Apples and Oranges. USN is three years and costs about 40k a year. U of U is a ranked school with more opportunities to do research and go on to do residencies. If you are in a hurry to get out and start your drug dealing then go USN if you want to work in a hospital setting or specialize go with U of U. I had a friend that did USN and another who did U of U and they both are making the same money afterwards and both love their jobs. (One works for Target, one works for Primary Children's Hospital).
I disagree with some of this post. Rankings are based on reputation and research dollars and not the quality of education you'll receive. Here are my thoughts: My class of pharmacy (USN class of 2010) actually is likely going to be sending about 25% of its graduates on to residency. This is above the national average for pharmacy schools, I believe. It may not be equal to what the UofU will send to residency however it is hardly a retail diploma mill.
It is true that the UofU may prepare you better for research or industry however 80-90% of pharmacists don't end up there anyway but rather end up in retail or a health system (i.e., staffing and/or clinical jobs at a hospital or clinic). Note: I actually have more APPE time than UofU students and more IPPE time. So my experential component has been more in depth. True, I had more time experentially in retail but I also had more in "clinical" settings.
Several of my APPE preceptors (many of whom graduated from the UofU) take both UofU and USN students and they all say that on average they are equally trained. The advantages the UofU has are 1) reputation - which matters to some people but isn't a very objective measure of quality, 2) research/industry avenues, 3) less time in class (i.e., not an accelerated program like USN) each day and more summer breaks = more time to work as a paid intern, 4) 4 years to have the information distill in your brain versus 3 years and 5) Utah resident tuition price. The advantages of USN are, 1) block curriculum, 2) team instead of competitive approach to studying and grades, 3) 3 year program = one year earlier to finish equals one year earlier to begin your career.
It has been my experience that those who bash USN are UofU grads with a bias or are pharmacists who still wish for the days of pharmacy when they could command a job anywhere and anytime (i.e., the days of the Utah pharmacist shortage). Or they have had one or two experiences with a "poor" USN student. This is very hypocritical because if a bad student comes from the UofU they blame it on the student but if a bad student comes from the USN they blame it on the school.
Lastly, my class has several people in it that were accepted to both the UofU and USN and who chose to attend USN. I also know of several people in the UofU Class of 2010 and 2011 who were accepted to the UofU but weren't accepted to USN. The past 3-4 years USN's entering class GPA has been higher than that for the UofU entering class. I am not saying this to boast but rather to show you the quality of the student body at USN is very comparable, if not at times, superior to that of the UofU student body.
