I was hoping for an actual reason/ evidence why the PCAT matters, not this random drivel.
The California schools realized a long time ago it's a terrible predictor of academic success.
OK... so I am sitting down now to answer you. Not that I care whether you actually read my reply. I also care less about your condescending tone or what California is thinking or doing. I only care that other people who are reading those posts that might be thinking you are right. California is not always right on everything. (If California is, they are not a bankrupt state as it is now). Neither is everyone else on this planet. Nobody can always be right about everything.
but here let me repost my reply and your immediate response here for the record,
Do any of you geniuses have data to correlate high PCAT scores with actual employment outcomes and academic success?
what is/are your point(s) of asking that question ?? Ask Steve Jobs if he scored high on any test or even graduated from a school 🙂 lol
In life, most highly educated people with advanced degrees are slaves to the ones that have lesser degrees or even do not have any at all. Academic performance and/or achievement never correlate with life success at all, if you care to look throughout history.
But testing/grading/scoring is as old as civilization because it is one of the very few objective ways to equalize and differentiate the best from the rest, whether for admission purposes or the measurement of academic/professional competency. Schools around the world all use some sorts of testing for admission. I understand that you might imply here that PCAT is useless in pharmacy admission ?? If so, this is exactly the thing people who are supporting or benefiting from the lower standards of pharmacy admission like to hear. IMHO PCAT is the only constant in the admission process because it is standardized.
Actual employment data/outcomes are not black and white. People with great connections/hookups/favors/great BS skills get accepted for the jobs over the ones who are actually qualified all the time. The point is there are many factors playing in the case of employment data, not just PCAT or high academic performance/achievement.
As for PCAT scores and in-pharmacy school academic performance, I do not look to find the data to support the correlation but I believe they do correlate. Remember that even with available studies, for or against, we still need to examine/cross-examine/peer review to confirm the validity of those studies, not just taking their results blindly. Also studies or not, we have SAT/ACT for college admission, MCAT for med school admission, DAT for dental, LSAT for laws, etc. Ask yourself if those exams would correlate with academic performance in those respective schools. Or with the actual employment outcomes of those professionals in real life.
Yet we have to have some sort of objective ways for admission, i.e. standardized testing, because it is fair and transparent for every applicants in the admission process. In fact, it is the only thing that is fair and transparent in the entire admission process. If you want to go to a school, you have to take tests. If you are in school, you have to take tests. If you want to graduate, you have to take tests. If you want to have a license to practice your profession, you have to take tests. Is there any kind of guarantee in life that you would get a job after you have passed all those tests ?? is there any guarantee that a high PCAT score person would not be lacking of and become complacent in pharmacy school ?? Nooooooo......
Human is very complicated. Asking whether or not PCAT would correlate with actual employement outcomes and academic success is funny imho 🙂
TL;DR...can you truncate that, i'm too busy for this ****.
I really like HobbitJane's answer, which he/she put very well here,
The PCAT is a standardized test that reflects an applicant's ability to excel in certain areas. Each university has different levels of rigor, so grades might vary among applicants; however, the PCAT is a more fair reflection of everyone's competence. In order to thin the ranks and weed out people more barriers have to exist. It may seem inconvenient or unfortunate, but if an applicant wants to attend that school, then he or she should be prepared to jump through hoops.
here are my thoughts:
-you look at standardized tests in general and the PCAT in particular the wrong way, i.e. you want it to be be the predictor of academic success and/or employment outcome. The PCAT is not designed to be used to predict academic success and/or employment outcome. The PCAT is designed to measure the academic competency of the candidates for the prerequisite for pharmacy admission and should be used only for such purposes.
-For school admission, when there are less available seats than the number of applicants, schools throughout history generally uses standard testing to weed out candidates. Standardized testing means that everyone would have to take the same tests in the same conditions, and be graded to the same scales/grading standards. Why standardized testing ?? The reason is that it is one of the fairest and most transparent and objective way that is possible to weed out people, if not the fairest and most transparent and objective way to achieve that goal.
Not to say that all people who got weed out cannot be successful in pharmacy schools if they all got admitted. But as the balance tilted more toward the number of applicants (vs less seats), there would be more tests of more difficult levels and higher admission standards and requirements to weed out the applicants. If less applicants, but more seats, then less tests and/or easier tests (or even no test at all) and lower admission standards and requirements would happen as the result to let in more or attract more applicants as schools trying to fill those seats.
Can other standardized tests for admission to medical schools like the MCAT for med schools, DAT for dental, SAT?ACT for college, etc be used to predict future academic success and/or employement outcome ?? The answer is NO. They are not designed for such purposes and again should not be used for those purposes. In fact there is no test that I have known of could reliably predict future academic success and/or employment outcome. Those standard tests are designed to measure the competency of the students/applicants in those required area of knowledge for those respective schools and also as the fairest, most transparent and objective way that is possible to weed out candidates for limited numbers of seats.
As for Cali pharm schools not requiring the PCAT, to be honest, I think that they actually do NOT want everyone to have the fairest, most transparent and objective way that is possible to obtain admission to their pharm schools as they probably want to admit Californians only. Nobody, except those people on those admission committees of those Cali pharm schools, could now actually tell why they would pick this candidate or that candidate over other candidates for admission. How the effing could anyone compare the difference in the quality of GPAs or majors or courses from so many different schools (with so many different academic standards) or the quality of EC of one candidate to that of the next candidate or the quality of different LORs ??
The answer is clear that they could "discreetly" pick anyone as they wish and would not admit anyone that they do not like to admit for the real reasons that only they would know.
As I have already stated above, I hope CA would also scrape the MCAT for med school admission, DAT for dental schools and heck even the NAPLEX and CPJE for their pharmacist license. Why not ?? They have already done away the PCAT for their pharmacy schools, so let's be consistent and go all the way
🙂 LOL
