁
And so now I am... married, no money, no job, no grad degree, no house, the only thing I have is OSAP debt.


Anyway, why I want to apply to pharm?
- easier than applying for med 😎
- it's at least science & life-science related... which is what I do and what I'm good at.
- it's something I *may* have the pre-req for
- future prospect in salary and employment seems to be at least decent
- (compare to med anyway) the cirriculum seems not to be overly intense and there is real summer holidays.......
- (from above).... so I can work part-time/temp while studying to general at least some income
- maybe I'm just day-dreaming or perhaps insane... but I'm not completely giving up on research. With a pharm career, some days I may be able to get involved in some pharm-related research??


Now the Problems!!!!

- AGE... 33..... yeah

- PRE-REQ: realistically I of course did all the pre-reqs and then some. BUT, all those 1st year science/humanity/math courses were taken 10+ years ago. U of T website says course taken 10+ years ago will be flagged for individual consideration... but what about ALL of the courses are 10+ years ago? lol Anyone has any idea? It would be kinda stupid spending $500~ to apply/prepare for it and I end up not even meeting the pre-req 🙁

-GPA: My Grade 12 (taken in Vancouver) English/Physics were 69% & 97%.. (the UT website doesn't say what/if there's any cutoff for grade12 credits, so as long as it's a pass it's ok?) My undergrad honor degree average ~81%... my grad courses average (I finished all the courses requirement for PhD long ago) ~83.5%. For the pharm pre-req, my 1st-year level Phy was 96%, Chem 92%, Biol 84%, calculus 95% & econ(for humanity) 82%. Are my numbers close to those ppl's getting accepted to UT? I guess the main problem is the grade12 English mark..


And one last question... (Don't want to sound likes I'm all for the money... but with my age and situation, I can't continue on ignoring the money factor.) For a fresh pharm grad in GTA, from what I gathered the expected salary is about ~$40/hr, right? But also, realistically what's the worst minimum salary I can expect?

Sorry for the first long post..... hope someone can give me some pointers 🙂

 

[PonderingChoice]

Do you have your M.S.? Regardless, if I was 32, I'd be breaking even/losing money by going to pharmacy school with my B.S. in microbio. Fortunately, I'm 24. So, maybe, maybe, you could break even at your current age but if you have to do pre-reqs, then I'm pretty sure you'd be losing money. Even if you were breaking even, you'd only have broken even by the time you were like 65. You could've also been putting that extra money into stocks, and that further decreases pharmacy's financial incentive... or at this point, makes pharmacy school a poor financial decision.

Also, since pharm. school is quite competitive these days, you might have to end up re-locating, which could cause problems with your SO, depending on their job type.

 

[02175359]

What?
Hes 33, he has years upon years of still valuable income to generate once out of the pharmacy program, in theory.

But it is a tough call.

 

[super84super]

Hi all, new here

I'm seriously considering applying for UofT pharm with the deadline coming up very soon... but can't quite make up my mind & have some questions. Hopefully some of you can give me some advices.


My background:.............
Well, I'm old now . I have a BSc honour in biochem. I then went to grad starting as MSc but was promoted directly to PhD. Then things went downhill for me. My research projects simply failed one after another. (There's always a luck factor in any research, and MUCH more so in the particular field I was in.) I just simply did not have any luck whatsoever, despite having the talents (even my PI and lab postdoc acknowledged that). And to add insult to injuries, just when I wanted to give it a last "push" for another couple years in 2008... completely out of nowhere, I suffered a L5/S1 herniated disc, leading to sciatica along my whole right leg. This pretty much took me out for a whole year in 2008. After 1 last attempt in yet another project in 2009, which AGAIN faced completely unexpected difficulty that no-one in the lab even had any idea about, I finally withdrew from the PhD program 🙁
And so now I am... married, no money, no job, no grad degree, no house, the only thing I have is OSAP debt.


Anyway, why I want to apply to pharm?
- easier than applying for med 😎
- it's at least science & life-science related... which is what I do and what I'm good at.
- it's something I *may* have the pre-req for
- future prospect in salary and employment seems to be at least decent
- (compare to med anyway) the cirriculum seems not to be overly intense and there is real summer holidays.......
- (from above).... so I can work part-time/temp while studying to general at least some income
- maybe I'm just day-dreaming or perhaps insane... but I'm not completely giving up on research. With a pharm career, some days I may be able to get involved in some pharm-related research??


Now the Problems!!!!

- AGE... 33..... yeah

- PRE-REQ: realistically I of course did all the pre-reqs and then some. BUT, all those 1st year science/humanity/math courses were taken 10+ years ago. U of T website says course taken 10+ years ago will be flagged for individual consideration... but what about ALL of the courses are 10+ years ago? lol Anyone has any idea? It would be kinda stupid spending $500~ to apply/prepare for it and I end up not even meeting the pre-req 🙁

-GPA: My Grade 12 (taken in Vancouver) English/Physics were 69% & 97%.. (the UT website doesn't say what/if there's any cutoff for grade12 credits, so as long as it's a pass it's ok?) My undergrad honor degree average ~81%... my grad courses average (I finished all the courses requirement for PhD long ago) ~83.5%. For the pharm pre-req, my 1st-year level Phy was 96%, Chem 92%, Biol 84%, calculus 95% & econ(for humanity) 82%. Are my numbers close to those ppl's getting accepted to UT? I guess the main problem is the grade12 English mark..


And one last question... (Don't want to sound likes I'm all for the money... but with my age and situation, I can't continue on ignoring the money factor.) For a fresh pharm grad in GTA, from what I gathered the expected salary is about ~$40/hr, right? But also, realistically what's the worst minimum salary I can expect?

Sorry for the first long post..... hope someone can give me some pointers 🙂

Yeah... I am 25 and I'm still in 2nd year of my undergrad doing my pre-reqs so I sort of know what you are feeling.. (and i'm not being sarcastic)!


I do live in GTA as well,so I have looked into U of T pharmacy program, and found out that they do have some crazy tuition for B sc. Pharm.. (likely to increase again significantly next year when they change to entry level pharmD)

If I were you and thinking mainly on $$, I would advise you to check out U of A or UBC those are the schools with less tuition fee (ie.. U of T for $12,000 vs U of A $5500 or UBC $8000 well times 4 years is a lot of money!!). But I do understand that you are married and concerned about your family so it wouldn't be an easy decision to make.



As for the pre-req goes, assuming that they will accept your pre req courses taken 10+ years ago, I think you have an excellent chance of getting into any pharmacy schools in Canada, (I think you need an University level English for schools other than U of T though)

current acceptance GPA for U of T is roughly around 3.3~ and the list goes down to 3.0 sometimes for in province students so I do not think you have anything to worry. Plus, if you show that you are mature and sincere to the profession, it will only do you good in your MMI interview they introduced this year.

However, one thing to consider is that U of T looks at EVERY SINGLE UNIVERSITY COURSES you have taken, so your pre-req course marks are not going to be the only factor for your admission.




Now, what I think is that you will graduate, work full time and get a weekend part time with around $40~42/hr then you will earn some nice 6 figure salary and hopefully will be able to pay back the loans in about 5 years?

33+1(missing pre-req) +4 = 38

38+5,6 = 44 ish..


at 44, you will have comfortable, significantly care-free career with time for your family and so on.

Life is a long journey and I am sure one or two years invested for life long career will surely be rewarded in a long run.

 

[PonderingChoice]

Double post. Woops!

 

[PonderingChoice]

What?
Hes 33, he has years upon years of still valuable income to generate once out of the pharmacy program, in theory.

But it is a tough call.

I'm not saying that if he does it, he'll be a pauper. I'm simply saying that, based on my own research (and I suspect his degree is worth a bit more than my own), I don't think he'll increase his life-time earnings by pursuing a Pharm.D. If he has to do his pre-requisites, I'm pretty sure he'd be losing money, plus the losses of any lost stock opportunities.

Can he do it? Sure. Heck, I'm sure he'll be better off than many a liberal arts major, but he's not going to make money doing so.

Also: he mentioned research. Other people have mentioned that you're probably going to need a M.S. or Ph.D. still, but that's simply hear say on my part.

Another factor is whether or not he's (she's?) going to have children. I'd suggest you have your offspring by the time the female in the relationship is 35, since that's the start of the birth defect exponential curve... stupid eggs, present since birth!

 

[busyizzy]

I'm not saying that if he does it, he'll be a pauper. I'm simply saying that, based on my own research (and I suspect his degree is worth a bit more than my own), I don't think he'll increase his life-time earnings by pursuing a Pharm.D. If he has to do his pre-requisites, I'm pretty sure he'd be losing money, plus the losses of any lost stock opportunities.

I agree. Especially as the OP's reasons towards wanting to do pharmacy seems to stem more from the convenience and money. If he has always wanted to pharmacy, I'd say go for it! But this is not a lifelong dream he is pursuing - which is fine! There's just money and time to think of.

 

[whyandrew]

Thanks for all the replys so far.

My main reason for considering pharmacy is probably trying to develop a stable career, and yes, with respectable income. It's probably not the most convenience path having to study for another 4-5 years 🙂

But the $13-14000/year tuition in UT is definitely a big problem. Do/did any of you manage to pay off the tuition (or at least part of it) by working part-time concurrently?

And yes indeed, wife's age is something I thought of too. Forturnately my wife is 5-1/2 years younger than me so we still have abit more time.

If UT won't even consider my pre-req as they are 10+ years ago, I doubt I will do the pre-req again. Another year wasted, another year of tuition spent, for something that's almost completely useless other than just meeting the pre-req.

/this' a tough decision indeed.... 🙁

 

[UES Girl]

Also: he mentioned research. Other people have mentioned that you're probably going to need a M.S. or Ph.D. still, but that's simply hear say on my part.

That is a bit of hear say on your part. 😉 Actually, opportunities for Pharm. Ds in research seem to be exponentially increasing. At my school, this quarter alone, I've listened to numerous presentations on Pharm.Ds in research, because this is a path I plan on pursuing. He can do all kinds of things: he can do more of a clinial trial oriented research for some big biopharma, he can do statistical or infectious desease type of research in areas of public health, he can pursue postdoc or fellowship and with appropriate training do some bench research even. Even NIH is now acknowledging that more and more Pharm.Ds are interested in research:

http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Training/PharmD/

UCSF even has its own research pathway you can pursue during your Pharm.D where you spent nearly an entire year working on your independent research project.

In short: from my little time in pharmacy school, it seems that having a pharm.d degree + some additional training - > can lead to a very cool research oriented career.

 

[mug3n]

But the $13-14000/year tuition in UT is definitely a big problem. Do/did any of you manage to pay off the tuition (or at least part of it) by working part-time concurrently?

OSAP and in-faculty financial aid. I think you can get ~7-8k from OSAP and as for in-faculty aid, not sure. We're still waiting for word on this year's numbers as we've submitted it a while ago.

There's pretty much no way you can pay off the entirety of your tuition working part time with the # of on campus and off campus hours you have to devote to school. I work ~10 hours a week on campus, the money I make doesn't even cover half of the tuition. The curriculum is so rigorous in first year if you don't have higher level chemistry courses to use as exclusions, you may have to take as many as 9 courses in the first term (yeah, sounds crazy, don't it).

Anyways, just things for you to think about. I know you have a tough enough decision already. By the way, it might interest you to know that there's an admissions info session hosted by the faculty tomorrow night at 6pm.

 

[phathead]

That is a bit of hear say on your part. 😉 Actually, opportunities for Pharm. Ds in research seem to be exponentially increasing. At my school, this quarter alone, I've listened to numerous presentations on Pharm.Ds in research, because this is a path I plan on pursuing. He can do all kinds of things: he can do more of a clinial trial oriented research for some big biopharma, he can do statistical or infectious desease type of research in areas of public health, he can pursue postdoc or fellowship and with appropriate training do some bench research even. Even NIH is now acknowledging that more and more Pharm.Ds are interested in research:

http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Training/PharmD/

UCSF even has its own research pathway you can pursue during your Pharm.D where you spent nearly an entire year working on your independent research project.

In short: from my little time in pharmacy school, it seems that having a pharm.d degree + some additional training - > can lead to a very cool research oriented career.

During one of my interviews, 4 of the 5 faculty members I talked to all did research. Was kinda surprising, but all their work was rather interesting.

 

[PonderingChoice]

UCSF even has its own research pathway you can pursue during your Pharm.D where you spent nearly an entire year working on your independent research project.

In short: from my little time in pharmacy school, it seems that having a pharm.d degree + some additional training - > can lead to a very cool research oriented career.

Very cool, thanks for correcting me.