Quitting College

[taloddar2002]

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Hey everyone i'm really glad i found this forum! It's nice to meet a lot of people who are interested in the same things as you are. I have a quick question, however. My first year of college i went to a ridiculously expensive private school and due to financial reasons i had to withdrawal from the school after first semester had ended (i did well in chemistry and biology there). I then went to a local community college and also withdrew after the first semester (i had a 4.0).

I finally found a college i'm happy with and i'm ready to get things started again. My question is this. How bad will it look to pharmacy schools seeing that i quit college twice? Assuming i do really well for 4 years at the University i'm attending currently and graduate with a gpa around 3.5 can i still be accepted to pharmacy school? Thanks a lot, Aaron.

 

[emogrrrrl]

Hey everyone i'm really glad i found this forum! It's nice to meet a lot of people who are interested in the same things as you are. I have a quick question, however. My first year of college i went to a ridiculously expensive private school and due to financial reasons i had to withdrawal from the school after first semester had ended (i did well in chemistry and biology there). I then went to a local community college and also withdrew after the first semester (i had a 4.0).

I finally found a college i'm happy with and i'm ready to get things started again. My question is this. How bad will it look to pharmacy schools seeing that i quit college twice? Assuming i do really well for 4 years at the University i'm attending currently and graduate with a gpa around 3.5 can i still be accepted to pharmacy school? Thanks a lot, Aaron.

I don't see any problem as long as you didn't fail out of college, I think that would be tough to recover from...not impossible. They might question why you had withdrawn, but you can explain that it was due to financial reasons etc. I wouldn't even go as far as putting it in your personal statement...again, if your grades are very poor then you may have some explaining to do. Otherwise, no worries.

 

[28657]

I agree with emogrrrl, I withdrew from a semester of my undergrad for personal reasons. I think I wrote that on the section of the application where it states "Do you have any areas of your application in which you need to explain?" Or something like that.
All of my interviews were closed file so no questions came up about it.

Stuff happens and sometimes things are larger than someone can handle.

 

[kim.]

If you have 4 years of good grades between you and those "quitting college" situations then you shouldnt have any problems. They may ask you about it, but you can just explain, I wouldnt think it would be a big deal.

just to clarify though, you had 2 semesters at two different colleges, were your grades good at both places? How long did you sit out between then and now?

 

[taloddar2002]

Thanks for the replies 🙂. I'm starting to feel a lot better about the situation.

My grades were good at both previous colleges, except in my English 1 class (i ended up with a C+). It has only been two years since i've graduated highschool and i withdrew from the cummunity college last semester.

Thanks again for the help. Do you think i should retake english 1 at my new university because of that C+? My gpa will not transfer to my new school, so i kind of get to start with a clean slate.

 

[kim.]

I wouldnt worry too much over that C+, especially since its a non-science class.

Don't worry too much about the changing colleges, I think the committee will probably be glad that you sat out a semester or whatever rather than staying where you were and getting bad grades, these kinda things happen.

Just try to start fresh now and do the best you can! Good luck.

 

[bananaface]

taloddar2002-

Everyone has life experiences before applying to pharmacy school. There is no one "right path" to take. What matters is that you can explain how your experiences support your decision to pursue pharmacy as a career. It is ok to change schools or even careers before going into pharmacy.

Your situation is alot like mine was when I applied to school last year. I transferred around as an undergrad and was asked about it in the interview process. I was able to explain to my interviewers how I had changed schools to graduate 4 quarters earlier, then ended up mot liking the new school and transferring back. Since I had completed My BS, I had shown that I could follow through at one school.

A classmate of mine had another career and decided to come back and pursue pharmacy at the age of 45. The important thing is not what decisions you made in the past, but what decision you are making now and why.

Good luck in the admissions process.

Anna

 

[imperial frog]

My story is that I attended a CC for a few years after I was kicked out of high-school. My transcript shows 2 full pages worth of withdrawals from the same CC...I would register, show up for awhile, then drop out. 3 classes I didn't even bother to drop out and received F's for them. I think in about 30 classes, I only completed about 5 and my GPA was way under 2.0. When I wisened up (and started paying for the classes myself which is a great motivator) I wound up with graduating with honors and went on to a Bachelors and MBA.

In my personal statement I explained that basically I wasn't motivated at first which was obvious, but my later effort showed my true academic abilities. This was the only thing that I was worried about...because 2 pages of withdrawals does look pretty bad...but the hard work later really paid off.

Don't worry too much, it's much better to be a poor-to-good student than a good-to-poor.

 

[taloddar2002]

Thanks for all the help everyone. I definitely feel a lot better after hearing people in similar situations. Now it's time for me to start taking school more seriously and work my butt off to maintain a good GPA ;p

 

[wickliffe2]

I also took off a semester for family/personal reasons...it was a great decision. I actually took two classes online and got some credits. When I was interviewed at my current school, they asked about it of course, but I explained that it was best for me and my family and they actually thought it was a very mature and wise decision. I hope everything worka out for you. Not everyone picks the right school the first time, I didnt, but I'm so happy where I am now! Good luck!

Ashley