Pharmacy Grades Bachelor vs Masters - Do I have a shot at Pharmacy School?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Question

Member Question
Volunteer Staff
Joined
Mar 22, 2021
Messages
3,624
Reaction score
81
Hi!
I graduated from undergrad with a cumulative GPA of 2.925 and a science GPA of 3.2. Since I took some time off and completed a masters with a GPA of 3.744.
Without going into crazy detail, I was distracted, lazy and unprepared for an impacted major at my undergraduate. Going into my masters at another school, I often led the way with exam scores and was dedicated in the material as it relates to my work.
Assuming I can portray my improvement to the committee, would I have a shot?

Thank you for the time!!

— Experts please respond to this post —

Members don't see this ad.
 
The details are important: what majors did you get for your bachelor's and masters degrees? If you are talking pharmacy programs, what have you done to give you greater insight into what pharmacists do?

Have you talked with admissions recruiters about your application yet?
 
It might depend on what your masters is in, but the honest answer is that it probably won't matter that you had a <3.0 GPA. The acceptance rate for pharmacy schools is now more than 80% when it used to be less than 40% 15 years ago. You might have less of a chance with a top 25 school, but I wouldn't rule it out.

If the rest of your application is decent then you should still have a good chance. I would still recommend applying to whatever schools you can get in-state tuition at even if they seem like they could be out of your reach (they probably aren't).
 
Members don't see this ad :)
As long as you did reasonably well in your all your science courses along with few to no D's in pre-reqs, you should be good. I imagine your MS in Drug Development will cover a multitude of academic sins. I think any pharmacy experience will be good enough, your "real" experience (i.e. not as an intern of some kind) may even come across as impressive.

For reference, the number 1 pharmacy school in the country (UCSF) has a required GPA of only 2.80. Many pharmacy schools have dropped a specific requirement entirely and opted for a "no D's" policy.

Don't ignore the "good" state schools in your area because you think that undergrad GPA will hamper you.
 
It'll be sufficient but also an unusual background. I doubt you'll get into SF or SD (scratch that, you won't get into SF unless you also have major connections), but you're a probable for Pacific. It still has some prerequisites matters, your chemistries cannot be too worrisome, but otherwise, the MS should be unusually applicable.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top