Leaving a 0-6 for a diff pharm school

[littiedan]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

hey guys, im currently in a straight-out-of-highschool, 0-6 pharm program and im interested in applying to other pharm schools for my professional years.

my only concern is regarding some of the course requirements for other schools. i see that there are some classes i will be missing with my current set curriculum, which, might i had, is very difficult (at least for me).
Anyway, my question is about how pharmacy schools view students like me who are coming from these 0-6 programs. Are they more lenient with the course requirements? If they aren't, i'll have to really overwork myself next year.

Thanks guys, just trying to see if i can save myself from a grueling 2nd year

edit:
also, if this helps, im interested in UC:SF, UNC, UM:Ann Arbor, and USC
and i expect to have an excellent GPA (3.7+) a good PCAT score, and im planning on getting a pharm tech job soon, and im also trying to get some community service in there

 

[SGPharmD]

I don't really think that is the smartest thing to do since you are already pretty much in pharmacy school. If you decide that you want to apply to another school you will be up against thousands of applicants. Right now, all you have to do is get a certain GPA and maybe PCAT score (depending on where you go, they may not even require that you take the PCAT) and can move on to your first professional year. Why on earth would you want to give up a seat in a pharmacy school? Isn't that why you applied right out of high school, so that you wouldn't have to worry about the competition? I'm kicking myself now for not having done that!

Anyway, if you are really set on doing this, you are going to run into some trouble. 0-6 schools set up their programs so that you don't have to take certain courses or certain courses are combined so that all the pre-reqs fit into 2 years. Therefore, you'll have to take whatever you're missing whenever you have time (over the summer, or the next year). So it could take another year before you can apply to pharmacy school. Then in your personal statement, you can be sure that schools are going to want to know why you decided to leave. GOOD LUCK!!!

 

[flillia]

Why do you want to switch schools?

I'm not that familiar with 0-6 schools but looking at the curriculum for the only one I know of, St Louis College of Pharm, the first two years of classes seem to be almost exactly the same as normal pre-pharm. That may make transferring a bit easier if you do it after the second year but it also means that the difficulty level will probably be around the same no matter where you take the classes.

Personally, I'd stick with what you've got going now. A guaranteed thing is better than taking your second year in undergrad and then hoping and praying that you get in to pharmacy school.

 

[AngelaCL]

Well, it's not going to hurt you to look at admissions requirements and if you don't get in anywhere else it's not like your school is going to force you to leave. However, I would *not* expect for schools to be more lenient for the course requirements - there is plenty of competition and no reason to make it easier for you to get in. If you want to transfer, there's a good chance you'll have to take an extra class or two, and it's possible that you won't get in and will have taken extra classes for nothing. But if you are unhappy, you should at least try for elsewhere!

 

[littiedan]

i wanna leave because the school im currently attending just isnt that great. I pay 30k/yr for subpar facilities, crappy housing, and some awful teachers. The area is also dangerous.

I thought that the idea of leaving the 0-6 program was a great idea since I'd have nothing to lose. I thought if i got into another school, I could just leave, and if i didnt, i could just stay and continue my pharmacy schooling. Since my school has a set tuition that doesnt account for any extra courses, I wouldn't lose any money either.
The only problem that i can foresee is the the timing of acceptance/rejection letters clashing. I'll have to look into whether I'll know if i can leave for another program before I need to pay my next semester's tuition (and by next semester, i mean my P1 year in the 0-6 program)

Also, my school has a 3.0 GPA requirement for all pharmacy students. I'm wondering if other schools enforce GPA requirements, and if so, whether the requirement is higher or lower than this. I plan on looking into this more extensively on my own, but for curiosity sake, are there any current pharm students reading this topic now that can share their school's GPA requirements? What are they, and are they difficult to maintain?

But is there any other reason that leaving this program would be a bad idea? I know it'll be more work for me, but i think it'd be overall worth it. A better school, more prestige, safety, better instructors, everything would be better. And also, I've always wanted to go to california, so this gives me a great excuse to go

Thanks for the replies btw. i need to get back to studying for finals. good luck to all you guys in the same situatioN!!

 

[buddybud164]

Just out of curiosity (because I also applied to several 0-6 schools), what school are you currently attending? Just a heads up for us so we won't apply there 😀

 

[pharmacology888]

I was curious too, so I searched the old posts and came to the conclusion that maybe the school is USP...

 

[bananaface]

The requirements are just that. You won't get to avoid anything because you are currently at a 0-6 school.

 

[DreamSeller]

If you have time to waste and money to spend, then I say do it.