Ucsf or uw

[exiangwsu]

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I was fortunate enough to receive Acceptances from both ucsf and university of Washington . I qualify in state tuition for both school. I have a really hard time to pick the better program. Any input will be greatly appreciated! My career goal is to become a non-traditional pharmacist- company consultants. I have previous biotech experiences. Which school shall I choose? Cost is a major factor for me too.

 

[ClearBlueSkies]

I can't speak for UW other than that it has a good rep.

I was a UCSF grad, so here's some relevant pros/cons:

Pros:
-cheap tuition (compared to private schools)
-supportive culture for students (I felt like it was bordering on hand holding, but this depends on what your personal study habits are like)
-excellent faculty
-some industry connections (specific to your background/desires)
-school reputation automatically biases employers to your advantage

Neutral:
-curriculum being radically changed (moving to 3 year program, other changes since the old dean stepped down); jury is out whether this is good/bad (personally I think some changes are good and others are bad)
-very "clinical pharmacy oriented"

Cons
-school struggles with obtaining new rotations (since ucsf won't pay, unlike other nearby pharmacy schools)
-impractical curriculum compared to other schools (ex. Our IV making class was a half day that was outside in a classroom - not even a real IV hood, etc.)
-boards prep material is less than other schools

 

[MatCauthon]

UW all the way! I don't know if you are resident of any of those states, so that could make a difference in tuition prices.

Rent in San Francisco is atrocious, probably over 2.5k/month for a 1 bedroom. Seattle is very expensive, but much cheaper than SF, especially if you go to the surrounding areas. You can probably get 1.6k in Seattle and 1.1k in some of the suburbs (commute might suck though).

I honestly don't know why anybody would even consider living in SF right now with the jacked up prices. So if you are not a California resident then definitely go to UW. It is a great school, plus there are probably more jobs in WA than there are in CA. Prestige factor of the two schools is probably similar.

 

[ClearBlueSkies]

Rent in San Francisco is atrocious, probably over 2.5k/month for a 1 bedroom.

Not actively discouraging OP from UW (agree that it has a great rep) but for purposes of good info, that number is way too high. I lived there ~3 years ago and paid 900 for an in-law, and my girlfriend paid 650 for 1 room in a shared apartment. Doing a quick internet search, I found 1000-1500 for a single person. For 2.5k you could get quite a lot more luxury.

Edit: spelling

 

[MatCauthon]

Not actively discouraging OP from UW (agree that it has a great rep) but for purposes of good info, that number is way too high. I lived there ~3 years ago and paid 900 for an in-law, and my girlfriend paid 650 for 1 room in a shared apartment. Doing a quick internet search, I found 1000-1500 for a single person. For 2.5k you could get quite a lot more luxury.

Edit: spelling

https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends

I am just going off the national average rent numbers. The rent seems pretty accurate for where I live. I don't doubt your experience, but 1000-1500 seems pretty cheap for a 1-bedroom in San Fransisco. Maybe I've been watching too many news stories about SF real estate, but I've never lived there so what can I say?

 

[ClearBlueSkies]

https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends

I am just going off the national average rent numbers. The rent seems pretty accurate for where I live. I don't doubt your experience, but 1000-1500 seems pretty cheap for a 1-bedroom in San Fransisco. Maybe I've been watching too many news stories about SF real estate, but I've never lived there so what can I say?

Oh for sure housing in the bay area is WAY out of hand and expensive -I'm sure you could easily find a 3k apartment. But it's definitely possible to find cheaper options, but they are definitely going to require roommates or be small.

The ucsf housing website links here for offcampus and you can find some 1k-1.5k options:https://www.places4students.com/Places/PropertyListings.aspx?SchoolID=K6f8kAThTGs=

 

[exiangwsu]

Not actively discouraging OP from UW (agree that it has a great rep) but for purposes of good info, that number is way too high. I lived there ~3 years ago and paid 900 for an in-law, and my girlfriend paid 650 for 1 room in a shared apartment. Doing a quick internet search, I found 1000-1500 for a single person. For 2.5k you could get quite a lot more luxury.

Edit: spelling

I did a bit search. Clearblue is correct. You can get relative cheap rent around SF. I was looking at some bargains on craiglist. The rent seems ok. For a room in sunset district (near ucsf), you get something around 900 even. Seattle is amost equally expensive . Two years ago, my housing was around 400. Now is well beyond 700. I think it will become the next sf.
I am leaning toward SF. It is seems like an amazing city. I was at UW for five years already. I am california resident too. I wont pay out of state. I am also thinking to work in industry after pharmacy school. UCSF's no traditional path more suits my need.
Thank you guys for the inputs.

 

[exiangwsu]

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[CMUchicka]

I did a bit search. Clearblue is correct. You can get cheap bargain around SF. For a room in sunset district (near ucsf), you get something around 900 even. Seattle is amost equally expensive . Two years ago, my housing was around 400. Now is well beyond 700. I think it will become the next sf.
I am leaning toward SF. It is seems like an amazing city. I was at UW for five years already. I am california resident too. I wont pay out of state. I am also thinking to work in industry after pharmacy school. UCSF's no traditional path more tailor for my need.
Thank you guys for the inputs.

Both schools are great and my dream schools, congratulation on getting in! I always wanted to go to UCSF but after spending 6 months living in south bay, i realized Cali isn't worth for college unless someone has $$ to pay for it or you are state resident. I am sure UCSF will provide great opportunity to you, good luck!

 

[exiangwsu]

Both schools are great and my dream schools, congratulation on getting in! I always wanted to go to UCSF but after spending 6 months living in south bay, i realized Cali isn't worth for college unless someone has $$ to pay for it or you are state resident. I am sure UCSF will provide great opportunity to you, good luck!

Thank you so much. Cali school came with a big price tag. I will mostly pay my school through loans. Financial factor is a big factor for me. I am too scared. I will definitely cripple by the jobs saturation rising school tuition, and the expensive rent in California.
Do you mind i ask where u heading to for pharmacy program? are you going out of california state.

 

[CMUchicka]

Thank you so much. Cali school came with a big price tag. I will mostly pay my school through loans. Financial factor is a big factor for me. I am too scared. I will definitely cripple by the jobs saturation rising school tuition, and the expensive rent in California.
Do you mind i ask where u heading to for pharmacy program? are you going out of california state.

MWU, i lived in cali for 6 months only then moved to out. Wanted to make life there but didn't work out..

 

[exiangwsu]

MWU, i lived in cali for 6 months only then moved to out. Wanted to make life there but didn't work out..

Midwestern university is a great pharmacy program. Congrat ! !!!!!I think the differences between pharmacy schools are small. Doesnt matter where u go, you will become a pharmacist. However, i really want to explore the nontraditional path in the industry. UCSF is better in term its location. Seattle is great IT hub, not so much a bio hub. Companies struggle to due lack of public support etc. funding. Also they have difficulty to recruit talents. Generally, it is tough soil for biotech to expand. Amgen just close its head quarter here two years ago. Many of the biotech companies are not doing so well.

 

[Caffeine QAM]

Doesnt matter where u go, you will become a pharmacist.

Question is, what kind of pharmacist will you become? I'd much more likely hire a UCSF or UW trained pharmacist over someone from a newer, less reputable school. I have experience with 4th year pharmacy students who don't know things I would expect a 2nd-year to know. Very disappointing...schools are letting us down and I'm much more likely to trust schools with a history of producing good pharmacists. Don't take it from me, as I'm sure over time you will start to notice this as well, but I do see the difference in quality of education across schools - so perhaps this wasn't the case decades ago, but I believe it does matter where you go now, especially with the highly competitive market. The situation is not good for any new graduate, but if you come from either UW or UCSF's program, you'll be in a lot better shape than many others from the likes of West Cost University, Chapman University, or Northstate...for example.

 

[CMUchicka]

Question is, what kind of pharmacist will you become? I'd much more likely hire a UCSF or UW trained pharmacist over someone from a newer, less reputable school. I have experience with 4th year pharmacy students who don't know things I would expect a 2nd-year to know. Very disappointing...schools are letting us down and I'm much more likely to trust schools with a history of producing good pharmacists. Don't take it from me, as I'm sure over time you will start to notice this as well, but I do see the difference in quality of education across schools - so perhaps this wasn't the case decades ago, but I believe it does matter where you go now, especially with the highly competitive market. The situation is not good for any new graduate, but if you come from either UW or UCSF's program, you'll be in a lot better shape than many others from the likes of West Cost University, Chapman University, or Northstate...for example.

So you think Midwestern is not good of pharmacy school??Of course, its not same as UCSF or UW but i heard its wellknown. Would you hire someone from MWU?

 

[CMUchicka]

Midwestern university is a great pharmacy program. Congrat ! !!!!!I think the differences between pharmacy schools are small. Doesnt matter where u go, you will become a pharmacist. However, i really want to explore the nontraditional path in the industry. UCSF is better in term its location. Seattle is great IT hub, not so much a bio hub. Companies struggle to due lack of public support etc. funding. Also they have difficulty to recruit talents. Generally, it is tough soil for biotech to expand. Amgen just close its head quarter here two years ago. Many of the biotech companies are not doing so well.

Yeah, i see that all time at work .We have U of A undergraduates and MWU graduates. To me they just work same way, now there are always going to be exceptions. I always heard U of A prepares students for clinical roles, i know its quite well knows school. It was one of my favorite too. But recently i have noticed most of their graduates are working in retail, wonder why didnt they land jobs in hospital.. And about non traditional path , i have never thought about it. What can you do with pharm.D???

 

[exiangwsu]

Yeah, i see that all time at work .We have U of A undergraduates and MWU graduates. To me they just work same way, now there are always going to be exceptions. I always heard U of A prepares students for clinical roles, i know its quite well knows school. It was one of my favorite too. But recently i have noticed most of their graduates are working in retail, wonder why didnt they land jobs in hospital.. And about non traditional path , i have never thought about it. What can you do with pharm.D???

Consulting or running clinical trial. I worked as regulatory affair in the industry. It's limited since I have no clinical power. There is no direct interaction with patients in the trials. All I do is compiling files without understanding lots of pharmacodynamic, pharmcokineic.

 

[exiangwsu]

Yeah, i see that all time at work .We have U of A undergraduates and MWU graduates. To me they just work same way, now there are always going to be exceptions. I always heard U of A prepares students for clinical roles, i know its quite well knows school. It was one of my favorite too. But recently i have noticed most of their graduates are working in retail, wonder why didnt they land jobs in hospital.. And about non traditional path , i have never thought about it. What can you do with pharm.D???

Most advance consulting position such as medical liaison required a doctorate degree, either MD, PHARMD or PHD. So i need to a clinical education as well as more industry experiences

 

[Caffeine QAM]

So you think Midwestern is not good of pharmacy school??Of course, its not same as UCSF or UW but i heard its wellknown. Would you hire someone from MWU?

I don't know much about MWU, so I didn't comment on it. I'm not at all saying that MWU isn't a good school. California is kind of a bubble so I don't know many out-of-state schools very well by reputation and I have no experience with students from there. I believe I have heard good things about them, but I really have had no interaction with anyone from there. I'm only commenting on UW and UCSF because I have had much more experience with people from these programs. Generally, when I say newer programs that I generally look upon disfavorably, I'm referring to those opened in the last couple of years (e.g. Cal Northstate, West Coast University, Chapman, Keck Graduate Institute) etc...you might have heard of some of them if you're familiar with the pharmacy school situation in California.

To answer your question though, I generally don't see myself disqualifying anyone solely based on where they went to school unless I just had no time to go through applications...then I might toss out some based on school. I'm happy to consider candidates from a program I know nothing about, but wary of the ones from programs that I feel are questionable. I'd wonder why anyone would attend a new program with no reputation over those with a long history of excellence (many of which are state schools with low tuition); my guess would be that they were the least competitive students, so they were accepted at the least competitive schools.

 

[CMUchicka]

I don't know much about MWU, so I didn't comment on it. I'm not at all saying that MWU isn't a good school. California is kind of a bubble so I don't know many out-of-state schools very well by reputation and I have no experience with students from there. I believe I have heard good things about them, but I really have had no interaction with anyone from there. I'm only commenting on UW and UCSF because I have had much more experience with people from these programs. Generally, when I say newer programs that I generally look upon disfavorably, I'm referring to those opened in the last couple of years (e.g. Cal Northstate, West Coast University, Chapman, Keck Graduate Institute) etc...you might have heard of some of them if you're familiar with the pharmacy school situation in California.

To answer your question though, I generally don't see myself disqualifying anyone solely based on where they went to school unless I just had no time to go through applications...then I might toss out some based on school. I'm happy to consider candidates from a program I know nothing about, but wary of the ones from programs that I feel are questionable. I'd wonder why anyone would attend a new program with no reputation over those with a long history of excellence (many of which are state schools with low tuition); my guess would be that they were the least competitive students, so they were accepted at the least competitive schools.

Yep, totally agree with you. When i was in undergraduate, i always planned to go to top 10 pharmacy program. My home state school is ranked #10 in country. Unfortunately, i wasn't able to apply because during app cycle i was having second thoughts about applying to pharmacy. This resulted in missing deadline and ended up applying to other school which is private school. At that point I didn't wanted to wait another year or move out of state for cheaper school, so took whatever was offered. The reason i asked you this because i do want to work in hospital in future , wanted to see how employers weigh schools during application proocess. Thanks for your input. I know this might be off topic but what do you think if person with pharm.D goes to PA school, do you think having pharm. D and PA will increase opportunities?

 

[Caffeine QAM]

Yep, totally agree with you. When i was in undergraduate, i always planned to go to top 10 pharmacy program. My home state school is ranked #10 in country. Unfortunately, i wasn't able to apply because during app cycle i was having second thoughts about applying to pharmacy. This resulted in missing deadline and ended up applying to other school which is private school. At that point I didn't wanted to wait another year or move out of state for cheaper school, so took whatever was offered. The reason i asked you this because i do want to work in hospital in future , wanted to see how employers weigh schools during application proocess. Thanks for your input. I know this might be off topic but what do you think if person with pharm.D goes to PA school, do you think having pharm. D and PA will increase opportunities?

Pharmacy training would definitely help you be a better PA. As a pharmacist, you will understand medications very well, so you will often see poor medication management by prescribers and it will occur to you that if you had prescriptive authority, you could do much better. If you want prescriptive authority, it would be better to go straight for the PA. If you want to be the medication expert without prescriptive authority, stick to pharmacy.

Becoming both a pharmacist and PA would be very time and resource intensive, so I wouldn't recommend it, unless money and time are of no concern to you, though NP and PA programs generally cost much less than a PharmD ($20k-40k total for the entire program is my impression)...so technically it's feasible. In fact, one might argue that it's be considerably less than the opportunity cost of doing a pharmacy residency. Plus, you'd likely breeze through a NP/PA program with pharmacist training.

If you want to be a PA though, honestly, save the $100-$200k in pharmacy school tuition and just go straight for the NP/PA. You'd also get out of school quicker, owe less in loans (or none at all), and start earning sooner. Being both a PharmD and PA would likely get your CV/resume noticed quick, but you'll have to decide whether or not that justifies the cost of going for both.