Ouestions related to applicationb budget, interviews and recommendations

[kordjames]

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I plan on applying to more than maybe 15 schools. I live in Charlotte and a few schools that I'm applying to are far away. What would be the cost for applying and then having to travel to the school for an interview? Does PharmCAS allow for one application payment only which can be used for several schools?


Also, for recommendations, is it a requirement to use professors or can I just use pharmacists that know me well?

 

[ValeRx]

Not a good idea. 15 schools is overkill. You are going to drop hundreds of dollars on PharmCAS alone if you go that route. Add the supplemental application fees for each school as well. Pick 5 that you feel you will have the best chance at.

 

[kordjames]

Not a good idea. 15 schools is overkill. You are going to drop hundreds of dollars on PharmCAS alone if you go that route. Add the supplemental application fees for each school as well. Pick 5 that you feel you will have the best chance at.

I knew there was a supplemental fee for each school. But how much do I have to pay to PharmCAS? And for schools that don't use PharmCAS, is it less expensive to apply?

 

[Iron Patriot]

Yeah, 15 is too much. I applied to 10 schools (which in hindsight, I even think is too many) and I basically had half within my state and the states surrounding. The other half I put around the country to schools that had lower requirements should things closer to home not go so well.

Supplemental fees are going to add up fast. 25 here, 50 there, another 100 and so forth. With airfare and other travel expenses, which averaged about 250 for me each time I had to go, you could be looking at a couple thousand dollars with that many schools assuming most of them send you interviews. Of course if your #1 pops up early, then...yay.

 

[Spock87]

I applied to 11 schools this year, and it was a big waste of money! I got 10 interview offers, but I only went to 2. 15 is overkill! You may have time conflicts for all those interviews and may end up turning them down anyway.
I'd say 5-6 are good enough

Depend on the schools, you might need recommendation from both profs and pharmacists

 

[kordjames]

If I am not fully certain, should I apply to as much as I can?

 

[fenixtnlfan]

The fees for PharmCAS are on their website. When I applied I easily spent $3k on apps and interviews for four schools. One interview was in the same city and the other three were either Midwest or East Coast. When you are flying far away, it's really hard to get flights that allow you enough time to get to your interview and then get back the same night. I had to stay two nights for those interviews as there weren't flights back. I also had to rent a car in two of those towns. The cost is really going to depend on the town as some places are more expensive than others. You should do some research and make up a budget, then decide what you can afford. You could always apply to a lot of schools and then turn down interviews.

For LORs, it depends on what the school requires. Many require a science professor and a pharmacist, but there are a lot of other variations out there as well.

 

[kordjames]

Do most schools provide many options for interview times? Also, what/where are some places that prepare applicants for interviews?

Generally, for my application would I send my transcripts and information to PharmCAS who will then provide the information to the school?

 

[kordjames]

Could someone answer those questions for me? Thanks.

 

[kordjames]

Do a lot of schools prepare students for interviews?

 

[lsexie]

Do a lot of schools prepare students for interviews?

some schools give you options on interviews dates so you are able to pick from them. Also, you can get some interview help from maybe your school, my school had an office for that so i got a lot of practice sessions that prepared me for mine.So you should probably check with your school

 

[koercive]

your university's career center may have interview workshops

use sdn has an interview feedback section up top which is very helpful

i personally got a medical school interview book off amazon which was very helpful in having the correct mindset going into the interview . I was very calm and relaxed at all my other interviews, but when I got an interview at ucsf, I started to freak out a bit which is why I bought the book



as for 15 schools, that is overkill. what do your stats look like? unless you are borderline, I don't see the need for applying to that many schools.

 

[keepingthehope]

you'll hit a couple grands easily with the pharmcas/supplemental fees and traveling to the school. i charged my credit for all my application and interview expenses, but there's probably a wiser way to pay for them.

 

[AdamSanders]

My advice is to check all of the prerequisites for the schools that you are applying to. I wa planning on applying to more than ten schools last year as well. Once I submitted my PharmCAS app and started focusing on individual schools I realized that for some schools I was missing just one class or maybe they required an LOR from a pharmacist (which I didn't have). In the end I waste a couple hundred bucks just on PharmCAS fees.