Petition your School - Min 50% comp PCAT for Admission

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Monsterdaddy

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Why? This...

7%

That's the composite PCAT score you need now for admission to the #16 pharmacy school. Just 15% composite PCAT for the #2 pharmacy school. And these are only for the schools that dare to publish the PCAT ranges of incoming classes.

Seriously, 7-15%?! Does this strike you as particularly INSANE for pharmacy schools to go that low to fill their classes??? Even unethical considering many of these will fail out or never pass the NAPLEX.

A 50% min comp PCAT requirement would go along way to reducing class sizes. It's not an arbitrary number, it represents taking only the top half of all potential applicants as a minimum.

Gawd, schools are just eroding our degree every year to line their own pockets.

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Why? This...

7%

That's the composite PCAT score you need now for admission to the #16 pharmacy school. Just 15% composite PCAT for the #2 pharmacy school. And these are only for the schools that dare to publish the PCAT ranges of incoming classes.

Seriously, 7-15%?! Does this strike you as particularly INSANE for pharmacy schools to go that low to fill their classes??? Even unethical considering many of these will fail out or never pass the NAPLEX.

A 50% min comp PCAT requirement would go along way to reducing class sizes. It's not an arbitrary number, it represents taking only the top half of all potential applicants as a minimum.

Gawd, schools are just eroding our degree every year to line their own pockets.

Thought that was our alma mater's policy anyway, take anyone capable of writing at least 4 zeros after a nonzero number every year. One of my classmates also gave our Dean special service as well. They know how this ends, we have no problem competing against them.
 
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I don't disagree with you, but for clarity on the #2 school:

PCAT Composite range: 15-99%

As for #16... maybe someone should email admissions to clarify they didn't miss a leading number.
 
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More and more schools don't even require a PCAT score anymore. They are struggling to get any students they can now.
 
I think that’s a little misleading. I double checked my school. They don’t have a minimum PCAT requirement, but the average PCAT score of accepted students was ~75%. Most established schools are interviewing 3-4x as many students as ultimately enter the program. They aren’t going to accept someone with a 7% on their PCAT unless they have a good reason. I would be a little worried about someone with a score that low, but the PCAT isn’t totally predictive. My composite score on the PCAT was 99%. Knowing what I know now, I would have picked someone with a 45% and a year of pharmacy tech experience over me (when I applied).

When you are talking averages, it’s a statistic, but when you talk about ranges you are talking about individuals. That 7% score is a person. When it comes to individual people, generalization and speculation is usually unhelpful. You don’t know what caused that 7%, and you don’t know why they accepted that person anyway.
 
I think that’s a little misleading. I double checked my school. They don’t have a minimum PCAT requirement, but the average PCAT score of accepted students was ~75%. Most established schools are interviewing 3-4x as many students as ultimately enter the program. They aren’t going to accept someone with a 7% on their PCAT unless they have a good reason. I would be a little worried about someone with a score that low, but the PCAT isn’t totally predictive. My composite score on the PCAT was 99%. Knowing what I know now, I would have picked someone with a 45% and a year of pharmacy tech experience over me (when I applied).

When you are talking averages, it’s a statistic, but when you talk about ranges you are talking about individuals. That 7% score is a person. When it comes to individual people, generalization and speculation is usually unhelpful. You don’t know what caused that 7%, and you don’t know why they accepted that person anyway.
It’s concerning that you think this is ok. Top 20 medical schools are not accepting people who placed at 7th percentile on the MCAT. I don’t even think top law schools would accept people who did so poorly on the LSAT, and they are saturated, too.

Maybe you don’t know because you are a new grad, but Pharmacy used to be a respected profession and it was difficult to get into Pharmacy school.

There is no valid excuse for admitting people with such low scores. Have you been to the exams section of the Pharmacy forum lately? You will see multiple threads talking about failing the NAPLEX multiple times. I have no doubt in my mind that those people should have never been admitted to Pharmacy school to begin with.
 
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There is no good reason to accept someone with a 7%. None. It’s questionable from at least an academic, financial, and ethical standpoint.

We are in the healthcare business. We are not a charity or a help group. The liability implications of someone with a 7% practicing pharmacy even as an intern are profound. It is simply not acceptable.
 
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How do you get 7% anyway? Do you just click your answer choices randomly?

Even if a person did that but we're actually smart, I would not trust them to be in the health professions. If you're so careless with one of the most important determinants of your future (not so much now that the PCAT is a joke), can you really be trusted with the lives of patients?

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There is no good reason to accept someone with a 7%. None. It’s questionable from at least an academic, financial, and ethical standpoint.

We are in the healthcare business. We are not a charity or a help group. The liability implications of someone with a 7% practicing pharmacy even as an intern are profound. It is simply not acceptable.
What if they wrote one hell of an essay?
 
Statistically, people who randomly pick answers would be near 0% percentile. (Some people will be less lucky and wind up at zero percentile [less than 25% of answers right - the random guessing] and the lucky could be at the 7%). 7% basically demonstrates a inability to take standardized tests but school is full of standardized tests and of course there is the NAPLEX and MPJE. You can conclude they are NOT likely to graduate or pass licensing.

PharmD500 hit it on the nail, if medical schools won't stoop so low why should pharmacy -- we're both healthcare professionals and patient's lives could be at risk.
 
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Eh, equating PCAT performance to patient's lives is stretching, even equating NAPLEX to lives is questionable but certainly closer to the mark than PCAT.

But I can't believe anyone would defend a 7th percentile. How can you possibly believe that person would have the prerequisite knowledge to succeed in pharmacy school? It doesn't mean the person can never be a pharmacist but it does mean they don't have the knowledge required to start pharmacy school. At least, that is what I would have thought...

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Eh, equating PCAT performance to patient's lives is stretching, even equating NAPLEX to lives is questionable but certainly closer to the mark than PCAT.
Sorry, I was thinking more from a public perception point of view which I think we agree could be a very real issue if the public starts losing trust in pharmacists. (And we used to be the #1 most trusted profession before 9/11).

You know what else will happen, with dumber students the schools will start dumbing down their curriculum to reduce fail outs. I checked around current students at my jobs and it seems #16 has already started doing exactly that (group testing, reduced testing, easier exams). Which is a disservice to the smarter students IMHO. #16's NAPLEX performance is already fallen quite a bit, this will just make it worse.
 
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Sorry, I was thinking more from a public perception point of view which I think we agree could be a very real issue if the public starts losing trust in pharmacists. (And we used to be the #1 most trusted profession before 9/11).

You know what else will happen, with dumber students the schools will start dumbing down their curriculum to reduce fail outs. I checked around current students at my jobs and it seems #16 has already started doing exactly that (group testing, reduced testing, easier exams). Which is a disservice to the smarter students IMHO. #16's NAPLEX performance is already fallen quite a bit, this will just make it worse.

Prior to entering pharmacy school, I was never aware of this trusted professions poll. And I've never heard it mentioned outside the confines of the pharmacy school. This whole notion that pharmacy is the #1 most trusted profession comes from Gallup Polling, so take it with a grain of salt.

That said, I happened to be at an administration meeting this past year and a major topic of discussion was getting more students (and higher quality ones at that). I can't go into too much detail about the minutes of the meeting, but the following bullet points were on the agenda sheet:
  • "Increasing awareness of pharmacy profession to undergraduate students"
  • "Increasing number of students applying from feeder schools"
  • "Create atmosphere of prestige for the pharmacy profession"
  • "Increase enrollment of students who can handle pharmacy curriculum"
I got a chuckle from the term "feeder school" (basically any undergraduate institution that can provide a pre-pharmacy curriculum, and therefore potential future students). We all know the quality and the quantity of applicants have been dropping, but seeing it firsthand at the undergraduate institutions is eye-opening. I've been to several pre-pharmacy meetings at community colleges, private colleges, and public universities, and I've seen on average 2-4 people attend a pre-pharmacy meeting (and the majority of the pre-pharmacy students I've met were unimpressive). This is in stark contrast to the pre-medical and pre-nursing meetings which can get at least a dozen students (according to my friends in medical school and nursing school). We couldn't even get 10 people to attend one of the major pre-pharmacy meetings at the flagship state university. And it's the university where we have the school of pharmacy!

And this is in a state where there is only 1 pharmacy school. And pharmacy saturation hasn't even hit the state. There are plenty of bonuses for people willing to work retail in the boonies.

Yet, we are having trouble attracting high quality students. It's only going to get worse.
 
Why even have the PCAT be part of the admission process, in that case?
Well, the test is owned by the company who gets paid to administer the NAPLEX and MPJE, so I imagine they share the wealth with ACPE and the NABP to keep it status quo.
 
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I think that’s a little misleading. I double checked my school. They don’t have a minimum PCAT requirement, but the average PCAT score of accepted students was ~75%. Most established schools are interviewing 3-4x as many students as ultimately enter the program. They aren’t going to accept someone with a 7% on their PCAT unless they have a good reason. I would be a little worried about someone with a score that low, but the PCAT isn’t totally predictive. My composite score on the PCAT was 99%. Knowing what I know now, I would have picked someone with a 45% and a year of pharmacy tech experience over me (when I applied).

When you are talking averages, it’s a statistic, but when you talk about ranges you are talking about individuals. That 7% score is a person. When it comes to individual people, generalization and speculation is usually unhelpful. You don’t know what caused that 7%, and you don’t know why they accepted that person anyway.

This is not a personal attack to you per se, but this is the kind of thinking that makes me angry. Its disgusting to even think that a fellow colleague is so detached from the issues facing our profession that they would make such a statement. No offense, but I have zero tolerance for meaningless platitudes. If you want to spout some fluffy, feel-good BS, then don't pretend its an actual contribution to a discussion involving a major issue in our profession. Furthermore, you haven't provided any proof to back your statements.

And if you're thinking I'm being "mean" or "negative", then feel free to go to the medical forums on SDN. You'll see that the real doctors would never tolerate the lowering of competency standards or the BS you just spouted. They get angry as hell when they discuss major issues that can negatively impact their profession (current hot topics include their anger at the opening of excess DO schools, and potential encroachment from midlevels).

We, as pharmacists, should be held to a higher standard than an entry-level RN (no offense to the nurses). We should be aiming to improve the skills of our profession, but that will never happen if we let in *****s who can't even score a 50% on a super-freaking easy standardized test. (And if you're wondering, I got a 98% on the PCAT from studying the Kaplan review book for 1 day! It's a joke exam).
 
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No. I'm pretty sure that'll get you around a 25%. These example questions have 4 choices. Getting a 7% requires real skill.
Actually, I think we should all take the PCAT and shoot for a 0-2%. Then publicize the truthful statement "I GOT A 1% AND I GOT INTO XXXXXX COLLEGE OF PHARMACY!" Who is with me?
 
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This is not a personal attack to you per se, but this is the kind of thinking that makes me angry. Its disgusting to even think that a fellow colleague is so detached from the issues facing our profession that they would make such a statement. No offense, but I have zero tolerance for meaningless platitudes. If you want to spout some fluffy, feel-good BS, then don't pretend its an actual contribution to a discussion involving a major issue in our profession. Furthermore, you haven't provided any proof to back your statements.

And if you're thinking I'm being "mean" or "negative", then feel free to go to the medical forums on SDN. You'll see that the real doctors would never tolerate the lowering of competency standards or the BS you just spouted. They get angry as hell when they discuss major issues that can negatively impact their profession (current hot topics include their anger at the opening of excess DO schools, and potential encroachment from midlevels).

We, as pharmacists, should be held to a higher standard than an entry-level RN (no offense to the nurses). We should be aiming to improve the skills of our profession, but that will never happen if we let in *****s who can't even score a 50% on a super-freaking easy standardized test. (And if you're wondering, I got a 98% on the PCAT from studying the Kaplan review book for 1 day! It's a joke exam).
My point was that you don’t have any evidence either. The 7% score isn’t a statement about the profession. It’s a statement about a single person. Maybe it’s a sign of the end times, but maybe there is a good explanation for the score. Like several people on here are saying, a 7% suggests that they didn’t finish the exam. My school isn’t even the #2 school, and it picked interviews with around 400 people from a set of about 1000 applications. They aren’t completely desperate. Like I said, 7% is a concerning number; however, it’s silly to judge a person we don’t know.

Just to clarify and expand. If a straight C student applies with a 7% and no explanation, then there is no reason to go with them. If a A and B student with a masters in biochemistry applies and explains in an essay that they had to leave the PCAT because they got a call that their son was having a seizure, they absolutely should still be considered. Neither of those extremes are likely, but we can’t judge effectively when we don’t know what that persons application looked like.

I forgot to add that I’m not opposed to a 50% minimum PCAT. I just don’t think that this unknown person should be the poster child for that change
 
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This is not a personal attack to you per se, but this is the kind of thinking that makes me angry. Its disgusting to even think that a fellow colleague is so detached from the issues facing our profession that they would make such a statement. No offense, but I have zero tolerance for meaningless platitudes. If you want to spout some fluffy, feel-good BS, then don't pretend its an actual contribution to a discussion involving a major issue in our profession. Furthermore, you haven't provided any proof to back your statements.

And if you're thinking I'm being "mean" or "negative", then feel free to go to the medical forums on SDN. You'll see that the real doctors would never tolerate the lowering of competency standards or the BS you just spouted. They get angry as hell when they discuss major issues that can negatively impact their profession (current hot topics include their anger at the opening of excess DO schools, and potential encroachment from midlevels).

We, as pharmacists, should be held to a higher standard than an entry-level RN (no offense to the nurses). We should be aiming to improve the skills of our profession, but that will never happen if we let in *****s who can't even score a 50% on a super-freaking easy standardized test. (And if you're wondering, I got a 98% on the PCAT from studying the Kaplan review book for 1 day! It's a joke exam).
coming from someone who also scored in the 90’s on the PCAT, that doesnt mean it is a joke exam, it means our competition is the joke (given its a percentile score)....
 
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Prior to entering pharmacy school, I was never aware of this trusted professions poll. And I've never heard it mentioned outside the confines of the pharmacy school. This whole notion that pharmacy is the #1 most trusted profession comes from Gallup Polling, so take it with a grain of salt.

That said, I happened to be at an administration meeting this past year and a major topic of discussion was getting more students (and higher quality ones at that). I can't go into too much detail about the minutes of the meeting, but the following bullet points were on the agenda sheet:
  • "Increasing awareness of pharmacy profession to undergraduate students"
  • "Increasing number of students applying from feeder schools"
  • "Create atmosphere of prestige for the pharmacy profession"
  • "Increase enrollment of students who can handle pharmacy curriculum"
I got a chuckle from the term "feeder school" (basically any undergraduate institution that can provide a pre-pharmacy curriculum, and therefore potential future students). We all know the quality and the quantity of applicants have been dropping, but seeing it firsthand at the undergraduate institutions is eye-opening. I've been to several pre-pharmacy meetings at community colleges, private colleges, and public universities, and I've seen on average 2-4 people attend a pre-pharmacy meeting (and the majority of the pre-pharmacy students I've met were unimpressive). This is in stark contrast to the pre-medical and pre-nursing meetings which can get at least a dozen students (according to my friends in medical school and nursing school). We couldn't even get 10 people to attend one of the major pre-pharmacy meetings at the flagship state university. And it's the university where we have the school of pharmacy!

And this is in a state where there is only 1 pharmacy school. And pharmacy saturation hasn't even hit the state. There are plenty of bonuses for people willing to work retail in the boonies.

Yet, we are having trouble attracting high quality students. It's only going to get worse.

My school has recruited one feeder school this past summer. Which I'm sure is just a way of eliminating PCAT/GPA standards altogether. I believe we have finally transitioned from "students seeking pharmacy schools", to the desperate business model of, "pharmacy schools seeking students".
 
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Abby you do realize 7% being the lowest probably means there’s an 8% a 9% etc. I’m saying do we really want schools to fill out the bottom of their classes with sub 25% students who will never graduate or license? If we make excuses for them and apparently the school is believing their excuses it will just degrade our profession. It was bad enough when we were graduating too many good pharmacists. Now they’re trying to graduate awful ones too.
 
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Why? This...

7%

That's the composite PCAT score you need now for admission to the #16 pharmacy school. Just 15% composite PCAT for the #2 pharmacy school. And these are only for the schools that dare to publish the PCAT ranges of incoming classes.

Seriously, 7-15%?! Does this strike you as particularly INSANE for pharmacy schools to go that low to fill their classes??? Even unethical considering many of these will fail out or never pass the NAPLEX.

A 50% min comp PCAT requirement would go along way to reducing class sizes. It's not an arbitrary number, it represents taking only the top half of all potential applicants as a minimum.

Gawd, schools are just eroding our degree every year to line their own pockets.

The PCAT doesn't mean ****. Some schools don't even require it anymore.
 
My point was that you don’t have any evidence either. The 7% score isn’t a statement about the profession. It’s a statement about a single person. Maybe it’s a sign of the end times, but maybe there is a good explanation for the score. Like several people on here are saying, a 7% suggests that they didn’t finish the exam. My school isn’t even the #2 school, and it picked interviews with around 400 people from a set of about 1000 applications. They aren’t completely desperate. Like I said, 7% is a concerning number; however, it’s silly to judge a person we don’t know.

Just to clarify and expand. If a straight C student applies with a 7% and no explanation, then there is no reason to go with them. If a A and B student with a masters in biochemistry applies and explains in an essay that they had to leave the PCAT because they got a call that their son was having a seizure, they absolutely should still be considered. Neither of those extremes are likely, but we can’t judge effectively when we don’t know what that persons application looked like.

I forgot to add that I’m not opposed to a 50% minimum PCAT. I just don’t think that this unknown person should be the poster child for that change
Then that applicant should be required to retake the PCAT until they can get a respectable score. I can't think of a scenario in which 7% would be acceptable.

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Is there a correlation between being a poor student and poor performance as a retail pharmacist? I used to think anyone could do retail, but some of the recent graduates and the mistakes they've made make me question this. They were the type of mistakes a decent tech wouldn't even make, so I don't know what is going on.
 
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No. I'm pretty sure that'll get you around a 25%. These example questions have 4 choices. Getting a 7% requires real skill.
FYI, it’s a percentile test. Randomly answering questions will get 25% in correct answers but percentile wise that is around 0%. So a 7% is probably like getting 28-30% of the answers right. You just reminded of a girl in community college who told me her PCAT comp was 1%!!!
 
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Abby you do realize 7% being the lowest probably means there’s an 8% a 9% etc. I’m saying do we really want schools to fill out the bottom of their classes with sub 25% students who will never graduate or license? If we make excuses for them and apparently the school is believing their excuses it will just degrade our profession. It was bad enough when we were graduating too many good pharmacists. Now they’re trying to graduate awful ones too.
Maybe they should fill 75% of their class with those bottom tier students. If they can't license, they can't compete for jobs.
 
If a pharmacy school aspirant can't even do well on an exam that they can plan for and is basic material, how can they think on the spot in retail with constant interruptions?
 
It seems that a good number of problems within the pharmacy profession could be mitigated with an increase in the difficulty of the NAPLEX exam. Taking a look at first time NAPLEX pass rates, it seems that the exam has become more rigorous over the past year or so. I wonder if that is a sign of positive changes in the future.
 
It seems that a good number of problems within the pharmacy profession could be mitigated with an increase in the difficulty of the NAPLEX exam. Taking a look at first time NAPLEX pass rates, it seems that the exam has become more rigorous over the past year or so. I wonder if that is a sign of positive changes in the future.
But don't you see the problem? Pharmacy schools are ALREADY bypassing your solution by taking 7% students!!! That's why I advocating a 50% minimum requirement.
 
There is no good reason to accept someone with a 7%. None. It’s questionable from at least an academic, financial, and ethical standpoint.

We are in the healthcare business. We are not a charity or a help group. The liability implications of someone with a 7% practicing pharmacy even as an intern are profound. It is simply not acceptable.
Those students seem happy to provide charitable contributions, though. They seem more like the charity in this case.
 
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Those students seem happy to provide charitable contributions, though. They seem more like the charity in this case.

Free admission to the mental ward after being mind f@cked failing out of school and owing $200,000+ in loans.
 
Is there a correlation between being a poor student and poor performance as a retail pharmacist? I used to think anyone could do retail, but some of the recent graduates and the mistakes they've made make me question this. They were the type of mistakes a decent tech wouldn't even make, so I don't know what is going on.

A 7% isn't "poor student/poor performance" a 7% is beyond comprehension. Other members even pointed out that statistically you were more likely to guess your way to a 25% than a 7%. Let's get real here no one is talking about the difference of being a B (or even a C) student and performance, but a 7%.
 
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. Let's get real here no one is talking about the difference of being a B (or even a C) student and performance, but a 7%.

Agreed. Even if you have a bad day, you aren't going to get a 7% composite without being dumb as rocks and very terrible at guessing. Maybe they bubbled in the scantron one row off?
 
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Then that applicant should be required to retake the PCAT until they can get a respectable score. I can't think of a scenario in which 7% would be acceptable.

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That sounds fine to me; however, you can’t say that a single bad PCAT is good evidence of denegration of the profession any more than you could say that a single rapid progression of a patient on abiraterone and prednisone is good evidence that the drug doesn’t work.

I think most schools already have a >50% PCAT score as a preference. I like schools having the ability to make judgment calls. An equally strong case could be made for schools requiring pharmacy experience, and I didn’t have that when I applied. I’m a good pharmacist anyway. :)
 
Abby you do realize 7% being the lowest probably means there’s an 8% a 9% etc. I’m saying do we really want schools to fill out the bottom of their classes with sub 25% students who will never graduate or license? If we make excuses for them and apparently the school is believing their excuses it will just degrade our profession. It was bad enough when we were graduating too many good pharmacists. Now they’re trying to graduate awful ones too.
There might be a 8% and a 9%, or there might not be. If this discussion was based on a range, a mean, and a standard deviation, I would be on board. As it is, it seems like we are making a huge deal out of some random persons PCAT score. Averages and standard deviations, are meaningful in this discussion. A single number belonging to a single student that none of us know personally seems meaningless.

To be fair, I am thinking of my school which I think is ranked in the mid to lower 20’s. It has about a 20-25% acceptance rate (depending on year). I’m assuming the number 2 school has stricter admissions standards, but I’m not sure if that’s the case. If things are less competitive, I understand the outrage more.
 
How does everyone score 90%+ with minimum study efforts? I scored 92% and it took 3 weeks of studying (mainly orgo/calculus) using all books and **** from dr. collins, kaplan, etc ect.
 
There might be a 8% and a 9%, or there might not be. If this discussion was based on a range, a mean, and a standard deviation, I would be on board. As it is, it seems like we are making a huge deal out of some random persons PCAT score. Averages and standard deviations, are meaningful in this discussion. A single number belonging to a single student that none of us know personally seems meaningless.
Really??? Seriously, you missed the whole point of the discussion. Schools should never be admitting anyone below 50% without good reason and NO AMOUNT of good reason justifies anyone below 25%. I know some of the new students in that class and believe me there are lots of sub 25%. And my preceptor friends are complaining about how absolutely STUPID some of the recent students are. #16 had 210 applicants for 140 spots -- you don't need mean or std dev to figure those odds.
 
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Schools have waived application fees and lowered PCAT standards or eliminated the test. Wonder how long it will be before they just stop interviewing and go straight from the application.
 
That sounds fine to me; however, you can’t say that a single bad PCAT is good evidence of denegration of the profession any more than you could say that a single rapid progression of a patient on abiraterone and prednisone is good evidence that the drug doesn’t work.

I think most schools already have a >50% PCAT score as a preference. I like schools having the ability to make judgment calls. An equally strong case could be made for schools requiring pharmacy experience, and I didn’t have that when I applied. I’m a good pharmacist anyway. :)

There might be a 8% and a 9%, or there might not be. If this discussion was based on a range, a mean, and a standard deviation, I would be on board. As it is, it seems like we are making a huge deal out of some random persons PCAT score. Averages and standard deviations, are meaningful in this discussion. A single number belonging to a single student that none of us know personally seems meaningless.

To be fair, I am thinking of my school which I think is ranked in the mid to lower 20’s. It has about a 20-25% acceptance rate (depending on year). I’m assuming the number 2 school has stricter admissions standards, but I’m not sure if that’s the case. If things are less competitive, I understand the outrage more.

I really don't know what you're getting at. The most friendly way I can describe your posts are "wishy-washy," or "confused."

You only need to consider this scenario, if your colleague went up to you tomorrow and said, "I heard (your alma mater) recruited a new student body with a 7% PCAT, looks like it's another diploma mill full of rejects," how does that reflect on:

1) YOU now that you are also "a diploma mill reject"
2) the rest of the (hopefully hard working?) students at the school
3) the other fellow students and pharmacists of the field itself, and
4) the perception of pharmacy from the public eye?

It's much more simple than you are making it to be. This is a smear on our profession.
 
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Really??? Seriously, you missed the whole point of the discussion. Schools should never be admitting anyone below 50% without good reason and NO AMOUNT of good reason justifies anyone below 25%. I know some of the new students in that class and believe me there are lots of sub 25%. And my preceptor friends are complaining about how absolutely STUPID some of the recent students are. #16 had 210 applicants for 140 spots -- you don't need mean or std dev to figure those odds.
Are you sure about those numbers? Why are applications so uneven? My alma mater gets ~5x as many applications with a similar class size. Is it just a matter of more schools in an area? If that’s the case for some schools, you have more of a point. Statistics would still be helpful though if you want to show something is an actual problem.

The minimum PCAT requirement may have been your main point. I was just disagreed with the data being used to recommend that change. You don’t know anything about the 7% score person that you are criticizing. For all you know, they could be a textbook example for why there shouldn’t be a minimum PCAT requirement. They could also be totally unprepared and prove your point exactly. There is no way to know.

What is the outcome we want to avoid, and can we link that outcome to changes in PCAT scores. Short of that, is there a trend toward decreased PCAT scores? Do we have numbers to back that up? I would find a small decrease in average PCAT score of accepted students to be much more compelling than the acceptance of a single student with a 7% score by one school.
 
A 7% isn't "poor student/poor performance" a 7% is beyond comprehension. Other members even pointed out that statistically you were more likely to guess your way to a 25% than a 7%. Let's get real here no one is talking about the difference of being a B (or even a C) student and performance, but a 7%.

Sigh...Are you sure you understand statistics? You can hypothetically get a 25% by guessing but that would NOT put your percentile at the 25% mark. Do PharmD recipients really not understand the difference between a score and a percentile?! Maybe we are worse off than we think.

Schools have waived application fees and lowered PCAT standards or eliminated the test. Wonder how long it will be before they just stop interviewing and go straight from the application.

It's actually an accreditation standard to have interviews, so they aren't going anywhere.
 
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FYI, it’s a percentile test. Randomly answering questions will get 25% in correct answers but percentile wise that is around 0%. So a 7% is probably like getting 28-30% of the answers right. You just reminded of a girl in community college who told me her PCAT comp was 1%!!!

You are apparently wasting your breath as this concept seems beyond comprehension to the pharmacy experts here.
 
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I really don't know what you're getting at. The most friendly way I can describe your posts are "wishy-washy," or "confused."

You only need to consider this scenario, if your colleague went up to you tomorrow and said, "I heard (your alma mater) recruited a new student body with a 7% PCAT, looks like it's another diploma mill full of rejects," how does that reflect on:

1) YOU now that you are also "a diploma mill reject"
2) the rest of the (hopefully hard working?) students at the school
3) the other fellow students and pharmacists of the field itself, and
4) the perception of pharmacy from the public eye?

It's much more simple than you are making it to be. This is a smear on our profession.
I feel like you guys are being wishy-washy. :) You keep on acting like you want this to be a bigger conversation about acceptance standards and what the possible loosening of standards might do to the profession of pharmacy, but then you go and make it so small by hitching it to this one person. This doesn't feel important or valuable. It feels like we are making fun of one kid that we don't know. Do we have any data on large scale changes in average PCAT scores of accepted students?
 
Abby, you are either overthinking it or just can't see the forest for the trees. I really don't think it's worth my while to keep stating the obvious.

In any case, when I applied to my alma matter the avg PCAT they published was 88% and each year it just kept falling and hit the low 70%s and then the next year they stopped publishing it altogether so I'll assume it's now in the 60%s. And for #16, the avg PCAT was 62.6% where just a few years before applicants were being wait-listed with 90% PCATs. These numbers are pathetic no matter how you slice it yet the schools keep chasing unqualified students just to keep the cash flowing instead of doing what law schools are finally doing now - reducing class sizes and terminating professors.

EDIT: For god sake Abby, do you realize you're the ONLY one hitching onto the one guy concept and totally missing the point.
 
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Sigh...Are you sure you understand statistics? You can hypothetically get a 25% by guessing but that would NOT put your percentile at the 25% mark. Do PharmD recipients really not understand the difference between a score and a percentile?! Maybe we are worse off than we think.



It's actually an accreditation standard to have interviews, so they aren't going anywhere.

People can misread things. You don’t need to turn it into a passive aggressive attack. Either way a 7 or 25 PERCENT or PERCENTILE is not defendable.
 
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People can misread things. You don’t need to turn it into a passive aggressive attack. Either way a 7 or 25 PERCENT or PERCENTILE is not defendable.

Sure, you can also misread prednisone and prednisolone. Details matter. And Monsterdaddy had already pointed out how scoring a 25% would not equal 25th percentile so really what is your defense for not knowing the deference? Really you are just proving the point that pharmacy schools do not have high enough standards. So good job on that front.
 
Eh, equating PCAT performance to patient's lives is stretching, even equating NAPLEX to lives is questionable but certainly closer to the mark than PCAT.

But I can't believe anyone would defend a 7th percentile. How can you possibly believe that person would have the prerequisite knowledge to succeed in pharmacy school? It doesn't mean the person can never be a pharmacist but it does mean they don't have the knowledge required to start pharmacy school. At least, that is what I would have thought...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using SDN mobile

Not wanting a controversial argument, but depending on the admissions office, this might have been either a diversity or a legacy admit. I'm seen some truly atrocious scores. This might have not been with the consent of the College of Pharmacy but a University stipulation.

By the way, the PCAT is not a straight percentage test as some of you seem to be commenting. It's normalized to a group of people. So, what that 7% is saying is that this person performs at that level compared to an index of testing peers. (That means that there is an expectation that 93% of candidates test at or better than s/he does).

Illustrated:
100 question test: (Number of questions and percentages, with 100 questions, they are the same)
Calibration group:
Owlegrad - 96
Gwarm01 - 95
Lord999 - 90
PAtoPharm - 60

Scale rank score:
Owlegrad - 99% (only 1% or so are expected to score at 96 or higher, note that this is not 100% even though this was the exam setting score)
Gwarm01 - 75% (only 25% or so are expected to score at 95 or higher, though is a very small margin considering Owlegrad's example)
Lord999 - 50% (half of all expected examiners are supposed to get 90 or higher)
PAtoPharm - 25% (75% of all expected examiners are supposed to score above 60).

We have a candidate that scores:
a. 50 raw score, then the candidate would get a percentage no higher than 25% and is adjusted to 50/60 comparison.
b. 75 raw score, then the candidate would get 37% as 15 raw score puts that candidate between PAtoPharm and Lord999.

Depending on how the curve is set, I would consider accepting a low scaled score given other characteristics. The correct interpretation is if this candidate tested against the reference group, then 93% of that reference group would either score as well or better than this candidate, not that 7% of the questions were answered correctly. If 93% of people are expected to score better, then I would have some issues with thinking that I can draw from a better pool. But, if the other credentials are intact, possibly it's due to a bad exam. That said, it takes more than 50 of the raw score correct to even get to the 25% scale score.

Before the 2004 rescale, basically, you only needed to answer something like 40% of the questions correctly to get a 99% in the Chem section. That is why there were consistent 99%ages on the PCAT and why it was not used as admission criteria back then, because even if you scored in the 99%, the initial population setting score was so abysmal that the outperform score is easily achievable.


Random guessing is a combinatorial problem off either the Poisson (for large numbers of questions >50-60 and the assumption that every single question is independent) or the Negative Binomial (for any case, even small ones and also thinks that if you answer one question correctly, related questions should have a higher percentage of being answered correctly). If it were a straight percentage, this person would need to guess correctly around 40/200 for a five-choice multiple test to at least achieve that much due to random chance, but at 14 (7%), is way, way out of simple random guessing. If I got that kind of score, my guess would have been the student had the wrong underlying concept as that's far worse than naive guessing.


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NAPLEX doesn't work that way as it's a straight curve not a population scaled curve. That's why I'm harsh toward those who don't pass, because the scaling works definitely in the candidates favor and it's much less than a raw 75 percent to pass. But also in response to some other comments regarding that, no I don't consider the NAPLEX any more than the bare minimum standard, but it should be reasonably achievable consistently by us. MCAT and USMLE have similar approaches and do not use a reference group as a scoring standard.
 
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