Midwestern-Glendale vs University of Colorado (Skaggs)

[MTM123]

I'm sorry if these school threads have been discussed before. I have been flip flopping between these two schools and have yet to come to a conclusion on which I should go to.

I'm from CA and won't get in state tuition for Colorado (personal reasons)

Cost wise it will be a $10k difference. I like both schools, but I'm an older applicant so the 3 years at Midwestern is a definite plus, but I want to know that in the future, if I wanted to pursue a residency I could, I felt at Skaggs a lot of students seemed to be interested and knew of many students actually completing a residency. The prestige factor of Skaggs is also nice (compared to Midwestern) but in reality how much does this matter?

I've asked current pharmacists they've told me to go to the cheapest school, but with a 10k difference I feel I need more reasons to pick either school.

Anyway, any suggestions are welcome, would love to hear your opinions!!

Thanks

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[PhunwithPharm]

If you look around on the forums or google "pharmacy school ranking importance" you will realize ranking is not too important(because the ranking is not based on academic things such as graduation rates, residency rates, NAPLEX pass rates, etc. It is mainly based on grant $$ and research). I've known many people who attended Midwestern Glendale and successfully got a residency. In fact, the last graduation class (2013) had the highest amount of students going into residency throughout the school history.
I personally had a lot of different choices (many higher ranked) but decided to go to Midwestern. This was due to a lot of various factors ( the 3 year was also appealing). I really liked the open door policy of the teachers (because the school is more of a "teaching" school than a "research" school, the teachers can be bothered any time of the day, which can be really beneficial during test weeks). If you tell the teachers that you are looking into doing a residency, most teachers will really go out of their way to help you achieve your goals.
When getting a residency, there are a lot of more important factors to get you into a successful residency program than the school you attended. Most residency programs look for: GPA, leadership roles, recommendation letters, etc. I personally feel like I will be able to get better recommendation letters from pharmacy teachers at Midwestern because the teachers are specifically there only to help students (and not to do research projects at the school. I personally went to an undergrad school where most of my science teachers were busy doing research and it was hard getting to know them during their office hours). Both are great schools, good luck finding the one that fits you!

 

[MTM123]

If you look around on the forums or google "pharmacy school ranking importance" you will realize ranking is not too important(because the ranking is not based on academic things such as graduation rates, residency rates, NAPLEX pass rates, etc. It is mainly based on grant $$ and research). I've known many people who attended Midwestern Glendale and successfully got a residency. In fact, the last graduation class (2013) had the highest amount of students going into residency throughout the school history.
I personally had a lot of different choices (many higher ranked) but decided to go to Midwestern. This was due to a lot of various factors ( the 3 year was also appealing). I really liked the open door policy of the teachers (because the school is more of a "teaching" school than a "research" school, the teachers can be bothered any time of the day, which can be really beneficial during test weeks). If you tell the teachers that you are looking into doing a residency, most teachers will really go out of their way to help you achieve your goals.
When getting a residency, there are a lot of more important factors to get you into a successful residency program than the school you attended. Most residency programs look for: GPA, leadership roles, recommendation letters, etc. I personally feel like I will be able to get better recommendation letters from pharmacy teachers at Midwestern because the teachers are specifically there only to help students (and not to do research projects at the school. I personally went to an undergrad school where most of my science teachers were busy doing research and it was hard getting to know them during their office hours). Both are great schools, good luck finding the one that fits you!

Thank you PhunwithPharm! Appreciate the response.

I actually decided on Midwestern a few hours ago, so I'm really glad you responded! I did like a lot of things about Midwestern when I was there, and loved the campus and faculty I met. It was mainly the intro they gave us Univ Colorado that really showed me how much "prestige" they had, I actually didn't know any of that before going to the interview, so I thought it would be nice to attend a school like that. Midwestern would be 10k cheaper for me so that's also a plus.

I guess I'm set on Midwestern then! YAY! Thanks again for the reply! Much appreciated!