bachelor's degree

[OpticDean]

I've heard that many applicants now have bachelor degrees before they apply. How good of a chance does someone who doesnt have a bachelor's degree have in being accepted? And I am talking about someone who has excellent grades in prepharmacy course work.

 

[dgroulx]

I don't think it matters if you have your bachelor's degree. I went ahead and got mine, because it only meant taking a few more classes on top of the pharmacy prerequisites.

The pharm school I'm attending requires an AA degree plus 1 yr of gen chem, 1 yr of org chem, 1 yr of biology, 1 yr of anatomy, 1 yr of physics and a course in calculus. Oh, and public speaking, too. They recommended taking microbiology and biochemistry. At that point, I only needed 4 more biology courses to get my BS in biology, so I overloaded my schedule during the last year. Taking 21 credit hours sucked, but during my interviews I pointed out that I could handle the pharm school course load. That worked in my favor.

 

[Triangulation]

You certainly can apply w/out, but the trend is moving away from from that. 93% of last year's incoming class at ucsf had a bachelors. I knew one of the girls that got in w/out and she's amazing. Perfect grades, relentless outside currics, blazing essays (she just tested out of her anatomy class). Granted, not every school is as nuts as ucsf, but the fact remains that the trend is for students getting their bachelors, as the pharmd becomes the only degree in pharmacy.

I don't mean to scare you though, i agree that you have an excellent chance of getting into pharm school w/out, but you are sacrificing a certain degree of your competitiveness. Bear in mind, this is coming from someone who relishes their B.S.