Should I wait a year?

[sierrawest]

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Hello. I would like any suggestions on what I should do in this position. I am applying this year, and will probably submit the application sometime next month. However, I'm worried I don't have any work experience or volunteering which might hurt my chances since my GPA is around 3.1. I did volunteer in a hospital for about 40 hours in 07 but other than that have not been able to find anything. I've applied to several places for pharmacy technician since last summer and couldn't land a job. However, I just started shadowing a pharmacist at the hospital, and re-applied again to several places for pharmacy technician. One of the stores said they were looking for pharmacy technician, so I am hopeful for now.

With that said, should I wait another year before I apply to pharmacy school or would you recommend just trying this year? The other issue is I have only one real reference, as the other instructor I was hoping to do a reference for me can't because they are a graduate student. This will probably delay my application until I could ask one of my fall semester professors for a reference. Can you e-submit before having all the references sent in? Any advice would be great, thanks.

 

[confettiflyer]

Hello. I would like any suggestions on what I should do in this position. I am applying this year, and will probably submit the application sometime next month. However, I'm worried I don't have any work experience or volunteering which might hurt my chances since my GPA is around 3.1. I did volunteer in a hospital for about 40 hours in 07 but other than that have not been able to find anything. I've applied to several places for pharmacy technician since last summer and couldn't land a job. However, I just started shadowing a pharmacist at the hospital, and re-applied again to several places for pharmacy technician. One of the stores said they were looking for pharmacy technician, so I am hopeful for now.

With that said, should I wait another year before I apply to pharmacy school or would you recommend just trying this year? The other issue is I have only one real reference, as the other instructor I was hoping to do a reference for me can't because they are a graduate student. This will probably delay my application until I could ask one of my fall semester professors for a reference. Can you e-submit before having all the references sent in? Any advice would be great, thanks.

You can esubmit without all your LORs in place, those will be sent along when they are received.

Don't delay your application....pharmacy experience is a bit overrated and each year you delay = $100-120k in lost salary. Think of it that way.

 

[Monalyce]

Be sure to double check on the LOR from a grad student...a few schools I applied to allowed a TA to write a letter so long as the professor signed off on it. That was probably one of my best LORs as this TA knew me very well and taught three of upper level bio labs (the professor only gave lectures).

Just make sure you can explain what the volunteering you HAVE done taught you about healthcare. Be prepared to weave this into the shadowing you are doing now...for instance, when volunteering, you saw that healthcare providers need ___ skills, etc, and when shadowing a pharmacist, they exemplified these skills (give a specific example).

 

[charfdorn]

Hello. I would like any suggestions on what I should do in this position. I am applying this year, and will probably submit the application sometime next month. However, I'm worried I don't have any work experience or volunteering which might hurt my chances since my GPA is around 3.1. I did volunteer in a hospital for about 40 hours in 07 but other than that have not been able to find anything. I've applied to several places for pharmacy technician since last summer and couldn't land a job. However, I just started shadowing a pharmacist at the hospital, and re-applied again to several places for pharmacy technician. One of the stores said they were looking for pharmacy technician, so I am hopeful for now.

With that said, should I wait another year before I apply to pharmacy school or would you recommend just trying this year? The other issue is I have only one real reference, as the other instructor I was hoping to do a reference for me can't because they are a graduate student. This will probably delay my application until I could ask one of my fall semester professors for a reference. Can you e-submit before having all the references sent in? Any advice would be great, thanks.

You should never wait if you meet all of the minimum requirements. You should still do the tech job if you get it, and be ready to apply again next year, but there's no harm in applying now. You never know if you don't.

 

[Kaiter]

don't wait...you never know what could happen...theres nothing hurting you next year by applying this year

 

[sierrawest]

Thanks for the advice guys. I will apply and see what happens.

 

[koercive]

apply now, if you don't get in, you will have an edge as a re-applicant (knowing what to do for the app process , etc.)