extracurricular activities

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panda103

panda103

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  1. Pre-Pharmacy
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When applying to pharmacy school, how important are extracurriculuar activities to the admissions? I have thought of volunteering at a hospital and joining my school's bio club, but what other opportunities are out there? Can any of you share with me what other activities you did? Do they have to be pharmacy related? Thanks to anyone who replies! 🙂

Oh, btw, I finally got the guts to register so now I'm a member of the forum and not a lurker!! Yeah!!!
 
I don't know how important extracurricular activities are for in the admissions process, but here's some of the stuff I've done while in college:

volleyball team
Circle K member
GOAT member (outdoors club)
ACS member
Band member (yeah, I'm a band geek. so sue me... you would be too if you got a big fat scholarship for it)

and a crap load of volunteer work all over the place (hospitals, Humane Society, Reforest the Bluegrass, Science Day, Children's museum)

I really have no idea what the pharmacy school is looking for... hopefully they'll think I'm well rounded and not spread too thin.
 
vafcarrot said:
I don't know how important extracurricular activities are for in the admissions process, but here's some of the stuff I've done while in college:

volleyball team
Circle K member
GOAT member (outdoors club)
ACS member
Band member (yeah, I'm a band geek. so sue me... you would be too if you got a big fat scholarship for it)

and a crap load of volunteer work all over the place (hospitals, Humane Society, Reforest the Bluegrass, Science Day, Children's museum)

I really have no idea what the pharmacy school is looking for... hopefully they'll think I'm well rounded and not spread too thin.
Click to expand...
Does being a member of Circle K get you free gas and squishies? 😉

I put down sub-section leader of my drumline when I was in band. GO CANES!
 
it doesn't need to be pharmacy or healthcare related. basically do any volunteer work you enjoy.
 
Circle K International.... community service group. The sponsors are the Kiwanis. Highschool branch is called Key Club. And from where I'm from, we call them icees 🙂
 
This may be a weird question but...
Does it matter when pre-pharm classes are taken?

I really want to go to UCSF and they require lots of classes. They require two classes in Calculus, so I took calc I in the spring and calc II in summer school. They also require Intro to Stats and A&P, which I plan to take in the future during summers. I could take these classes during the school year, but I'm working on getting a BS in Bio and that program requires lots of classes (mostly science) and Stats and A&P are not included... I guess it doesn't really matter when I plan on taking the classes in the three years left of undergrad but would pharmacy schools think I'm taking the easy way by taking one required class over the summer?
I don't know if I should be worried about this so please respond and tell me if I'm thinking okay or not. Thanks!! 🙂
 
It shouldn't matter when you take what classes. By all means, take a light load with a harder course and go for the better grade. It shows you are smart by maximizing your GPA! 🙂

I call them all slurpees in the sense that I call all adhesive bandages band-aids. Alot of AM/PM stores have Slurpees machines instead of Icees. And I have been in a couple of 7-11 Stores with Icees (more rare). I am such a fan of those drinks! Pina colada is my favorite, then blue raspberry, then cherry. Slurpees are better than Icees. Mmmmm. Slurpeeeeeee.
 
panda103, i didn't know that SF requires A&P. when i was applying is '02, they only required physio lec. i guess they might have changed their prereq's.
as long as you finish your classes before you get in, it's ok to take the prereq's anytime you want.
 
My ECs

Chair of a peer counseling group
Chair of Amnesty International
Radio DJ 🙂
Big Sister
Mock Trial
Psi Chi
Peer Health Educators (educating college students on all sorts of health issues)
Volunteer work at an animal shelter

I did all sorts of things, obviously not all health-related. I think showing diversity and leadership is important, but you should do things because they interest you, not because they might interest an adcom. JMO
 
my GPA wasn't too hot, so i think my EC were my saving factor that really got my foot into the door for interviews. they do want ppl who are well-rounded, in leadership positions, active in the healthcare field and active in other activities too. i feel kinda silly listing everything, but here are the major things i did for at least a yr: volunteer at hospital, chem frat officer, chinese-american cultural club staff, costume designer/dance coordinator for viet cultural shows, theater & improv group staff, and researching in lab.

panda- you can take your pre-reqs at anytime, as long as you finish everything before you enter pharm school. so you should be on the right track!
 
Panda, check with the schools you are applying to. I know that the school I'm applying to (U of K) requires that you have some specific classes done already (a semester of physics, organic and microbio or an anatomy class) before you can even be consider as an applicant. Even so, I have heard of people getting accepted without having completed this prereqs for application at the time they applied and still got in. I think the admissions is flexible to each situation.
 
i would recommend finish at least 80 percent of science pre-req before applying. def finish organic 1.
 
ucdbiochem said:
panda103, i didn't know that SF requires A&P. when i was applying is '02, they only required physio lec. i guess they might have changed their prereq's.
as long as you finish your classes before you get in, it's ok to take the prereq's anytime you want.
Click to expand...


You're right, ucdbiochem! I guess I over looked that 😀 I gonna have human physiology to fill that requirement. Just need to fit it in somewhere in my program. Thanks so much for mentioning about that!!

Thanks for all your imput everyone!!! 🙂
 
I'd like to know if a class such as Intro to Probability can fulfill UCSF's prepharmacy requirement of Statistics. I have tried contacting the Office of Student & Curricular Affairs for help, but I didn't get any responce.
 
it should meet the statistics requirement. but just to make sure, you should try to contact the school again.
 
I am somewhat of a dissenter I guess in that I feel that extracurricular activities are NOT necessary. Quite frankly, the 3 most important criteria for getting into pharmacy school are science GPA, personal statement and supplementary application materials, and previous pharmacy experience. Of the 3 the first 2 are actually the most important. I am not just pulling this from nowhere either, since I was concerned with this same issue before I applied. The assistant dean and a member of the admissions committee at the school I applied at basically told me what to do and what was important. That being said, if you have the opportunity to sit down with an admission counseler or advisor at the school you are applying to, do so. It may not be a huge consideration, but if you have been seen around the school a couple of times and are familiar with the staff if often can give you an edge over other applicants just via the familiarity factor.
 
I think EC's are pretty important, particularly to the CA schools. GPA is major, but EC's can really help you. I know mine helped me get interviews, esp since my GPA isn't that great. I did a lot of student government, bio clubs, volunteer work, research.
 
Have any of you known anyone with a GPA below 3.0 who got into a pharmacy school in CA? If so, what other factors helped them get in besides their GPA??? Thanks!
 
my friend got a 3.0 and got into western. i think he wrote good essays, did some EC's, got decent letters of rec, and rocked on the interview. i'm not sure if a sub-3.0 can get you in to CA schools, but if other aspects of your application are great, they should be able to help out a bit.
good luck
 
On the UCSF website it says that the lowest GPA they admitted was a 2.84 with a 2.5 pre-pharmacy GPA, but I'm assuming that this person must have some other exceptional/unique aspects to their application. I know that of all the CA schools, UCSF really tries to look at the whole person rather than just numbers.
 
i think most pharm schools or other professional schools want their student to be well-rounded instead of gunners. so having a lower gpa doesn't mean there is no chance as long as the application is well put together.
 
Yeah, that's true, but it's definitely hard for those of us with lower GPA's.
 
Thanks so much for your input--it helps a lot! 🙂
 
I'm planning on writing a paper on a pharmacy related issue. The problem is I don't know any issues and therefore I can't start. So, can anyone tell me any or where I can find any? Thank you!!! 🙂
 
panda103 said:
I'm planning on writing a paper on a pharmacy related issue. The problem is I don't know any issues and therefore I can't start. So, can anyone tell me any or where I can find any? Thank you!!! 🙂
Click to expand...

You can check with the links on the Sticky "Important Links". Also, there are quite a few pharmacy related issues being discussed on this forum right now, you could always pick to write about one of these. 😉

Good luck! :luck:
 
You might try writing a paper on Academic Detailing, that seems to be one of the buzzwords that people like for some reason these days.
 
What's Academic Detailing?
 
As you all know, biology is one of the type of classes required for the pre-pharm program. Since I am going for a undergrad degree in bio, does it matter which biology classes I include in my pharm application (which will be included in calculating my pre-pharm gpa)?
If this question isn't clear, then I'll put it in a different way. If a pharmacy school only requires two classes in general biology and I happen to have taken 10 classes of biology, can I choose any 2 out of the 10?
Hope I wasn't too complicated 😛
 
panda103 said:
As you all know, biology is one of the type of classes required for the pre-pharm program. Since I am going for a undergrad degree in bio, does it matter which biology classes I include in my pharm application (which will be included in calculating my pre-pharm gpa)?
If this question isn't clear, then I'll put it in a different way. If a pharmacy school only requires two classes in general biology and I happen to have taken 10 classes of biology, can I choose any 2 out of the 10?
Hope I wasn't too complicated 😛
Click to expand...

I'm sure they mean Bio I and II unless otherwise stated.
 
I agree with Tuck, I think that extracurriculars are a much, much lower priority than the big two factors: GPA and test scores.

Note: This might be my opinion just because I had basically zero extracurriculars and very little volunteer work when I applied to pharmacy school. (I worked so much that I didn't have time for anything else while I was in college!)

I think as long as you are doing something you enjoy (whether it is working, volunteering, clubs, whatever) to make yourself a well-rounded applicant, you will look fine to the adcoms. I imagine that having unique extracurriculars gives you something interesting to talk about during interviews as well.

Shannon
Univ. of Maryland class of 2008
 
I've heard that Ochem has a bad rep. People who have taken the class say that there is lots of memorization and that if you did well in chemistry I and II, then you'd do well in Ochem too.
Anyway, I'm gonna take Ochem I and II this coming year and because of all this talk about it, I'm pretty excited. I actually don't really know exactly what to expect and so being curious, I was wondering if any of you who have taken the class could give me an idea of what the curriculum would be like. What am I suppose to learn in Ochem? Tips on passing the class would be nice too 🙂 Thanks for those who can bare sharing their experience!
 
People make Ochem sound much more scary than it really is IMO. All you really need to do is your homework, and among the homework problems focus on the basic synthesis for each type of reaction. Usually they are depicted in a summary equation box at the end of each chapter. I did not really think there was that much memorization in Ochem, there are maybe 80-120 reactions that you need to know, but a lot of them are quite similar. I guess if I were to give one piece of advice it would be to learn how to recognize your nucleophile and electrophile and be able to write resonance forms well so you can see both how and where things will potentially add. If you can do that fairly well Ochem is pretty much a breeze, if you can't well...your f*cked! 🙂 Hope that helps a bit, although you probably have no idea what I am talking about at this point.
 
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