Do not attend Chicago College of Pharmacy
I am currently a first year student who has made it to my second year. I can not say that about many of my classmates, who have either been held back a year or completely failed out. Currently, there are about 30 students who are being held back and about 10 or so who have failed out. You have to imagine that some of those being held back will probably fail next year as you can not fail more than 3 classes your whole time here at CCP. One of my classmates who failed out had a felony on his record, not a dwi like some others had, (yes, a felony charge).
The average incoming classes PCAT scores were in the 3oth percentile. The average GPA was in the low 2's. It is like coming back to High school, people here are caddy, gossipy, immature and unprofessional. The school even started classes two weeks early for our class just so anyone who wanted to drop out can drop out and someone else take their place.
Here are my reasons to find another pharmacy school.
-Many of my class mates take Adderall and other stimulants to pass their classes. The top student in my class does some C2 to study.
-Your tuition will go up every year by 2000 dollars. By the time you graduate, you will be paying 46-48k for school. You are told that the increases are to pay staff a better wage. This does not mean that the school hires better professors, it just means they get paid more. No improvements occur to better your education. We even got an email not to study in chairs in one of the new buildings because it was interfering with the Dean's office.
-You pay a lot for tuition and get nothing in return. The school's gym and library are jokes.
The desks in the library are disgusting because people leave trash on them. They are not screwed in properly and make a ton of noise when you work on them, and finally there is not enough space. The school has books on shelves from 1992 but not enough desks to seat people. During finals, you will be fighting people for a place to sit. The library stays open until 12 midnight then kick you out to the "24" hour room which is even worse (because it smells). The bathroom's in the library and 24 hour room run out of soap and paper towels. They do not allow us to have hot water to wash our hands, even in the dead of winter in the bathrooms.
The gym is another joke. Exercise equipment from the 80's. The weight room was a closest they converted to a long hall with weights in them.
-The staff and some professors do not care about you. You can ask them for help and you are told, it is up to you. If you start to fail, then you qualify for tutoring, otherwise, you are on your own.
-Whoever makes the schedules probably hates you. Do you like taking exams at 7 am in the morning, No, neither do I. God forbid a Arctic-blasts sweeps in the night before a test, you will be told to either show up or fail. We once got an email the night before an exam where we have feet of snow dumped on top of us, telling us to use common sense and caution about driving to school. Common sense told me to stay at home and not risk my life to make it to class.
-Quarter system sucks, everything is crammed in. You sit in class from 8 am to 3 or 4. You are dead tired from being in class, then you have to study. You never have enough time to study.
-The dorms are prisons. Why would you want to pay close to a thousand dollars a month to have to share a bathroom and have no kitchen. Eating out is not healthy and is not cheap.
The lists goes on and on, take my advice, go somewhere else. Somewhere that is better. MWU cares only about money.
