PBA vs Skaggs Colorado?

[edmuffinman]

Hello I was recently accepted to palm beach Atlantic and was already accepted to Skaggs at Colorado university. I am having a tough time deciding which school to go to?

I live in Florida and will most likely be wanting to live and practice in this state. The tuition after the first year ( when I can get in-state tuition for Colorado) is roughly the same but I have received a scholarship that would bring my first year at Colorado in line with pba.

I have seen from most posts that pharmacy school rankings matter little but for what it’s worth on US news Colorado is 25 and pba is around 106.

What I’m really wondering about is residency positions. Does it make more sense to go to school and do rotations in the state I would like to get a residency in? Both states offer the residencies I am interested in.

Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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[Realized RPh]

You want to consider the market in that area. Florida probably has a lot more pharmacy students in the area so marketing yourself to employers/residency programs will be much more competitive. If your goal is to end up on Florida then I think you should reconsider pharmacy because Florida is probably the most saturated state when comparing pharmacists to jobs. Please correct me if I am wrong about that but just my projections with how many schools are there.

 

[deleted562805]

Hello I was recently accepted to palm beach Atlantic and was already accepted to Skaggs at Colorado university. I am having a tough time deciding which school to go to?

I live in Florida and will most likely be wanting to live and practice in this state. The tuition after the first year ( when I can get in-state tuition for Colorado) is roughly the same but I have received a scholarship that would bring my first year at Colorado in line with pba.

I have seen from most posts that pharmacy school rankings matter little but for what it’s worth on US news Colorado is 25 and pba is around 106.

What I’m really wondering about is residency positions. Does it make more sense to go to school and do rotations in the state I would like to get a residency in? Both states offer the residencies I am interested in.

Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Why do you want to be a pharmacist? Let alone a clinical pharmacist? Why waste four years of school and two years of residency only to provide recommendations to a physician, when you can take less debt, half the time in PA school, complete a PA residency, and work in the front line of clinical care. As a PA you will have prescriptive authority and have direct contact with your patients. Why waste your money on clinical pharmacy, when pharmacist hours are getting cut in a hospital Please rethink your decision. Plus, you only have 60% chance of matching vs 80% chance of matching into a PA residency.

Both Florida and Colorado areas are saturated. Florida is saturated throughout the state. Colorado is saturated especially the Denver area/ Colorado Springs area. Established schools like UF and Skaggs are increasing seats and PCAT is not required. It does not matter whether you go to a “top school” there is no such thing as a top pharmacy school. Just because you go to a established program does not make you immune to saturation. Please, if you have good grades, consider PA school or Medical school, those health professions are in demand.

 

[capri1722]

Hello I was recently accepted to palm beach Atlantic and was already accepted to Skaggs at Colorado university. I am having a tough time deciding which school to go to?

I live in Florida and will most likely be wanting to live and practice in this state. The tuition after the first year ( when I can get in-state tuition for Colorado) is roughly the same but I have received a scholarship that would bring my first year at Colorado in line with pba.

I have seen from most posts that pharmacy school rankings matter little but for what it’s worth on US news Colorado is 25 and pba is around 106.

What I’m really wondering about is residency positions. Does it make more sense to go to school and do rotations in the state I would like to get a residency in? Both states offer the residencies I am interested in.

Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

One of your top considerations should be NAPLEX pass rate. After all, what good is dropping a couple hundred grand on pharmacy school if you can't pass the licensing exam to practice? A quick Google search of pass rates for the last 3 years shows this:

	2017 overall	2017 FT	2018 overall	2018 FT	2019 overall	2019 FT
PBA	85.25%	87.93%	78.75%	83.33%	73.61%	72.58%
CU	88.89%	90.13%	96.71%	96.64%	93.08%	92.68%

FT = first-time attempts

Personally, I'd be wary of any school that can't demonstrate at least a 90% pass rate, especially if it's a pattern. This includes schools with "candidate" or "pre-candidate" status; both of these mean they have not yet graduated their first class, and thus it's more difficult to evaluate the quality of their program.

As a final note, I am a P2 at CU, so if you have any school-specific questions, feel free to PM me.

 

[Singer148]

Don’t choose PBA ! This school will sell you something it’s not.