help help!!

I say study for the pcat. You wont be able to bring your GPA up much and it would look better if you really nailed the pcat. Plus if you dont take the class you may be able to get more pharmacy/volunteer experience. Good luck!

 

Having never taken the PCAT, personally, how much study time do you think you'll need? If I recall the next one is in June, though I did read they're changing format (don't know for better or worse) Given you'll have 1-2 months between now and then (depending on early vs late June) If you devoted even 1 hour/day to PCAT that would be 30-60 hours of study. You could cram in the week between Spring/Summer semester/quarter. Not sure if skipping the summer class is all that necessary. If you feel it is, worst case scenario it's just one more class for the fall, right.

 

how about taking just one class during the summer? Don't take neither class if you don't need it. You don't have to have all your classes done before you submit your application (it doesn't look that much better if you do anyways). Like you said, it won't change your GPA much.

 

Cumulative is EVERYTHING. Science GPA will more closely reflect the major prereq's, though it won't include your Calc or English/Speech. In terms of GPA it depends on how they score your application. If points are assigned according to a GPA range 3.3-3.4 = x points, 3.41-3.5 = x+1 points, then it's unlikely you'll be affected given that you're only talking .04 grade points (The exception being if the range ends at 3.49 and 3.5 starts the next range.) If points are tied directly to GPA 3.46 = 3.46 points, 3.5 = 3.5 points then you'll see a difference, and though, while small, it may be significant depending on the overall score for your application.

 

PharmCAS is just a middle-man so they don't assign points to anything, they just collect your information and forward it to the schools you designate.

I would think that to remove personal bias that all schools should have some designated system to weight the parts of your application that are more important to them. I know Western uses a point system, and I'm pretty sure USC does as well. What parts of the application get weighted I'm not 100% sure. I know Western gives points for GPA, Bachelor's degree, and interview, but I don't know what else (How would you weight volunteer work? x points/hr, does location matter in ranking, etc.) Of course if the info were public knowledge it would be less necessary to ask such questions on SDN, we'd already know what parts of our application needed the most effort.