Pre-Requisite Nightmares

[PharmyC]

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Am I the only one who finds the complete lack of standardization in pharmacy pre-reqs incredibly irritating?

It wouldn't be a problem, except my undergraduate school does not have certain pre-reqs in the specific way schools want them. For instance, none of our anatomy courses come with a lab. This wasn't an issue for some of the schools I e-mailed, they simply would allow me to take another lecture to replace the lab requirement.

However, the one school I really want to get into, since it's the only public school in my state of residence (Missouri), requires that I get the lab experience. But it does not stop there. They also want a "medical terminology" course and a "constitution" course. Two arbitrary requirements they desire that no other school I'm applying to requires. I'm currently struggling with how I am going to achieve these since my school does not offer two, and the third will not fit in with my graduation schedule.

It's just frustrating that each school has their own unique pre-requisites that result in a mess the student has to organize.

That being said, part of the blame is on me. I should have taken the anatomy course and medical terminology this summer at the local community college instead of my writing pre-reqs and speech. Those I could've taken at my university. In addition, the school was very prompt and kind in their responses to my questions about pre-reqs.

Have you all had issues with pre-reqs? Is it something you feel like should be standardized in some way?

 

[cephalexinRX]

Yes. It's really annoying.

I'm keeping elctronic and hard copies of ALL correspondence with pharmacy schools. It's a good I idea just in case in the future you can say "well ____ told me this class was okay" etc

Am I the only one who finds the complete lack of standardization in pharmacy pre-reqs incredibly irritating?

It wouldn't be a problem, except my undergraduate school does not have certain pre-reqs in the specific way schools want them. For instance, none of our anatomy courses come with a lab. This wasn't an issue for some of the schools I e-mailed, they simply would allow me to take another lecture to replace the lab requirement.

However, the one school I really want to get into, since it's the only public school in my state of residence (Missouri), requires that I get the lab experience. But it does not stop there. They also want a "medical terminology" course and a "constitution" course. Two arbitrary requirements they desire that no other school I'm applying to requires. I'm currently struggling with how I am going to achieve these since my school does not offer two, and the third will not fit in with my graduation schedule.

It's just frustrating that each school has their own unique pre-requisites that result in a mess the student has to organize.

That being said, part of the blame is on me. I should have taken the anatomy course and medical terminology this summer at the local community college instead of my writing pre-reqs and speech. Those I could've taken at my university. In addition, the school was very prompt and kind in their responses to my questions about pre-reqs.

Have you all had issues with pre-reqs? Is it something you feel like should be standardized in some way?

 

[cephalexinRX]

I'm a career changer. I have a M.S. in a biological science from the same school I want to go to pharmacy school. They still want me to retake freshmen chemistry and biology.

I wrote a nice letter to the Dean for an exception. Waiting the the response.

Am I the only one who finds the complete lack of standardization in pharmacy pre-reqs incredibly irritating?

It wouldn't be a problem, except my undergraduate school does not have certain pre-reqs in the specific way schools want them. For instance, none of our anatomy courses come with a lab. This wasn't an issue for some of the schools I e-mailed, they simply would allow me to take another lecture to replace the lab requirement.

However, the one school I really want to get into, since it's the only public school in my state of residence (Missouri), requires that I get the lab experience. But it does not stop there. They also want a "medical terminology" course and a "constitution" course. Two arbitrary requirements they desire that no other school I'm applying to requires. I'm currently struggling with how I am going to achieve these since my school does not offer two, and the third will not fit in with my graduation schedule.

It's just frustrating that each school has their own unique pre-requisites that result in a mess the student has to organize.

That being said, part of the blame is on me. I should have taken the anatomy course and medical terminology this summer at the local community college instead of my writing pre-reqs and speech. Those I could've taken at my university. In addition, the school was very prompt and kind in their responses to my questions about pre-reqs.

Have you all had issues with pre-reqs? Is it something you feel like should be standardized in some way?

 

[PharmyC]

I do the same thing with my e-mails. I have them all placed nicely in a folder marked "Pharmacy School" just in-case they change their mind.

Sorry if I came off as a bit "rantish" earlier, I was a little frustrated with the complications that arose from said situation.

 

[Crash29]

I agree about the whole prerequisite thing. It's frustrating but it's also just a fact of life, and I don't see it changing any time soon. You basically just have to learn to work around it. Your particular situations sounds even more frustrating. I mean, no labs for anatomy!? And a constitutions course!!? I'm not sure what I would do in your case.

Your post did, however, give me a great idea. Someone needs to design a simple software program or a program integrated into a website where you can list all the prereq's you have taken, or all of the ones that you are planning on taking, and then have the program filter through a database of pharmacy schools that meet those same requirements. And this database would also have other basic information about these schools such as tuition, ect. This is basically what I had to do when choosing pharmacy schools to apply to. Except I obviously had to do it the hard way, manually. I basically picked my #1 school, then took all of the required prereq's. After that, I went through and found all of the other schools that had those same prereq's and applied to those as backups. Anyway, good luck!

 

[delano2000]

I have never heard of an A&P course without labs.😱 The Med terminology course (which might work out to your advantage) and the Constitution course (I'm assuming this is to fulfill your Social Sciences/General ed reqs) sounds like a PITA. Maybe they want to make sure that you're a well-rounded applicant.

I'm so glad the application process is behind me now.😎

 

[babybull]

Yep. Incredibly annoying. I've spent hours spread throughout certain days just trying to figure out my schedules for the FA11, SP12, and SU12 semesters so that I can complete all the prerequisites before pharmacy schools begin. I've had to search for each school's articulation agreement, email schools to see if some of my courses could satisfy certain prerequisites (that are not included in the articulation agreement), and plan ahead some course "retakes" because I took, e.g., general psychology - biological foundations instead of just general psychology -_-.

It really is important for those students in their first or second years of college and plan on applying to pharmacy schools to check the prerequisite list for each school they're interested in. If there is one big mistake in college that I made, it's failing to have done this.

 

[pinksparkly]

I just posted this on another thread - all of the different pre-reqs were so confusing that I had to make a spreadsheet to keep it all organized. I applied to ~8 schools, so it was a little ridiculous.

The sooner in your college career that you plan this out, the better. Some of the weird requirements (constitution) may very well count for something in your university's core curriculum (assuming you want a degree) so you can kill two birds with one stone.

 

[xtsukiyox]

Your post did, however, give me a great idea. Someone needs to design a simple software program or a program integrated into a website where you can list all the prereq's you have taken, or all of the ones that you are planning on taking, and then have the program filter through a database of pharmacy schools that meet those same requirements.

For U of A (and probably other public schools), try www.transfer.org/uselect - it will pull in your classes if you went to a participating school and match it up against the major you want (at a participating school) and tell you what you have & what has to still be completed. Of course, not official, but it does have PrePharm requisites on the U of A Pharmacy program major entry.

 

[Rouelle]

I agree about the whole prerequisite thing. It's frustrating but it's also just a fact of life, and I don't see it changing any time soon. You basically just have to learn to work around it. Your particular situations sounds even more frustrating. I mean, no labs for anatomy!? And a constitutions course!!? I'm not sure what I would do in your case.

Your post did, however, give me a great idea. Someone needs to design a simple software program or a program integrated into a website where you can list all the prereq's you have taken, or all of the ones that you are planning on taking, and then have the program filter through a database of pharmacy schools that meet those same requirements. And this database would also have other basic information about these schools such as tuition, ect. This is basically what I had to do when choosing pharmacy schools to apply to. Except I obviously had to do it the hard way, manually. I basically picked my #1 school, then took all of the required prereq's. After that, I went through and found all of the other schools that had those same prereq's and applied to those as backups. Anyway, good luck!

I was reading about something like this existing just a couple weeks ago. I don't remember if it was a database for pharmacy school or maybe med school. But it was structured so that you could filter by those that required BS degrees, by pre-req coursework, by state, by public/private, etc. I haven't actually seen it, but it sounds really useful.