Comparable to Medical school?

[IdoNoseJobs]

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Hey everyone, I have a question that will probably get a few laughs out of a few of you. I am currently pre-medicine and wanting to keep my options for post-undergrad very open. I am wondering if Pharmacy school is anything like medical school. I know that for the MCAT, the highest score is a 46. What is the highest for the PCAT? Please don't laugh at me guys! I know that sounds like a dumb question, but I am starting to realize that I need to keep options open in the event that I do not get accepted to medical school.

Also, are pharm schools as selective as medical schools? Thanks so much in advance 🙂

 

[DrSassyPants]

The PCAT is based on a percentile score, aka how well you did against everyone else. There's a raw score too, but no one looks at that. Most schools post an average of what their accepted students averaged on the PCAT (the percentile score), and it's usually in the 80s.

 

[Lexian]

I think it is much more difficult to get into medical school compared to pharmacy school, although it is getting more and more competitive to apply to pharmacy school now as well. You should also be aware of the fact that some pharmacy schools don't require the PCAT, such as the schools here in California.

This is a bit off topic, but I would say that instead of looking for a backup to make sure you're applying to the profession that you really want to pursue. In my case, I knew I didn't want to do medicine - I wanted to go into pharmacy. It sounds like you want to go to medical school but you are afraid of what you would do if you didn't get in so you want to have the reassurance of having some place to go. If medicine is really what you want to do, I would pursue it 110%, and if you don't get in the first time, reapply and try again the following year after doing a post-bacc, getting research experience, or whatever you need to do to make yourself more competitive. But I would never put your dreams aside for the sake of not wasting a year. I had a friend who wanted to be a doctor but also applied to dental schools as a backup (he was weird, I have no idea why he used dent as a backup as at least pharmacy has relevance to a medicine), and he didn't get into any US medical schools but was accepted to a few out of state dental schools. He decided not to waste a year and went to dental school. He doesn't like it but he's just going through the motions now and I have a feeling he sort of regrets it.

By all means, check out both medicine and pharmacy and find the one you want. I think both have advantages and disadvantages, and I know you want to keep your options open, but I would hate to be sitting in a library in the middle of my third year and wondering why I didn't just reapply.

 

[TripleDegree]

Hey everyone, I have a question that will probably get a few laughs out of a few of you. I am currently pre-medicine and wanting to keep my options for post-undergrad very open. I am wondering if Pharmacy school is anything like medical school. I know that for the MCAT, the highest score is a 46. What is the highest for the PCAT? Please don't laugh at me guys! I know that sounds like a dumb question, but I am starting to realize that I need to keep options open in the event that I do not get accepted to medical school.

Also, are pharm schools as selective as medical schools? Thanks so much in advance 🙂

The highest MCAT score is 45, not 46 🙄

 

[ultracet]

Hey everyone, I have a question that will probably get a few laughs out of a few of you. I am currently pre-medicine and wanting to keep my options for post-undergrad very open. I am wondering if Pharmacy school is anything like medical school. I know that for the MCAT, the highest score is a 46. What is the highest for the PCAT? Please don't laugh at me guys! I know that sounds like a dumb question, but I am starting to realize that I need to keep options open in the event that I do not get accepted to medical school.

Also, are pharm schools as selective as medical schools? Thanks so much in advance 🙂

Pre med and pre pharm are typically the same courses....
i think its great to keep your options open. you may even want to see if you can find a pharmacy to volunteer at (or just shadow a pharmacist once) and then do the same with Drs.

as far as pharmacy school being similar to med school..... this is a loaded question which will cause a lot of contraversey.

i would welcome anyone who is a pharmd/md or md/pharmd whatever, to reply to this question.
as a pharm d student i'm not qualified to assess med school and vice versa.

oh and if a med student says pharmacy school is a cake walk b/c they know a guy.....
or if a pharm student says med school isn't that hard because they have a cousin.....
ignore them. they don't know

 

[AMG_MD]

Hey everyone, I have a question that will probably get a few laughs out of a few of you. I am currently pre-medicine and wanting to keep my options for post-undergrad very open. I am wondering if Pharmacy school is anything like medical school. I know that for the MCAT, the highest score is a 46. What is the highest for the PCAT? Please don't laugh at me guys! I know that sounds like a dumb question, but I am starting to realize that I need to keep options open in the event that I do not get accepted to medical school.

Also, are pharm schools as selective as medical schools? Thanks so much in advance 🙂

Sorry but your question is laughable. You need to go speak to a premed advisor before you drive us insane.

 

[cognito]

I'm sure that there are quite a few different views on this subject, but I can only speak of the admission process. The MCAT was at least twice as difficult as the PCAT, but the general application process AMCAS, interview... were about the same. The difficulty of admission all together seems to be increasing for both, while I think it is still more difficult to gain admission to a big med school, it is no longer easy to get into pharm school either. And just as a note the only dumb questions are those questions that have never been asked.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

The MCAT was at least twice as difficult as the PCAT

Is that the old one or the new one?

I took the old one and thought it was easy. My girlfriend took the new one a couple of months ago, thought she did horrible, and wound up with a 96.