Concern about applying to pharmacy schools

[gauchopharmd]

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I am currently an undergraduate majoring in Chemistry at UCSB. A little bit about myself. I just have my GPA calculated by pharmcas. My cumulative GPA is 3.53 and science GPA is 3.23, my PCAT is 77 with Chemistry 98. Since my science GPA is really low, mainly because of my Cs during my Freshman and Sophomore years, I am really concerning about my chance of applying to pharmacy schools. I have finished applying for 4 schools. What are my safe options ? Please help, thank you!

 

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I am currently an undergraduate majoring in Chemistry at UCSB. A little bit about myself. I just have my GPA calculated by pharmcas. My cumulative GPA is 3.53 and science GPA is 3.23, my PCAT is 77 with Chemistry 98. Since my science GPA is really low, mainly because of my Cs during my Freshman and Sophomore years, I am really concerning about my chance of applying to pharmacy schools. I have finished applying for 4 schools. What are my safe options ? Please help, thank you!

Relatively speaking, compared to current stat avg of accepted students to pharm schools these days, your sGPA of 3.23 is not low. In fact, it is good and competitive for most schools. People with 2s GPAs and 10-20s PCAT get in good/established pharm schools left and right these days. With more and more pharm schools are opening, the avg stats for acceptance are likely going down not up. You have nothing to worry about. The odds are in your favors and they are only getting better for you as time goes on.

Having said that, you have to apply broadly and not top heavy (i.e. top-ranked schools) to maximize your chance of acceptance. Then you are going to be fine.

Another thing: make sure you know what you are getting into bc this will stick with you for life once you get in. As I have mentioned above, pharmacy is already saturated and even more so in the future as schools keep on opening up endlessly to capitalize on high tuition for pharmd programs with the expense on the tens of thousands more students they are pumping out every year (now with at least 150-200k on the avg with high interests) who are now desperate to find jobs to pay back their loans. Job prospect is not good in general due to cutdown in healthcare expense/insurance compensation and no new role expansion for pharmacists (in spite of what pharmacy schools keep telling us). Do your own research, get all the facts + numbers, then do the calculation yourself to decide if this career path is still worth investing your time, money, and effort.