Petition your School - Min 50% comp PCAT for Admission

[PAtoPharm]

Just because there may be job growth (albeit pretty abysmal) there are way too many graduates for that to make a dent in my eyes. I am definitely not an optimist of the job market for the forseeable future and most here aren't (and that's why the majority advised you not to go to pharmacy school).

Oh well, I should have listened. Better late than never, I guess. What are your plans for the future if things go really south within the next 2-3 years?

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[PharmDBro2017]

Oh well, I should have listened. Better late than never, I guess. What are your plans for the future if things go really south within the next 2-3 years?

Prostitution.

 

[PAtoPharm]

Prostitution.

Still would've been a better use of my time/money over the past 3 years

 

[WildAshe]

They might as well revert back to the BS in pharmacy at this point..

I think that they should require a BS degree before you enter P1 year. It's an embarrassment that people can go from a community college directly into pharmacy school without even getting an Associates or BS degree.

 

[PharmtoCS]

I think that they should require a BS degree before you enter P1 year. It's an embarrassment that people can go from a community college directly into pharmacy school without even getting an Associates or BS degree.

I would also require a minimum number of hours of work or volunteer experience. Too many students go to pharmacy school without having ever stepped foot in a pharmacy and end up hating it, then they come back here asking how to land the unicorn industry positions that get 1,000 applicants each.

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[Seriously Serious]

I think that they should require a BS degree before you enter P1 year. It's an embarrassment that people can go from a community college directly into pharmacy school without even getting an Associates or BS degree.

You think that's bad? Some people matriculate right out of high school... There needs to be a BS requirement, otherwise, we do not hold a traditional doctoral degree.

 

[Abby Atwood]

You think that's bad? Some people matriculate right out of high school... There needs to be a BS requirement, otherwise, we do not hold a traditional doctoral degree.

Well, we don’t hold a traditional doctoral degree. It’s not a PhD.

I’m too close to this though. I’m one of those straight from community college people

 

[CynicalIntern]

You think that's bad? Some people matriculate right out of high school... There needs to be a BS requirement, otherwise, we do not hold a traditional doctoral degree.

This used to be okay, because pharmacy schools required a 95 PCAT and a 3.9 GPA and being completely honest, there's no need for those filler classes in your upper level undergraduate coursework. But I'm finally switched perspective on it, because now pretty much anyone who completes a basic science class will get accepted

 

[Seriously Serious]

Well, we don’t hold a traditional doctoral degree. It’s not a PhD.

I’m too close to this though. I’m one of those straight from community college people

Traditional, meaning post-bachelors degree. I believe pharmacy is the only field to offer a 'doctorate' without a bachelors -- which to me is just a bachelors degree.

 

[PharmtoCS]

A bachelor's used to be a decent facto requirement when pharmacy was actually competitive to get into. Now anyone who gets C's on their prereqs taken at their community college can get accepted.

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[Abby Atwood]

This used to be okay, because pharmacy schools required a 95 PCAT and a 3.9 GPA and being completely honest, there's no need for those filler classes in your upper level undergraduate coursework. But I'm finally switched perspective on it, because now pretty much anyone who completes a basic science class will get accepted

I see your point, but it’s a pretty expensive filter (from the students perspective). I’m not a complete slouch. I exceeded that GPA and PCAT score, but the price associated with obtaining a bachelors degree prior to entering pharmacy school would have made things a lot more difficult. (I later obtained a bachelors degree through pharmacy course work which I think is typical).

Even though that criteria would have excluded me at the time I entered school, I think a bachelors degree requirement is a lot better than a flat PCAT cutoff

 

[Igra]

I'm assuming most of you folks have already been through pharmacy school, and it plays a role in your judgement here. Once you've already been through pharmacy school you don't care if they change admissions to more or less strict, what everyone cares about is the job market. They really just need to stop opening so many pharmacy schools. I'm doing the community college to pharmacy school route and it's one of the reasons I won't be one of these $200k debt cases everyone loves to use to scare new pharmacy students. Why should I get a BS in chemistry to apply to pharmacy school? That physical chemistry might be handy to have right? I actually dislike that a bachelors is required for entry into other things like PA or AA, most of those upper classes aren't going to contribute to the knowledge needed for a specialized professional role such as an AA, PA, PharmD etc.

Almost everything that's been said in this post has been strictly opinion, new pharmacy students suck? I work with resident and fellow doctor's and some of them suck too, it's not just pharmacy, there will always be people that you wonder how they have managed to make it in whatever field they're in. I do agree a 7% PCAT is terribly low, but there are so many other factors to look at that a PCAT isn't, and shouldn't, be the means to judge someone by. I pulled up two of the "top" ranked schools and looked at their statistics, from 2007-2017 there avg GPA stayed right at 3.5 and their avg PCAT had a range of 80-88. The other school had a similar avg GPA of 3.5 and PCAT avg range was 73-76 from 2010 to 2017.

I know that's just the stats from two schools that actually post previous years statistics, I thumbed through a few that don't, but it doesn't show any trend of GPA and PCAT scores dropping over the last 10 years. If a school wants to accept a student with a 7% PCAT that is up to them, remember that if they don't maintain pass rates they risk losing accreditation. The only issue is they're opening too many schools as a result of a lack of pharmacists years ago. I chose to go in to pharmacy despite knowing that it's over saturated because I've worked as a technician in retail for four years, and three years in clinical, and I'm excellent at my job, I truly enjoy my work too, and I've got enough connections to get a job very easily after school. I'm also changing status to intern at my current hospital so that I don't have to quit and I can fall into a pharmacist position once I've graduated, and I will have mostly maxed out benefits as well if I stay on with them.

I understand the market is saturated now and is going to continue getting worse, but making up some silly restrictions to bar entry to pharmacy schools is not the proper route. I see many of you discouraging people from entering in the field, and I'm sure that is helping to some extent. I would like to believe, but I'm sure isn't true, that most people would at least do some research about the job market before pulling the trigger and committing four years of their life to school.

 

[Pharmer1921]

I'm assuming most of you folks have already been through pharmacy school, and it plays a role in your judgement here. Once you've already been through pharmacy school you don't care if they change admissions to more or less strict, what everyone cares about is the job market. They really just need to stop opening so many pharmacy schools. I'm doing the community college to pharmacy school route and it's one of the reasons I won't be one of these $200k debt cases everyone loves to use to scare new pharmacy students. Why should I get a BS in chemistry to apply to pharmacy school? That physical chemistry might be handy to have right? I actually dislike that a bachelors is required for entry into other things like PA or AA, most of those upper classes aren't going to contribute to the knowledge needed for a specialized professional role such as an AA, PA, PharmD etc.

Almost everything that's been said in this post has been strictly opinion, new pharmacy students suck? I work with resident and fellow doctor's and some of them suck too, it's not just pharmacy, there will always be people that you wonder how they have managed to make it in whatever field they're in. I do agree a 7% PCAT is terribly low, but there are so many other factors to look at that a PCAT isn't, and shouldn't, be the means to judge someone by. I pulled up two of the "top" ranked schools and looked at their statistics, from 2007-2017 there avg GPA stayed right at 3.5 and their avg PCAT had a range of 80-88. The other school had a similar avg GPA of 3.5 and PCAT avg range was 73-76 from 2010 to 2017.

I know that's just the stats from two schools that actually post previous years statistics, I thumbed through a few that don't, but it doesn't show any trend of GPA and PCAT scores dropping over the last 10 years. If a school wants to accept a student with a 7% PCAT that is up to them, remember that if they don't maintain pass rates they risk losing accreditation. The only issue is they're opening too many schools as a result of a lack of pharmacists years ago. I chose to go in to pharmacy despite knowing that it's over saturated because I've worked as a technician in retail for four years, and three years in clinical, and I'm excellent at my job, I truly enjoy my work too, and I've got enough connections to get a job very easily after school. I'm also changing status to intern at my current hospital so that I don't have to quit and I can fall into a pharmacist position once I've graduated, and I will have mostly maxed out benefits as well if I stay on with them.

I understand the market is saturated now and is going to continue getting worse, but making up some silly restrictions to bar entry to pharmacy schools is not the proper route. I see many of you discouraging people from entering in the field, and I'm sure that is helping to some extent. I would like to believe, but I'm sure isn't true, that most people would at least do some research about the job market before pulling the trigger and committing four years of their life to school.

Speaking as someone on the inside, you are discounting how much schools curve classes. Yes , they pass but did they really? There was a nasty dip in the NAPLEX scores last year which was blamed on tge new test that wasnt implemented until Novmeber. We all think we're immune to the saturation, we all think we're better than that. Lol when everyone is so good, are any of us really? If you dont believe me, go look at the prepharm forums and see how everyone has a plan, just like you, just like me. I am deathly afriad of not having a job in 3 years.

 

[Igra]

Speaking as someone on the inside, you are discounting how much schools curve classes. Yes , they pass but did they really? There was a nasty dip in the NAPLEX scores last year which was blamed on tge new test that wasnt implemented until Novmeber. We all think we're immune to the saturation, we all think we're better than that. Lol when everyone is so good, are any of us really? If you dont believe me, go look at the prepharm forums and see how everyone has a plan, just like you, just like me. I am deathly afriad of not having a job in 3 years.

The naplex pass rates are the scores that do matter and that was my point, if any particular institution has low pass rates that is what puts them under scrutiny. If the school that takes people with a 7% PCAT has the same pass rate as a school that only takes 90% PCAT then clearly the 90% school isn't doing anything better or worse than the 7% school, and you could even argue that the school with the 7% is doing better than the other school since they're taking people who scored poorly, educating them properly, and getting the same pass rates as the students that scored 90% PCAT.

I truly am not worried about my job prospects when the time comes. Every single student I know, which is a ton of people since they rotate through my job, has not had any problems getting a job here. Pharmacists are constantly coming and going in my hospital, we almost always have openings.

 

[Apotheker2015]

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.

#2 also removed admissions statistics from previous years. Historically, they've always displayed the most recent incoming classes.

 

[Abby Atwood]

The bad naplex scores were caused by having [nincompoops] in pharmacy programs. Not due to the new exam.

Aren’t you a 2017 grad like me? Why are you trying to convince people that we’re stupid?

 

[PharmtoCS]

I'm assuming most of you folks have already been through pharmacy school, and it plays a role in your judgement here. Once you've already been through pharmacy school you don't care if they change admissions to more or less strict, what everyone cares about is the job market. They really just need to stop opening so many pharmacy schools. I'm doing the community college to pharmacy school route and it's one of the reasons I won't be one of these $200k debt cases everyone loves to use to scare new pharmacy students. Why should I get a BS in chemistry to apply to pharmacy school? That physical chemistry might be handy to have right? I actually dislike that a bachelors is required for entry into other things like PA or AA, most of those upper classes aren't going to contribute to the knowledge needed for a specialized professional role such as an AA, PA, PharmD etc.

Almost everything that's been said in this post has been strictly opinion, new pharmacy students suck? I work with resident and fellow doctor's and some of them suck too, it's not just pharmacy, there will always be people that you wonder how they have managed to make it in whatever field they're in. I do agree a 7% PCAT is terribly low, but there are so many other factors to look at that a PCAT isn't, and shouldn't, be the means to judge someone by. I pulled up two of the "top" ranked schools and looked at their statistics, from 2007-2017 there avg GPA stayed right at 3.5 and their avg PCAT had a range of 80-88. The other school had a similar avg GPA of 3.5 and PCAT avg range was 73-76 from 2010 to 2017.

I know that's just the stats from two schools that actually post previous years statistics, I thumbed through a few that don't, but it doesn't show any trend of GPA and PCAT scores dropping over the last 10 years. If a school wants to accept a student with a 7% PCAT that is up to them, remember that if they don't maintain pass rates they risk losing accreditation. The only issue is they're opening too many schools as a result of a lack of pharmacists years ago. I chose to go in to pharmacy despite knowing that it's over saturated because I've worked as a technician in retail for four years, and three years in clinical, and I'm excellent at my job, I truly enjoy my work too, and I've got enough connections to get a job very easily after school. I'm also changing status to intern at my current hospital so that I don't have to quit and I can fall into a pharmacist position once I've graduated, and I will have mostly maxed out benefits as well if I stay on with them.

I understand the market is saturated now and is going to continue getting worse, but making up some silly restrictions to bar entry to pharmacy schools is not the proper route. I see many of you discouraging people from entering in the field, and I'm sure that is helping to some extent. I would like to believe, but I'm sure isn't true, that most people would at least do some research about the job market before pulling the trigger and committing four years of their life to school.

You're preaching to the choir here. We've seen the story over and over again of starry-eyed pre-pharms and accepted students proclaiming their passion for pharmacy and how their networks, skills, and intelligence will protect them from saturation, only to have fallen flat on their faces by graduation.

 

[PharmDBro2017]

Aren’t you a 2017 grad like me? Why are you trying to convince people that we’re stupid?

I didn’t say that I was stupid, nor you. We are talking about the class of 2016 here... they are the most recent Naplex statistic being used.

I know for a fact my schools class of 2016 were a bunch of idiots, and thus their scores dropped 20-30% and it didn’t surprise me.

And seriously reporting my previous post for using a certain R word? Grow some thicker skin.



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