Losing Hope

[CaliChemist]

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Hi. I just recently found out about these forums from my counselor and would definitely like some honest feedback on the best path I should take. I have little other source of help/advice and would appreciate any assistance.

A little about myself: I'm currently attending a northern California state school and will be graduating Spring 2010 with my BA in Chemistry. I have worked at 2 different pharmacies for 4 years now. For extracurricular, I have a music background and have tried to use my talents to help boost my application and have joined a few academic clubs on campus. I recently completed my PharmCAS application. PharmCAS calculated my Science GPA to be 2.76, Math 2.86, Non-science 3.64, and my overall GPA 3.02. As for my pcats, I had a composite score of 67% (43 verbal, 75 biology, 26 reading comp, 91 quantitative ability, 77 chemistry, and 3s on both my writing). I recently applied for Northstate College of Pharmacy for early admission, but things don't look favorable (a few people I know have already received their supplementals and interviews and applied for normal admission and they have much better backgrounds than I do).

Now, I have tried my best to learn about the process but I am not sure what I am doing or the best path to take. Clearly, looking at my stats, I am no better than an average student and far from competitive. I would like to know if there is hope and if my stats are viable enough to get into any of the PharmD programs. I aspire to become a pharmacist more than any other profession, but I would also like to know the harsh reality of whether I should pursue a different career option or continue to follow my goal.

Although i'll value all the guidance from anyone here, I would definitely appreciate the opinion from those with past experience. I looked at the school list and was completely overwhelmed. I managed to knock out a few schools that were far out of my reach but the list still goes on and on. Assuming I get declined from Northstate, I would like to know a few prospect schools that would be best suited for someone in my situation; places that would be within my caliber. At this point, location isn't a problem. I am willing to travel anywhere, pay whatever it costs, and do whatever it takes to get my foot in the door. I would like to know if anyone has been in this kind of circumstance and if you guys would recommend some programs I can check out.

All comments are welcome.
Sorry for the ignorance.
Thank you all for your time.

-Jay

 

[Forrest Gump]

Jay,

Speaking optimistically, as someone with similar stats to yours, I do think you have a good chance of getting accepted into a pharmacy program! Having your degree will help as some schools give extra points for it and/or the majority of those they accept have a degree. Since you are not a shoo-in, you must plan a careful strategy (like I did) and apply to a handful of schools that you feel you have the best chance of at least getting an interview. Most of the school I'm applying to fit that category and if needed, I can apply to a few more. There are at least 10 new pharmacy schools opening up in 2010 and they are typically easier to get into. Yes, it can be overwhelming to sift through the information on the 200+ schools. A suggestion to make the process a bit easier is to buy this book: Get into Pharmacy School: RX for Success by William Douglas Figg. I got it for xmas and in the back of the book it gives a brief overview of most of the schools (except the new ones) and their admissions criteria, % of acceptance, etc. I used this information to make a spreadsheet with a short list of schools (30 - 40) and then I just kept cutting and cutting until I found my target schools. Like I said, I may add 2 or 3 more but for now I have one interview so far so I'm going to see what kind of response I get. Do your homework and make a plan - you can do it!😀

 

[CaliChemist]

I'm glad that things may not be completely away from my grasp. And I'm especially grateful that at least someone here has the faith to believe in me. I will definitely check out the book. I have only been using the PharmCAS school directory. Thanks for the help. Any further comments would be great. Also, goodluck to you too.

 

[Teva]

....
All comments are welcome.
Sorry for the ignorance.
Thank you all for your time.

-Jay

Hey Jay,

My stats were similar to yours years ago. I decided to get a master's degree in molecular biology, take as many biology courses as I could and re-apply this year. I finally got a few interviews and 1 acceptance so far... hoping for more.

I knew pharmacy was the only thing I wanted to do so I stuck with it and worked extremely hard. And trust me, hard work really does pay off. So my advice for you is to think about getting a master's degree, boost up that gpa and re-apply. Good luck.

 

[diastole]

I'm of the belief that you can recover from just about anything if you are willing to work hard enough at it to overcome your past mistakes. If you don't get in this year, one of the more obvious things to work on is your PCAT. Try and get that up to at least an 80. You might consider retaking some of those prereqs and trying to get As in them or you can enter grad school like the previous poster and hope that works for you. Cultivate relationships so your LORs are excellent. Just make sure that if you have to try again next cycle that you are a much more competitive applicant than you are this year. You can do this but it will take a lot of hard work on your part if you don't get happy news this year.

Good luck.

 

[docss26]

Hey! Keep your head up buddy! I think you did a great thing coming on this website, because I was in a very similar situation and SDN members motivated me and encouraged me. I hope I can help you out the way others here helped me.

My GPA is similar to yours, pcat 70 and GPA 3.1. I was on the board of three university organizations, research for a little over a semester, ER volunteer, and excellent LORs. What I did during the summer when choosing schools is narrow down all the schools on PharmCAS whos pre-requisites I met, I came up with 41 schools. Then I looked at all the average GPAs of accepted incoming first year pharmacy students. I chose schools who had an average of 3.4 and below and came up with about 20 schools. Out of those twenty I applied to about 15. Keep in mind the majority of those schools with low average GPA acceptance tend to be private and new schools. People in our position cant be picky so you will take a risk applying to those schools not yet accredited.

If there is anything I have learned during my interviews it is that committees love volunteer work and community involvement. Hopefully you get in somewhere this year, but when you try again next year improve your application not by retaking classes, but by volunteering where it counts and getting to know people with reputations that may eventually write you an excellent recommendation.

Give me a PM if you want more information on my stats and the path I took, I would love to help in any way possible. Subscribed!