Post Bacc Help for Pharm

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soundasleep

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I'll be graduating this year with a BA in poli sci/literature, and I've recently decided to explore other options for careers. Since I haven't completed ANY pre-reqs, even the basic sciences, should i go to a formal post-bacc program or just take the specific classes that I need a la carte?

Also, for pharm, does it matter about the school reputation for post bacc studies and pre-reqs?

Thanks for any responses!

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Just take the classes you need. You should look up multiple schools before taking classes, you'll see different requirement classes in many of the programs so it's best to do your homework first. As far as reputation, I'd say university > CC for sure. I know some schools require X class to be taken at a university rather than CC.
 
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I'd say a la carte (only because it sounds like food, and I love food), and comm. college would be fine. The schools that require univ. credits are few and far between, so don't worry about it.
 
Unless the college you are going to has a school of pharmacy, they probably will not have a "pre-pharm" curriculum because each school requires different pre-requisites. I would suggest you research about 3-6 schools you want to apply to and compare the pre-req coursework at each school you're interested in. Try to find schools with as much overlap as possible in their requirements. I was able to find a lot of schools with identical or very similar requirements. If you've already gotten your bachelor's, you will most likely want to condense the amount of pre-pharm courses as much as possible, especially if you didn't study something in the basic sciences. It generally takes 2 years to complete the pre-pharm stuff, maybe an extra semester or two, but you might have some courses like english or history requirements done. You will want schools with similar requirements because if each school had 1-2 extra courses that you had to take specific to only 1 school, that would be an extra 6-12 classes you would have to take for those unique classes (1-2 extra semesters!) if you were applying to 6 schools for example.

For your second question: Although most schools will accept CC credits, pharmacy is a super competitive field. Some schools will only accept 9-10% of their applicant pool (keep in mind pharmacy class sizes range from about 85-150 people, and I've been in applicant pools as large as 1600 before). You can certainly do a lot of pre-pharm at CC, but you want to make yourself look as competitive as possible on paper to get an interview. I would suggest taking the courses at a university if possible and you can afford it. Personally, I don't think CC looks as competitive during admissions (others may disagree with me here and please feel free to offer your opinion in reply), but that shouldn't deter you from applying if that's your only option. Being that you do already have a bachelor's from a university, this may not matter as much in your situation though.
 
Thanks for all the help and responses!

So after graduating, I was planning on heading out to Boston for Harvard's informal post bacc program, just to keep my options open since I'm not entirely set on what I want to do. Do you guys think this would be a better idea than just taking some extension courses at a nearby university for the major sciences and then CC courses for the leftover pre-reqs?

I'm trying to make sure that I'm not throwing myself into this program if I can accomplish the same things through a local university and CC. Will it make a huge difference?
 
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