EC's! What is the big deal!

[musicalPharmD]

I have three (changed major) years left in undergrad and will apply to pharmacy schools in two more years. I plan to get all A's until then, and take excess summer quarters.

I have worked in a pharmacy for ~20 months now and will stop this summer. I worked about 10-15 hours per week, 1-3 days. I liked it and it made me choose pharmacy school.

I have also spent some time volunteering at a hosptial where I read books to kids and played piano/sung with them. I also shadowed 2 MD's. Of course, this was when I was headed for medical school. Now I am not.

I simply am the type of person that does not want to get too personally involved in the lives of other people and dont think I can handle all of this "pre med" volunteering. I do not enjoy it AT ALL. I was also a english conversation partner. When I was still considering med school I even was considering starting a two year long volunteer thing (5 hrs week) at a nursing home. I really am not interseted in it.

How important are "EC's" in pharmacy school admission. I've have LOTS of pharmacy work experience and I just hope that is good enough for the adcoms. I simply have no desire to be the leader of this club and that, go somewhere to build houses, go on a mission trip ect. I chose not to go to medical school because of the work of MD's I saw and the fact that pre meds do so much of those types of EC's of which I have no interest in.

However, I have been involved in church music for the past 1.5 years at my home church and will continue at the university campus group.

"Be yourself." Well this is myself. How important are EC's? I would rather use that time to excell (3.9+ grades) in my remaining undergrad and other things.

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[rxlynn]

After going through the application process myself and reading this forum for about a year, my general sense is that ECs are not as important as they are to med shool applicants. I can tell you from my own personal experience I don't think it hindered my application. I am older than most applicants (pharmacy will be a third career for me), and I had really done absolutely nothing EC since after my first child was born (4/99). The types of things I had before were not really hard-core volunteering either, and NONE of them were related to pharmacy. I did have very good stats, and I have worked as a pharmacy tech since 9/2000, so I had significant experience. I got accepted at both places I applied. Some pharmacy schools have more emphasis on volunteering, I'm sure - perhaps you can get a sense on their websites as to whether that might be a school for you to avoid since that part of your application may not be as strong.

 

[musicalPharmD]

bump

 

[patmcd]

I think they can certainly be a help, especially for boarderline applicants. With just a good gpa it can be hard to set yourself apart from the other applicants, not to mention they often serve as good examples for interview questions.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I did nothing extra, had a crappy GPA, a decent PCAT, and got into a major state school.

 

[dirtyart]

I did nothing extra, had a crappy GPA, a decent PCAT, and got into a major state school.

But what year was that?

And you must've performed superbly on the interview, no?

In-state as well?