Pharmacy school has turned into a complete joke!

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VP_Pharm2004

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I'm not even sure why people are still entering this profession! Seriously, are there no other options out there or do students with 2.5 GPAs want to waste 200k because someone promised them that they'd make 120k after graduation? :cool:

Can someone please explain to me why students still think they have a future with this career?

The only future they have is to be a retail slave...

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Great question.

Why do people refuse to vaccinate themselves or their children despite the overwhelming evidence that supports doing so?
 
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Unfortunately the majority of people just don't have the smarts, but we keep on spoon feeding kids politically correct BS that they are each a special little flower, meanwhile lowering the standards in the name of equality/diversity/money.
 
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Unfortunately the majority of people just don't have the smarts, but we keep on spoon feeding kids politically correct BS that they are each a special little flower, meanwhile lowering the standards in the name of equality/diversity/money.


I tried to say the same in the pre-med forum and got called a "racist".... but you were a pre-med before so you already knew.... (sigh)
 
my UCSF and USC students seem to be doing fine
 
I pity the person who still visits a forum just to spew the same brainless phrase over and over. Move on with your life or actually help give advice to those who want to do pharmacy
 
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I pity the person who still visits a forum just to spew the same brainless phrase over and over. Move on with your life or actually help give advice to those who want to do pharmacy

"brainless" ??

Before you are trying to insult the people who try to inform and update the current situation in pharmacy, I would like you to know that there are also many threads and posts written by the same people here to help the people who are deciding to do pharmacy.

If you know any good information which can help people to get jobs in pharmacy or ways to stop the endless opening of pharmacy schools, please post here for us. Thanks :)
 
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"brainless" ??

Before you are trying to insult the people who try to inform and update the current situation in pharmacy, I would like you to know that there are also many threads and posts written by the same people here to help the people who are deciding to do pharmacy.

If you know any good information which can help people to get jobs in pharmacy or ways to stop the endless opening of pharmacy schools, please post here for us. Thanks :)

Don't worry, that is just the anger phase. Next will come bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
 
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Thank you for the support, oldstock and stoichiometrist! I'm not even going to address that fool. I'm sure he or she will be a "top dog" in their graduating class of 22,000 in 2020 and s/he will change the world of pharmacy.
 
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I have visited different medical subdivision threads and in and every single one there are posts on how abysmal their profession is. Optometry, dentistry (they complain about the loan amounts they have to take out which are double that of pharmacy), pharmacy. Its all the same.
 
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I have visited different medical subdivision threads and in and every single one there are posts on how abysmal their profession is. Optometry, dentistry (they complain about the loan amounts they have to take out which are double that of pharmacy), pharmacy. Its all the same.


I don't know how those schools work but I am willing to bet they might have some standards left. It's unbelievable that some schools don't need the pcat anymore. What happens when you take away standards from a "professional" school?

Just curious, what are you stats?

edit; Caribbean med schools is the equivalent.
 
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I don't know how those schools work but I am willing to bet they might have some standards left. It's unbelievable that some schools don't need the pcat anymore. What happens when you take away standards from a "professional" school?

Just curious, what are you stats?

edit; Caribbean med schools is the equivalent.

Hey! Pharmacy schools still have some standards left, including:

(1) Have a pulse.
(2) Have access to some money or loans from federal/bank.
(3) Don't act like a clown on interview day.

That's all I have. ;)
 
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It's unbelievable that some schools don't need the pcat anymore.

The PCAT is a crap indicator of quality, the elite California schools realized this a long time ago and most of them have never required it.
 
The PCAT is a crap indicator of quality, the elite California schools realized this a long time ago and most of them have never required it.

Even it's crap it's better than none. But you're right it might as well be none now, if you can get in with a 16% on a subject.
 
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Hey! Pharmacy schools still have some standards left, including:

(1) Have a pulse.
(2) Have access to some money or loans from federal/bank.
(3) Don't act like a clown on interview day.

That's all I have. ;)

I don't understand. What's the screening process now? And if there is none, how could pharmacy even be considered a professional school? How is it any different from say, just applying to community college?
 
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I don't understand. What's the screening process now? And if there is none, how could pharmacy even be considered a professional school? How is it any different from say, just applying to community college?

Schools are business and business is about money. Its #1 priority has never been about a profession in the first place.
 
The PCAT is a crap indicator of quality, the elite California schools realized this a long time ago and most of them have never required it.

At least the PCAT is standardized, objective and transparent thus it helps to ensure a fair admission process for everyone.

If you think the PCAT too easy, we can always make it harder, like the MCAT for example. Unfortunately, theres no need for making the PCAT harder yet as the majority of today's prepharmers are still struggling with the PCAT and all 140s+ pharmacy schools are wanting to fill their seats.

Are GPAs standardized ?? How about LORs ?? Or Bachelor degrees ?? No.

How is that fair to use GPAs, LORs, or bachelor degrees whose standards vary from schools to schools and persons to persons to select candidates ???

And I thought that we were all students of science.... Imho, any college admission process that is not based on standardized tests is not good or fair.

I really do think that the reason Cali pharm schools do not want to have anything to do with anything standardized or a fair and transparent admission process is to have more wiggle room to admit whoever they want, in this case prob their residents. Shady. But that was prob the past, when there were more instate students than cali schools. These days no pcat admission policy saves them the embarassment of admitting students w subpar standardized test scores esp now that there are way more schools than qualified students.
 
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At least the PCAT is standardized, objective and transparent thus it helps to ensure a fair admission process for everyone.

If you think the PCAT too easy, we can always make it harder, like the MCAT for example. Unfortunately, theres no need for making the PCAT harder yet as the majority of today's prepharmers are still struggling with the PCAT and all 140s+ pharmacy schools are wanting to fill their seats.

Are GPAs standardized ?? How about LORs ?? Or Bachelor degrees ?? No.

How is that fair to use GPAs, LORs, or bachelor degrees whose standards vary from schools to schools and persons to persons to select candidates ???

And I thought that we were all students of science.... Imho, any college admission process that is not based on standardized tests is not good or fair.

I really do think that the reason Cali pharm schools do not want to have anything to do with anything standardized or a fair and transparent admission process is to have more wiggle room to admit whoever they want, in this case prob their residents. Shady. But that was prob the past, when there were more instate students than cali schools. These days no pcat admission policy saves them the embarassment of admitting students w subpar standardized test scores esp now that there are way more schools than qualified students.
I think the last sentence answered all my questions. Good logic :)
 
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Don't the Cali schools usually require that applicants have their 4 year degree?

I do think the PCAT is a good tool. Not everyone takes the same courses or tests for their GPA, but each student will take the same standard PCAT, you might think it's too hard or too easy but the fact remains that GPA can fluctuate and isn't always the best indicator of what a student knows.
 
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California schools used to be very competitive when they were able to make up their lack of PCAT requirement with very high (>3.5) average GPAs. This is not the case anymore now that 3 new schools opened this past fall.
 
At least the PCAT is standardized, objective and transparent thus it helps to ensure a fair admission process for everyone.

Standardized and objective doesn't mean useful. It's a stupid test that's beatable. The PCAT is great for telling me...how well you take a PCAT, not what kind of student you'll be.

If you think the PCAT too easy, we can always make it harder, like the MCAT for example. Unfortunately, theres no need for making the PCAT harder yet as the majority of today's prepharmers are still struggling with the PCAT and all 140s+ pharmacy schools are wanting to fill their seats.

A harder useless test is still a useless test.

Are GPAs standardized ?? How about LORs ?? Or Bachelor degrees ?? No.

How is that fair to use GPAs, LORs, or bachelor degrees whose standards vary from schools to schools and persons to persons to select candidates ???

There's a very good reason the admissions process doesn't rely on strict numbers that a robot can crunch. It's why we have perceptive humans reviewing applications and why the nation's largest university system abandoned that process over a decade ago.

And I thought that we were all students of science.... Imho, any college admission process that is not based on standardized tests is not good or fair.

Pharmacy is more art than science, so is all of medicine...the longer I'm a pharmacist, the more I realize this. Glad you're not in charge of admissions anywhere. Your freshman class composition would be monotonous and drab.
 
Add all the barriers you want for pharmacy school admissions, it's not gonna improve the quality of the field when the cream of the crop realize the boat has already sailed and end up pursuing other competitive markets, i.e., finance, software engineering, dentistry, medicine, maybe even law provided it's a top 10 program in the states. What we do need is a better filtration system ensuring capable minded pharmacists in the field, i.e., a fair but difficult licensing examination, moreso than the one in place today. Maybe even include a mandated exam after the P2 'professional' year testing the material from the didactic courses with a zero tolerance policy for failure. I am sure this is where the bottleneck effect would be most obvious. Let's face it, P3 year is mostly electives that you choose at your leisure and P4 is strictly rotations and provided you're awake and not an idiot, are free A's. I am convinced anyone can master the soft skills (communication and business skills) with practice, not so much the case with the actual content that is relevant to pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences. This is all wishful thinking though :).
 
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Standardized and objective doesn't mean useful. It's a stupid test that's beatable. The PCAT is great for telling me...how well you take a PCAT, not what kind of student you'll be.



A harder useless test is still a useless test.



There's a very good reason the admissions process doesn't rely on strict numbers that a robot can crunch. It's why we have perceptive humans reviewing applications and why the nation's largest university system abandoned that process over a decade ago.



Pharmacy is more art than science, so is all of medicine...t
he longer I'm a pharmacist, the more I realize this. Glad you're not in charge of admissions anywhere. Your freshman class composition would be monotonous and drab.


you are literally saying standardized tests are useless.... you prob proceed to tell me no standardized test should be used in California now as California realizes that standardized tests and objectiveness are not "useful". Next you prob tell me that CA will not use the NAPLEX or any kind of standardized tests to test the competency of pharmacist but to use some "perceptive humans" to screen pharmacists or something because standardized test is "beatable" thus "stupid"...

you realize that CA med schools still require the MCAT and CA law schools still require the LSAT right ?? Unless you are saying CA med / law schools are all about science.... lol

Even CA high school students have to take standardized tests called STAR, CAHSEE and or the old SAT / ACT for college admission. It is only CA pharm schools that do not ask for any standardized test. If you say the PCAT is really stupid, make up another standardized test or use a different test for CA pharm school admission.


Really, if you want to incorporate arts or humanity into a test, you can. But I suspect the real reasons CA pharm schools do not use any standardized tests are those reasons I listed above.

IMHO, the more people are involved in the process, the more biased and unfair the process becomes.

Oh, wait... you already said being objective and standardized is not "useful" for you.


Ah hah !! (ding ding) :)



Anyhoo, it seems that, luckily, the rest of the nation does not agree with you. And I really do not think you are speaking for the whole California's education system anyway. Maybe only for the twisted thinking of pharm school admission in California...

I am wondering how many top 10 universities / pharm schools are located in the state of California ?? "Elite" ?? c'mon man ;)


http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities


http://www.pharmacytechnicianreview.com/articles/top-75-pharmacy-schools-us

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankings...-schools/top-health-schools/pharmacy-rankings

---

tl;dr: Listen to yourself, man... I give up LOL :)
 
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tl;dr: Listen to yourself, man... I give up LOL :)

California has already shaped the educational/licensing policies of the rest of the country. We used to have our own version of NAPLEX (CAPLEX?) and juris exam, we lobbied for changes and NAPLEX changed because of what California wanted (hence why we finally started accepting it).

Same with the SAT...California threatened to walk away but SAT came back and begged with changes (hence the change to a 2400 point system with all this other stuff).

Standardized tests are still useless! But I do concede that they're sometimes a necessary evil, because we don't have enough money/resources to properly evaluate people. They're not designed to size up students the way they're being used presently.

In an ideal world, specially trained individuals would evaluate one-on-one...but I get it, pencil/paper (or computers) are cheaper and there's just too many of us to do that.

P.S. US News rankings are stupid, too! If you can influence the ranking by a) cheating with fake numbers (has happened) or b) giving money as an alumnus, then it's stupid.
 
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"brainless" ??

Before you are trying to insult the people who try to inform and update the current situation in pharmacy, I would like you to know that there are also many threads and posts written by the same people here to help the people who are deciding to do pharmacy.

If you know any good information which can help people to get jobs in pharmacy or ways to stop the endless opening of pharmacy schools, please post here for us. Thanks :)

Yes, brainless. Because I see the same people in every thread posting their same advice even if it doest attempt to the question. I get that these people got screwed or were sorely disappointed in the career they were picking, but some know what we're getting into. Oldstock, I have seen you help some people (including myself); thank you for that. People like VP and BMB I have yet to witness give any genuine advice other than the sky is falling. For example look at the current topic of conversation in this thread: standardized tests. But VP cant engage in that and goes to post a link about pharmacy unemployment. Its sad, like I said I feel bad for the person who thinks they are contributing by only saying variations of the same exact thing.

I havent picked a pharmacy school yet, but I know I plan on a dual degree to separate myself from the crowd. I wont be the very top of my class, and thats fine with me.

Standardized tests do matter in my opinion, solely for the fact that what will you be taking to get your license? A standardized test! If you cant do well on the PCAT, having taken all of the topics it covers, why would you be able to pass the NAPLEX? Thats more an argument for the PCAT, not standardized tests, I realize. Its hard to find an efficient system that is unbiased and puts all those interested on the same level.
 
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Yes, brainless. Because I see the same people in every thread posting their same advice even if it doest attempt to the question. I get that these people got screwed or were sorely disappointed in the career they were picking, but some know what we're getting into. Oldstock, I have seen you help some people (including myself); thank you for that. People like VP and BMB I have yet to witness give any genuine advice other than the sky is falling. For example look at the current topic of conversation in this thread: standardized tests. But VP cant engage in that and goes to post a link about pharmacy unemployment. Its sad, like I said I feel bad for the person who thinks they are contributing by only saying variations of the same exact thing.

I havent picked a pharmacy school yet, but I know I plan on a dual degree to separate myself from the crowd. I wont be the very top of my class, and thats fine with me.

Standardized tests do matter in my opinion, solely for the fact that what will you be taking to get your license? A standardized test! If you cant do well on the PCAT, having taken all of the topics it covers, why would you be able to pass the NAPLEX? Thats more an argument for the PCAT, not standardized tests, I realize. Its hard to find an efficient system that is unbiased and puts all those interested on the same level.
Can't you take the naplex as many times as you want? Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
I havent picked a pharmacy school yet, but I know I plan on a dual degree to separate myself from the crowd. I wont be the very top of my class, and thats fine with me.

This is the main reason why I no longer contribute to this forum. Because of pre-pharmacy students like YOU. All claiming to be "go getters", "queen bee", "top dog", dual degree holders, etc. just to separate themselves from the rest of the pack. You'll realize that will only take you so far in life. I wish you luck.

Maybe you'll land your dream job, but who's to say that you won't be replaced by a new grad after 5 or 10 years because they can pay them less?! Age discrimination is alive and kicking in this profession. You don't know anything about it because you haven't experienced it! So take our advice for what it's worth.

Nearly 80% of the jobs are in retail and the turnover rate is insane. You ever wonder why?!

So if you want to go into a pharmacy career, then no one is stopping you! Just know that your investment in this profession may only last you 10-15 years max. Good luck with retirement and paying off that loan balance.
 
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Yes, and most newer schools offer a crash course NAPLEX review to increase the students passing rate.
At my medical school we have x amount of tries and if you still don't pass, you get kicked out.
 
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At my medical school we have x amount of tries and if you still don't pass, you get kicked out.

Read the pharmacy licensure forum... you'll see recent grads attempting to take the NAPLEX 3 to 4 times!! It's a damn shame!
 
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Can't you take the naplex as many times as you want? Correct me if I'm wrong.

As per Drug Topics magazine, "The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) will be implementing a new policy that permits candidates to have only 5 attempts each to pass the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) and the Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination (MPJE)."

This limit of "only 5 attempts" is pretty laughable when you consider a private school like Touro: ~95-100% of their students pass the first time. Other schools around the block for longer have even a higher pass rate. Really no excuse to fail the first attempt from this perspective. Especially when free crash courses are offered for the sake of passing the NAPLEX.

http://drugtopics.modernmedicine.co...icy-taking-naplex-mpje-start-march-?page=full

https://www.nabp.net/system/rich/ri...0/000/191/original/naplex-pass-rates-2013.pdf
 
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Even if pharmacy schools go to true open admissions I have a hard time believing the NAPLEX will be a barrier to entry into the profession. VP_2004 what is your exit strategy or have you already made your way out? Most of the pharmacists I work with seem trapped by high lifestyle costs, I can't see it ending well for a lot of them.
 
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Even if pharmacy schools go to true open admissions I have a hard time believing the NAPLEX will be a barrier to entry into the profession. VP_2004 what is your exit strategy or have you already made your way out? Most of the pharmacists I work with seem trapped by high lifestyle costs, I can't see it ending well for a lot of them.

Loans paid off and working my ass to save and save. Married rich and hope to put in another good 10 years and then I'm out..
 
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I took the GRE for graduate school in cognitive neuroscience, mind you, I had a B.A. in sociology, so this was a huge difference in curriculum for me, especially since I had only two courses in biology from a CC. I scored 3% on the math, 16% on the verbal, but 80% on the AW. The GRE, much like PCAT or MCAT are trying to test how you will potentially do in your first year of graduate/professional school. I have since published in clinical neuropsychology on psychometrics and standardized exams that pertain to neuropsychological evaluations. I will say that much like myself, a given exam cannot preclude someone from being successful, it only acts as a projected score for your potential first year success. I have a 3.77, all A's in all of my neuro courses (which account for approx. 95% of the courses I have taken so far). Again, the GRE, much like the ACT only provides a possible sliver of a person's ability to achieve an education. I was diagnosed in middle school with several learning disabilities, I even had a counselor tell me that if I didn't pursue music (which I did as my first career), then I would probably end up in fast food. I was convinced my fate was sealed, I did terrible in most academics in high school. I have since proven them wrong now as I am in the process of my 3rd degree.

So, while exams like the GRE, MCAT and PCAT are a necessary evil, they really have no predictive powers beyond how they MIGHT do in their first year. If you don't believe me, I urge you to Google some articles about the psychologists who originally sat down to design the psychometric qualities of the GRE, they even admit this.
 
I took the GRE for graduate school in cognitive neuroscience, mind you, I had a B.A. in sociology, so this was a huge difference in curriculum for me, especially since I had only two courses in biology from a CC. I scored 3% on the math, 16% on the verbal, but 80% on the AW. The GRE, much like PCAT or MCAT are trying to test how you will potentially do in your first year of graduate/professional school. I have since published in clinical neuropsychology on psychometrics and standardized exams that pertain to neuropsychological evaluations. I will say that much like myself, a given exam cannot preclude someone from being successful, it only acts as a projected score for your potential first year success. I have a 3.77, all A's in all of my neuro courses (which account for approx. 95% of the courses I have taken so far). Again, the GRE, much like the ACT only provides a possible sliver of a person's ability to achieve an education. I was diagnosed in middle school with several learning disabilities, I even had a counselor tell me that if I didn't pursue music (which I did as my first career), then I would probably end up in fast food. I was convinced my fate was sealed, I did terrible in most academics in high school. I have since proven them wrong now as I am in the process of my 3rd degree.

So, while exams like the GRE, MCAT and PCAT are a necessary evil, they really have no predictive powers beyond how they MIGHT do in their first year. If you don't believe me, I urge you to Google some articles about the psychologists who originally sat down to design the psychometric qualities of the GRE, they even admit this.
Is that 3% a typo? 3% is like getting two questions out of fifty right....and some of that is just addition and subtraction....
edit; well...if it's the pcat means you scored better than 3 percent of people at least. :/
 
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That is correct, I got a 3%. Frankly, it was due to the fact I had no respect for the test and literally went in there just pressing ****, on the verbal I did attempt some stuff. The AW was easy for me, I never even needed to practice. I do better with analytics, especially more of the verbal and creative forms of analyses. But yeah...I got into U. Texas, I graduate in May, even worked at UT Southwestern in neurology and neuropsychology, so I accomplished what I set out to do.
 
People like VP and BMB I have yet to witness give any genuine advice other than the sky is falling.

What specific advise do you want from me? I have helped more people on this forum than most people.

P.S. start pharmacy school and then come back and tell us how you are doing.
 
My husband starts the Pharm.D. program at Nova in the fall, he was pharmacist in Brazil with an M.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, he had spent these past 7 years working at Pizza Hut when his dreams of going to a Ph.D. in Pharmacology went to hell. I am happy he took on this profession, I definitely told him about this forum and he looked at this for himself. His conclusions; you make your own way, the old day of having a 6 figure salary with no managers barking down your neck and somehow believing that a large corporation in capitalist America will somehow not exploit the fruits of your labors is delusional. I had worked several types of jobs after I left music in retail, mortgage, banking, etc. I found that I couldn't stand a corporate atmosphere, there was no "meaning" to being a mortgage professional for me. My brother in law is an accountant, he loves this stuff, he loves the idea of sitting in a cubical all day using spreadsheets, and I am glad he likes it and has the aptitude to do well in that. That is not me, nor is it for thousands upon thousands of Americans. To simply suggest they run out, find a gig in accounting or business is a pretty shallow evaluation of what it means to work, to have a career, etc. I am sure many of you elected to be a pharmacist for reasons other than a paycheck (we hope, right?).

Another person really did point out some good points earlier, that much like dentists, PA's, nurses, veterinarians, there are many issues in each field. I am in psychology, so out of all of you people here, we have the crappiest deal. It really does take a person to really LOVE what they do, that they couldn't imagine doing anything else for them to take on 5 years of a doctoral program, and for many who pursue the Psy.D., will take out $200K in loans, plus a pre-doc internship and a 2 year post-doc internship only to start out making $50-70K a year for the next 5 years. Our growth rate is slow, if we are lucky, in practice along, we might achieve a $90-100K salary after 10+ years of practicing. This assumes that you are primarily clinical, work in a clinic, hospital or private practice. Those who are within the 5% of the population that are lucky enough to get a tenure-track position in psychology, will see a starting salary around $80-90K, those that are more senior obviously will see an increase.

The point here being, that while many of you are trying to provide the "ultimate truth" behind your profession, in reality you are only providing your opinions. This is evident by skimming these threads and seeing inverse perspectives on this subject. Many of the same people flood these forums and the representation of practicing pharmacists is less than a statistical significance in comparison with the U.S. (and this is evident even by many of you who claim that pharmacy is pumping out too many graduates, my case in point). For those think the Ph.D. is a better route, I urge you to drop what you are doing, find out if there is remotely an institution around you who would be willing to take you on with some type of salary. The hardest part in this is, you MIGHT find something in a field of interest to you (e.g., neuropsychology, sports psychology, plant biology, etc.), the real trick is finding a paying job in this low-level research assistant position. You will find yourself probably volunteering most of your time in the week because the faculty member or researcher doesn't have enough funding to bring you on, at least based on your lack of credentials (e.g. publishing, posters, pedigree of college, LOR's). You will find yourself more than likely picking up a job at Burger King or a call center, being harrassed by people demanding free food because you accidentally placed a sticker on the burger that said "no lettuce" when it actually did. All this time, you have a college degree, took advanced courses in natural sciences, but yet you are now working full time in a job that a high school student could be doing so you can support your "big idea" of making it big in research that is not paying. On top of this, you will be competing for <5% of available seats in a Ph.D. program (300 applicants, 8-10 people MIGHT be admitted). Imagine only having 1-3 institutions in your immediate vicinity.

So...at the end of the day, if your ultimate goal is to get a "free education" with a stipend of a whopping $25-33K a year for 5 years is appealing to you, packing up your family at least 3 times during your doctoral education, then go for it. Remember....publish or perish :) Have fun.

Oh and btw....if you thought pharmacy was saturated, you should try applying for an ADJUNCT job at some local university with your new Ph.D....that will be the best moment of your life there. So, if you didn't come from Stanford, Harvard, any of Ivies and some of the top 3% private and public universities around which account for <10% of available colleges in the U.S., you will be at a community college (which hey, I would love that, I actually prefer teaching over research).
 
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dang.... I am really sorry for your husband having to work at Pizza Hut or you having to work at a Burger King while pursuing advance degree.

But you missed the point.

you do not even read the many reply posts others, including me, answered the same exact post of you in other threads thus you have to post again the exact post here.

Anyway....

The truth is: Saturation in pharmacy is real, which is caused by the endless opening schools is real. The starting 6 figure salary in pharmacy will not last, and will go down because of it. Many like us here are trying to update the current situation in pharmacy to inform pre-pharmers so that they have a more informed, realistic and balanced than the Kool-Aids that pharm schools keep on feeding on naive pre-pharmers.

After you got the info here about saturation, you are the one decides for yourself if you should go for pharmacy. My calculation, based on the current number of schools (140s) and estimated numbers of pharmacist jobs by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period of 2012 - 2022(41,400), shows that 2/3 or 67% chance of a new grad to be unemployed in the 2020 - 2022. By that time, wage would go down to 30s an hour (Big boxes have already started offering only part time job job with wages in the 40s now) and you need to do multiple residencies and/or fellowship to be competitive for jobs. Like many others already said above, your pharmacy career might only last for a short while (provided that you can find a job then) before being replaced by some young new PharmD who is so hungry and desperate to work for less than you.

If that odd is acceptable to you, go ahead and borrow 150 - 200K in student loan.

For those who have the smart and aptitude to things other than rode memorization, we like to remind there are more career options than pharmacy. Those people are the ones CAN become good engineers, financier/bankers, or yes PhDs. Their Return Over Investment ratio would be better than doing pharmacy in terms of invested money and time. It is not uncommon for PhDs, engineers, bankers , etc making 6 figure right out of school. Even they might have to start out lower there are still room for their salary to grow vs the 6 figure starting salary in pharmacy which most likely to stay for the rest of of your career span.

But not everyone can do that.

So if pharmacy is the only thing you can or want to do after ALL consideration of the reality, please go ahead. If the idea of doing 4 yrs of pharmacy school w no stipend and all debts is appealing to you, again welcome to pharmacy !! Everyone is different but the reality in pharmacy is the same :)



My husband starts the Pharm.D. program at Nova in the fall, he was pharmacist in Brazil with an M.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, he had spent these past 7 years working at Pizza Hut when his dreams of going to a Ph.D. in Pharmacology went to hell. I am happy he took on this profession, I definitely told him about this forum and he looked at this for himself. His conclusions; you make your own way, the old day of having a 6 figure salary with no managers barking down your neck and somehow believing that a large corporation in capitalist America will somehow not exploit the fruits of your labors is delusional. I had worked several types of jobs after I left music in retail, mortgage, banking, etc. I found that I couldn't stand a corporate atmosphere, there was no "meaning" to being a mortgage professional for me. My brother in law is an accountant, he loves this stuff, he loves the idea of sitting in a cubical all day using spreadsheets, and I am glad he likes it and has the aptitude to do well in that. That is not me, nor is it for thousands upon thousands of Americans. To simply suggest they run out, find a gig in accounting or business is a pretty shallow evaluation of what it means to work, to have a career, etc. I am sure many of you elected to be a pharmacist for reasons other than a paycheck (we hope, right?).

Another person really did point out some good points earlier, that much like dentists, PA's, nurses, veterinarians, there are many issues in each field. I am in psychology, so out of all of you people here, we have the crappiest deal. It really does take a person to really LOVE what they do, that they couldn't imagine doing anything else for them to take on 5 years of a doctoral program, and for many who pursue the Psy.D., will take out $200K in loans, plus a pre-doc internship and a 2 year post-doc internship only to start out making $50-70K a year for the next 5 years. Our growth rate is slow, if we are lucky, in practice along, we might achieve a $90-100K salary after 10+ years of practicing. This assumes that you are primarily clinical, work in a clinic, hospital or private practice. Those who are within the 5% of the population that are lucky enough to get a tenure-track position in psychology, will see a starting salary around $80-90K, those that are more senior obviously will see an increase.

The point here being, that while many of you are trying to provide the "ultimate truth" behind your profession, in reality you are only providing your opinions. This is evident by skimming these threads and seeing inverse perspectives on this subject. Many of the same people flood these forums and the representation of practicing pharmacists is less than a statistical significance in comparison with the U.S. (and this is evident even by many of you who claim that pharmacy is pumping out too many graduates, my case in point). For those think the Ph.D. is a better route, I urge you to drop what you are doing, find out if there is remotely an institution around you who would be willing to take you on with some type of salary. The hardest part in this is, you MIGHT find something in a field of interest to you (e.g., neuropsychology, sports psychology, plant biology, etc.), the real trick is finding a paying job in this low-level research assistant position. You will find yourself probably volunteering most of your time in the week because the faculty member or researcher doesn't have enough funding to bring you on, at least based on your lack of credentials (e.g. publishing, posters, pedigree of college, LOR's). You will find yourself more than likely picking up a job at Burger King or a call center, being harrassed by people demanding free food because you accidentally placed a sticker on the burger that said "no lettuce" when it actually did. All this time, you have a college degree, took advanced courses in natural sciences, but yet you are now working full time in a job that a high school student could be doing so you can support your "big idea" of making it big in research that is not paying. On top of this, you will be competing for <5% of available seats in a Ph.D. program (300 applicants, 8-10 people MIGHT be admitted). Imagine only having 1-3 institutions in your immediate vicinity.

So...at the end of the day, if your ultimate goal is to get a "free education" with a stipend of a whopping $25-33K a year for 5 years is appealing to you, packing up your family at least 3 times during your doctoral education, then go for it. Remember....publish or perish :) Have fun.

Oh and btw....if you thought pharmacy was saturated, you should try applying for an ADJUNCT job at some local university with your new Ph.D....that will be the best moment of your life there. So, if you didn't come from Stanford, Harvard, any of Ivies and some of the top 3% private and public universities around which account for <10% of available colleges in the U.S., you will be at a community college (which hey, I would love that, I actually prefer teaching over research).
 
I wouldn't say pharm school is a joke either. I know friends with 3.0+ GPA's and pharm work experience that didn't get into schools this cycle or got interviews despite good LORs. There are still standards, I know people complain and there may be exceptions to the rule with students with lower stats getting in but I don't know of schools with reported averages of under 3.0 GPAs or abysmal PCAT scores being the norm.

Some areas may be saturated, but also consider that the economy went to pot and that's when many markets got scaled back. I have friends in nursing who are having trouble with the job search, I know many others who got laid off and many other professions being saturated. After the economy went down lots of sectors took hits, if I'm not mistaken physicians also typically took pay cuts or didn't see increases with some areas like radiology being "saturated" in certain markets (can't verify this info, just what I've heard). Not only this, but people took huge hits to their retirement investments to many who were set to retire still work to earn money that they lost when their retirement investments crashed with the economy. As the economy recovers it may take a while for things to bounce back as well when it comes to the job world.

Yes new pharm schools have opened, but there was a pretty big projected shortage prior to these schools which is what drove them to open. Sure, some programs see it as a cash cow but others with established rotations, in my opinion, are pretty solid and did open with the mission of being a healthcare focused institution and a PharmD being a beneficial degree for them to award when there appeared to be a mass shortage and job shortage in the future. Now, too many schools probably had this view, but I don't think it's the end of the world that everyone thinks.

In my area we have tons of job openings for clinical pharmacy positions and most institutions from what I've seen are considering expansions and more pharmacy involvement in their institutions. Retail may not be a garunteed job with a big salary anymore because many want to go into it, but just from what I've seen clinical pharmacy appears to be growing, and with more awareness going on and possibly provider status paying for clinical pharmacy work in certain areas I think it's going to be more mainstream. Retail may become saturated, but I think clinical pharmacy is expanding.
 
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What area is that with tons of job openings for clinical pharmacy positions?
 
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dang.... I am really sorry for your husband having to work at Pizza Hut or you having to work at a Burger King while pursuing advance degree.

But you missed the point.

you do not even read the many reply posts others, including me, answered the same exact post of you in other threads thus you have to post again the exact post here.

Anyway....

The truth is: Saturation in pharmacy is real, which is caused by the endless opening schools is real. The starting 6 figure salary in pharmacy will not last, and will go down because of it. Many like us here are trying to update the current situation in pharmacy to inform pre-pharmers so that they have a more informed, realistic and balanced than the Kool-Aids that pharm schools keep on feeding on naive pre-pharmers.

After you got the info here about saturation, you are the one decides for yourself if you should go for pharmacy. My calculation, based on the current number of schools (140s) and estimated numbers of pharmacist jobs by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period of 2012 - 2022(41,400), shows that 2/3 or 67% chance of a new grad to be unemployed in the 2020 - 2022. By that time, wage would go down to 30s an hour (Big boxes have already started offering only part time job job with wages in the 40s now) and you need to do multiple residencies and/or fellowship to be competitive for jobs. Like many others already said above, your pharmacy career might only last for a short while (provided that you can find a job then) before being replaced by some young new PharmD who is so hungry and desperate to work for less than you.

If that odd is acceptable to you, go ahead and borrow 150 - 200K in student loan.

For those who have the smart and aptitude to things other than rode memorization, we like to remind there are more career options than pharmacy. Those people are the ones CAN become good engineers, financier/bankers, or yes PhDs. Their Return Over Investment ratio would be better than doing pharmacy in terms of invested money and time. It is not uncommon for PhDs, engineers, bankers , etc making 6 figure right out of school. Even they might have to start out lower there are still room for their salary to grow vs the 6 figure starting salary in pharmacy which most likely to stay for the rest of of your career span.

But not everyone can do that.

So if pharmacy is the only thing you can or want to do after ALL consideration of the reality, please go ahead. If the idea of doing 4 yrs of pharmacy school w no stipend and all debts is appealing to you, again welcome to pharmacy !! Everyone is different but the reality in pharmacy is the same :)

I did read your posts as well as the others, I am simply providing you a disagreement and an alternative analysis or perspectives for others to consider, much like what you have provided. My point is that you are assuming that society is flourishing with people who can readily take on jobs that require certain cognitive capacities and skill sets. So, much like any profession, it really is up to what a person feels comfortable in terms of employment outlook, their finances, their strengths and weaknesses in academia as well as what they can see themselves working in (e.g. environment, personality, etc.). Like I mentioned in the other thread, simply packing up shop may not be an option for everyone, and frankly, I would question those who do because they are faced with an adverse situation and forced to make another one that may be primarily financially motivated. Don't get me wrong, I work in a field where we all wish we were paid for what we are worth, but the reality of it is that most people who get into my field (psychology) do it for alternative reasons. If they like what they do, they have some reasonable capacity to function cognitively, the money will come.

....and I never worked at Burger King, I used that as a dramatization/point.
 
At this point, I would ask you where should I go if I decide to ditch my profession? There are people in many of the forums who have this approach that you speak of. I ask you, where should I go? If I were a student trying to take your advice, should I just force myself to like numbers to become an accountant? Be in misery? Should I try more and more professions and hop around? I'm getting older, those luxuries are fading away, so, if pharmacy is tanking, dentistry is tanking, nursing is tanking, vet. school is tanking, ****, it seems like I should pick up a job as a janitor, no debt, few responsibilities...how perfect. There are several times I considered just bailing out, maybe I could force myself to understand advanced math or physics to do engineering....but why? I wouldn't enjoy it, it would be just a job like working at WalMart, then it would be about the money, right?

These are fairly common scenarios that are important to consider as much as you are try to provide your facts as well.
 
At this point, I would ask you where should I go if I decide to ditch my profession? There are people in many of the forums who have this approach that you speak of. I ask you, where should I go? If I were a student trying to take your advice, should I just force myself to like numbers to become an accountant? Be in misery? Should I try more and more professions and hop around? I'm getting older, those luxuries are fading away, so, if pharmacy is tanking, dentistry is tanking, nursing is tanking, vet. school is tanking, ****, it seems like I should pick up a job as a janitor, no debt, few responsibilities...how perfect. There are several times I considered just bailing out, maybe I could force myself to understand advanced math or physics to do engineering....but why? I wouldn't enjoy it, it would be just a job like working at WalMart, then it would be about the money, right?

These are fairly common scenarios that are important to consider as much as you are try to provide your facts as well.

You are right. Do what you love. I left pharmacy for so many reasons. I would be a hypocrite to tell everyone to stay out of pharmacy SOLELY for the money.
 
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