hi
i want to study medicine and stuff
[ignore that dental thing. idk how to change it :/]
and
im only a jr in highschool
and i went to UT last week,
talked w/a professor from college of pharamcy,
and he said that in order to apply for UT college of pharmacy,
i have to take PCAT.
and i see that most ppl here talking about is graduate students.
soo,
is PCAT supposed to be the test for graduate school or something? im confused.
and i heard its hard for highschool kids.
Start your research here:
www.aacp.org
You need to understand that there are lots of different ways to become a pharmacist. As a high schooler, you have the option of going to a 0-6 program, or doing your undergrad pre-reqs at a cc or 4-year school, or getting a bachelor's degree and applying to Pharmacy school as a degree-holder.
If you want to go to a 6-year program (check out
www.hamptonu.edu for one example), you'll need to get accepted to it based on your high school grades, your SAT/ACT scores, and the difficulty of your high school program. In a 6-year program, you soend the first two years getting your gen ed courses out of the way and doing some of the pre-reqs for pharmacy school, but then after you finish those first two years, you move into the "professional program," which is 4 years of pharmacy school. It's hard to do, and the competition is pretty steep. Each college will also have its own requirements on when you need to take the PCAT, or if you need to take it at all.
The person you spoke to at UT may have been thinking you are interested in attending Pharmacy school after attending UT. As far as I know, UT doesn't offer a 6-year pharm option, so that professor was looking at it from this perspective: you'll need to do some regular undergraduate work to start out with, to get your pharmacy pre-reqs out of the way (check with the UT pharm school to see what their pre-reqs are). Then, you'll apply during your third or fourth year of college, to get accepted into the UT pharmacy program. By that time, you should have taken the PCAT at least once, you'll have amasses a fantabulous GPA in your undergrad work, and you'll have gotten a chance to participate in some meaningful extra-curriculars (grin- that's all stuff you'll want for your application).
More and more pharmacy schools are leaning toward admitting people who already have bachelor's degrees, so you might want to keep that in mind. Get an undergrad degree in something like Chemistry or Biology, and apply for admission as soon as you're within reach of completing all the pre-reqs.
Good luck-- and hit that AACP website for more info. There are also lots of stickies on this site for more information.
