I don't mean to bash on you... but taking what you got out of the introduction during your interview and whatever heresay you've collected to define the school is equivalent to finding some litter on the beach and designating the area as a landfill. If your are "amazed at what has been offered" to you at your own school, I would question how thoroughly you researched your potential schools.
As I've told other interviewees before, there are no bad schools out there, just schools with their own atmosphere/style. If you wanted to go to a school with tradition, there are three schools in California that are well established (which includes yours of course). If you want a school that's always looking for ways to prepare itself for the future, UCSD would be a great place to start.
As it stands, our first graduating class all passed the boards, so our core curriculum can't possibly be lacking. So if you intend on focusing on our lack of tradition, then I can't defend against that. If you want to question the progressiveness of the administration, then I would first ask you how you plan to go about convincing your administration about improving/advancing your school's curriculum.
Yes, you're right about me being rash with words. I do not mean to offend anyone. What I do mean to point out is
1- Your is school not accredited. In fact, your school just lost (or stands to lose) its status as a "Candidate" for accreditation because of its low faculty to student ratio. With this information, I raise doubts about the quality of teaching pharmacy. In all, there is a thorough lack of pharmacy faculty as students are placed in classes with medical students.
2- I judge the school's administration is a measurement of organization not only in the school's admissions, but in its overall functionality. The admissions process that I have seen is very disorganized. When I was at UCSD, my interviewers were presented with another person's profile. Last year, a person received 2 letters: one acceptance and one rejection letter (that does not belong to them). I think it is unfair for someone who did not complete a supplemental application to be invited to interview when there so many people who have worked hard on their application are denied. I realized that these are all "observations" and not statistical data, yet I have not heard of any of these mishaps at any other school.
Passing the boards is expected of all pharmacy students, hardly a measure of success. I also know that UCSD students are very intelligent so I think it is more a measure of their ability rather than the school's preparedness. UCSF's reputation is hardly based on "tradition" as you call it. Rather based on the fact that their students are continually exposed to many facets of the career by the numerous faculty and residents who live it themselves everyday. I cannot emphasize it enough. After all, I am here to learn from the best and I believe UCSF offers the best training. Isn't that the whole point of going to pharmacy school?
I will try one such example as the pharmacy pathways offered by UCSF: Pharmacy Care, Health Policy, Pharmaceutical Science. The classes we take will depend on the pathway we choose. I am unfamiliar whether or not UCSD offers this, but I know some of the other schools I applied to did not have this option. Suppose after attending pharmacy school I decided that I don't like seeing patients and want to work for a drug company. Then I can easily talk to a faculty who will help me get a list of people affiliated with UCSF Pharmacy who work at pharmaceutical companies and they can help me. It's as simple as that. It is meaningful to have strong network, and someday UCSD will have that. Just not now.
I went to a small school as an undergrad. I was limited in my choices, and not much was offered to me then. I fully understand how a school can make a big difference.
To make all matters clear, if you are an ambitious individual, there is nothing you cannot do, whether you are at UCSF or UCSD or Touro. To me, the difference is UCSF exposes me to many different faces of pharmacy and lets me decide what I want to do with my career. It is one that I may have missed out on if I choose to go anywhere else.
Anyhow, I rambled on too much and hopefully what I said makes at least a little bit of sense.
And obviously personal opinion will have a lot to do with criticism, but they can be based on facts.
