hi everyone, im a recent pre-pharm (decided last week) and have lurked here ever since. i decided to look into pharm school, and i've COMBED through this entire forum learning the most i can about the application process.
ill give a lil bit of my own background info later, but for now, lets get to the question thats been bugging me....
the topic of low-GPAs has been asked many times before, but please bear with me on this one..
so im having trouble understanding how cum. gpa/science gpa/prereq gpa's fit in to the admission process.
I understand that many of us pre-pharm readers out there come from many backgrounds. and from the past two days of my lurking/combing through every thread of this forum, i gather that these are the two general backgrounds:
1.) Bio/Chem/BioChem/Pre-Pharm/Pre-Med undergrads. these folks have SOME of the pre-reqs taken care of while they were in undergrad.
2.) "non-traditionals" i.e. undergrads with Engineering, CS, business, underwater basketweaving. etc. these folks have absolutely NONE of the pre-reqs taken care of while in undergrad.
assumptions: applicant A has a ~2.8 GPA from Category 1, and applicant B has a ~2.6 from category 2.
it seems to me that applicant B will have an advantage in the pre-req/science GPA's, sicne they will essentially be starting "fresh" when they take city college courses to fulfull prereqs. (is this correct?)
and applicant A, will have to endure the crap of re-taking courses to "cover-up" blemishes in their transcripts. since, most of the grades that B recieved where classes that are NOT in the pre-req list, adcomms might overlook those low grades since they have no relation to the material covered in the pharm curriculum. although low grades do give some indication of an applicant's overall ability to handle a rigorous courseload.
am i correct? partially correct? totally wrong?! any clarification/input would be greatly appreciated!
now, to the boring stuff (feel free to skip, but worth a read for those who might be coming from similar situations...)
-UC Irvine BS in CS (2.6 cum gpa). im obviously a "category 2"
-none of my classes in undergrad (except for calculus and english) can be applied towards my pre-reqs.
ive always hated programming. i only stuck it out til graduation because i made the dumb mistake of not "broadening" my options while i was still in school. ill spare you the reading and save my reasons for going to Pharm for my personal statement...
i will have to drop out of work, apply to CVS, volunteer at a hospital, take 4-5 classes a semester at a CC for two years. essentially, "starting over." except im not quite sure how my cum. GPA will affect this "starting over" process (if at all)
been working for the past 3 years in IT making a decent living.im not secure about dropping a decent salary for two years, putting a minor dent in my career temporarily, if my crappy gpa will hold me back by the time acceptance/reject letters come around.
my girlfriend is a USC PharmD c/o 2012 , her sister is a recent UCSF pharmd c/o 2008. so you can see where i got the influence to make this huge step. but, they're stellar applicants with gpa's in the sky, and tons of experience, so they can't relate too much to my situation.
ive talked to about 4-5 grads at the UCSF graduation, being that it was a positive event, most of the input i got from them is the expected "you should totally do it!!!" of course, it is easier said than done...
</end boring crap>
ill give a lil bit of my own background info later, but for now, lets get to the question thats been bugging me....
the topic of low-GPAs has been asked many times before, but please bear with me on this one..
so im having trouble understanding how cum. gpa/science gpa/prereq gpa's fit in to the admission process.
I understand that many of us pre-pharm readers out there come from many backgrounds. and from the past two days of my lurking/combing through every thread of this forum, i gather that these are the two general backgrounds:
1.) Bio/Chem/BioChem/Pre-Pharm/Pre-Med undergrads. these folks have SOME of the pre-reqs taken care of while they were in undergrad.
2.) "non-traditionals" i.e. undergrads with Engineering, CS, business, underwater basketweaving. etc. these folks have absolutely NONE of the pre-reqs taken care of while in undergrad.
assumptions: applicant A has a ~2.8 GPA from Category 1, and applicant B has a ~2.6 from category 2.
it seems to me that applicant B will have an advantage in the pre-req/science GPA's, sicne they will essentially be starting "fresh" when they take city college courses to fulfull prereqs. (is this correct?)
and applicant A, will have to endure the crap of re-taking courses to "cover-up" blemishes in their transcripts. since, most of the grades that B recieved where classes that are NOT in the pre-req list, adcomms might overlook those low grades since they have no relation to the material covered in the pharm curriculum. although low grades do give some indication of an applicant's overall ability to handle a rigorous courseload.
am i correct? partially correct? totally wrong?! any clarification/input would be greatly appreciated!
now, to the boring stuff (feel free to skip, but worth a read for those who might be coming from similar situations...)
-UC Irvine BS in CS (2.6 cum gpa). im obviously a "category 2"
-none of my classes in undergrad (except for calculus and english) can be applied towards my pre-reqs.
ive always hated programming. i only stuck it out til graduation because i made the dumb mistake of not "broadening" my options while i was still in school. ill spare you the reading and save my reasons for going to Pharm for my personal statement...
i will have to drop out of work, apply to CVS, volunteer at a hospital, take 4-5 classes a semester at a CC for two years. essentially, "starting over." except im not quite sure how my cum. GPA will affect this "starting over" process (if at all)
been working for the past 3 years in IT making a decent living.im not secure about dropping a decent salary for two years, putting a minor dent in my career temporarily, if my crappy gpa will hold me back by the time acceptance/reject letters come around.
my girlfriend is a USC PharmD c/o 2012 , her sister is a recent UCSF pharmd c/o 2008. so you can see where i got the influence to make this huge step. but, they're stellar applicants with gpa's in the sky, and tons of experience, so they can't relate too much to my situation.
ive talked to about 4-5 grads at the UCSF graduation, being that it was a positive event, most of the input i got from them is the expected "you should totally do it!!!" of course, it is easier said than done...
</end boring crap>
I think that's enough for my IT career. I still can make a decent living, but it's not worth it when you have to watch the clock if you're on a short term contract, or constantly worry if you'll get laid off when you're on a permanent job, and if you're senior enough at 1 position, your everyday job would be to prove to everyone else that you're super stellar and some day you can manage all those young geeks who sleep in their office for a living (I slept in my office while pregnant with my second child)...that is a lot of pressure. This time I'm venturing off into pharm, hoping I can make it, provided that I was once good in Calculus and OK in Chem. The one concern I have is my age. I'm 33 now w/ 2 kids. 10 plus years ago I barely studied in college but I got out w/ a so so GPA, now I'm a lot more focused. At this age, I know once I make a career switch, there's no way back, but a pharm career is a lot more worthwhile I think, you can work well into your 70's, while you can only code until you're 50 then have to resort to management or a non technical role. Well ...enough blah blah, I feel I'm not alone seeing other "non traditional" CS majors here.
