UT or UH?

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skazyjae

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For undergrad, prepharmacy, is UT austin better or University of Houston better?

cuz I heard UT prepharm is so hard and its impossible to maintain enuff gpa for UT grad school (college of pharmacy)
 
UT Austin by far. Undergrad at UT Austin is really hard- I'm a Chemical Engineering Major at UT Austin with a 3.3 and , let me tell you, the classes are ridiculously challenging. But its UT, A college mostly recognized in TX and the flagship school of TX (next to Rice that is..)
 
For undergrad, prepharmacy, is UT austin better or University of Houston better?

cuz I heard UT prepharm is so hard and its impossible to maintain enuff gpa for UT grad school (college of pharmacy)
It doesn't really matter. What matters is which pharmacy school you want to go to the most (which of course, I'll assume it's UT). UTCOP takes in more of their own than from other universities, compared to other pharmacy schools. UHCOP takes a mix, more evenly than UT.

As long as you get and maintain a high GPA, that's what matters. But UT if you want a better chance at getting into UTCOP.
 
Considering I did my undergrad at UH, and being a former pre-pharm student, I'd say get as far away as you can from UH. Hell, HCC or WCJC will do you some good.
 
Why is that?
As a former pre-pharm student, (and I stress former), I was disappointed by the lack of support at UH COP. I switched to NSM, becoming a Biochem major. Reason was, my advisor told me in my freshman year that I was a model student (my GPA was ~3.4). Next year, my GPA was a ~3.2, and she did a 180 on me, saying I should look for a better career, even though I had a 95% composite PCAT.

I also heard that some advisors and the director of admissions said to pretty much bomb your first year classes, then shine your second year, so it shows improvement. It's crappy advice, IMHO.

That's why.
 
As a former pre-pharm student, (and I stress former), I was disappointed by the lack of support at UH COP. I switched to NSM, becoming a Biochem major. Reason was, my advisor told me in my freshman year that I was a model student (my GPA was ~3.4). Next year, my GPA was a ~3.2, and she did a 180 on me, saying I should look for a better career, even though I had a 95% composite PCAT.

I also heard that some advisors and the director of admissions said to pretty much bomb your first year classes, then shine your second year, so it shows improvement. It's crappy advice, IMHO.

That's why.

Wow, that's harsh, which adviser said that? They shouldn't discourage applicants like that. Most of the advisor there seem a little over friendly,whenever I meet them- but in terms of advice there a little to positive. Although I think Ms Lewis can be a little intimidating at time. She almost made me cry once (she is strict), since my GPA was a 2.99 she was like my application won't even be looked at unless that's a 3.0 or above, regardless of a 90+ pcat.

Yeah I'm in undergrad in UH, I badly wanted to go to UH pharmacy school, but sometimes I think all they care about are grades. As long as you have a 3.4-3.5 and 75% pcat you meet there requirements. Sometimes I think they don't look at your EC or experience, because when I talked to one of the advisers she was more concerned with my grades then my pharmacy experience.
 
This is going to be pretty biased since I went to UT for my undergrad... but I'm gonna say UT. Science courses at UT are very challenging, and it's even more intimidating when you have almost 500 people in your class. Personally, it was also hard for me to go from being the smart straight-A kid in high school to just being average at a school like UT. I had a class where I worked my arse off just to get a C. That said, UT's admissions recognize the work that goes into getting an A or B there instead of at a CC, and they take it into consideration when you do apply to pharmacy school. Plus, UT has a great pre-pharmacy student organization (LPPA) where you can get a chance to hear from guest speakers from various admissions representatives as well as have a lot of opportunities for community service.

I wouldn't know, but I'm sure UH has a good pre-pharm program, too. At the end of the day though...
Austin > Houston 🙂
 
You can't say the difference between the difficulty between two courses from UT & UH unless you took the same course at both the universities.
 
As a former pre-pharm student, (and I stress former), I was disappointed by the lack of support at UH COP. I switched to NSM, becoming a Biochem major. Reason was, my advisor told me in my freshman year that I was a model student (my GPA was ~3.4). Next year, my GPA was a ~3.2, and she did a 180 on me, saying I should look for a better career, even though I had a 95% composite PCAT.

I also heard that some advisors and the director of admissions said to pretty much bomb your first year classes, then shine your second year, so it shows improvement. It's crappy advice, IMHO.

That's why.

Wow. That is ridiculous. They always seemed nice when I talked to them.
 
You can't say the difference between the difficulty between two courses from UT & UH unless you took the same course at both the universities.

Being a transfer student from UH to UT, and having taken the gen chem1, bio 1, calculus 1, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the courses at UT are significantly more challenging than they are at UH.
 
Being a transfer student from UH to UT, and having taken the gen chem1, bio 1, calculus 1, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the courses at UT are significantly more challenging than they are at UH.

It might also depend on the professor. For example, I looked at the old exams for Organic II for a certain professor at UT and I found them significantly easier than the exams my professor made at UH.
 
Wow, that's harsh, which adviser said that? They shouldn't discourage applicants like that. Most of the advisor there seem a little over friendly,whenever I meet them- but in terms of advice there a little to positive. Although I think Ms Lewis can be a little intimidating at time. She almost made me cry once (she is strict), since my GPA was a 2.99 she was like my application won't even be looked at unless that's a 3.0 or above, regardless of a 90+ pcat.

Yeah I'm in undergrad in UH, I badly wanted to go to UH pharmacy school, but sometimes I think all they care about are grades. As long as you have a 3.4-3.5 and 75% pcat you meet there requirements. Sometimes I think they don't look at your EC or experience, because when I talked to one of the advisers she was more concerned with my grades then my pharmacy experience.
Yeah, Ms. Lewis was supposed to be my advisor. When she was not free, I had to see another advisor, one of the new ones... not the best thing to do when you're trying to apply to rx schools. Nah, I could always play the faith card with Ms. Lewis and it'd be all good.

Anyway, UH takes more people with high GPAs + high volunteer hours, rather than PCAT or EC's. They'd rather take someone with no rx experience than some (as in my case the first time around).
 
It might also depend on the professor. For example, I looked at the old exams for Organic II for a certain professor at UT and I found them significantly easier than the exams my professor made at UH.

Just out of curiosity... which UT professor?
 
Is UTCOP or UHCOP your number one choice? Act accordingly.

And yes, it is very hard for UH pre-pharm students to actually get a hold of an advisor. They've got designated meetings during the year outside of which they do not see students.
 
You can't say the difference between the difficulty between two courses from UT & UH unless you took the same course at both the universities.
👍

I agree 100%. Even if you transferred from UH to UT, I find it hard to believe that someone would repeat the same class. There's no logic behind that. UH has a very difficult curriculum as well as professors who challenge your knowledge on a particular. It all depends on preference. I chose to come to the University of Houston because I love this city. Apart from school, this is where I am from. Being in Houston keeps me grounded. Of course I am bias, but anyone with school pride would be. I understand why you people who attend UT would say that, and that is expected because you love your university. As for me, I am a die hard Cougar and I hope to one day after my pharmacy days are over to contribute as a professor to this University.😎
 

Really? Iverson wrote our textbooks. I had a different professor, but some friends who had him definitely struggled to make an A in his class. I heard Iverson curved down though (even if you scored an 90% on the exam you might not actually get an A), so maybe his tests weren't super difficult but beating out other people to get the A was the bigger challenge. He's a great professor though. I would have taken ochem with him if the class wasn't already full when I registered.
 
For undergrad, prepharmacy, is UT austin better or University of Houston better?

cuz I heard UT prepharm is so hard and its impossible to maintain enuff gpa for UT grad school (college of pharmacy)

I went to UT for pre-pharm and graduated from UHCOP. Honestly, I don't really feel like it matters which of the two schools you complete your pre-pharm requirements at, because you're not really going to use that knowledge in pharmacy school. To ask which one is better doesn't really matter. I would go with the cost of tuition and where you want to experience your undergrad years. UT pre-pharm is not impossibly hard. Just make sure you know what courses you need to complete to apply for the respective schools as one has more requirements then another so take that into account when applying to those two schools or any pharmacy school for that matter.

Get the grades, get the PCAT score, get the pharmacy work/volunteer experience, get letters of recommendations, and get into pharmacy school. I would definitely advise getting pharmacy experience not so much because it will look good as an applicant but it'll show you whether pharmacy is right for you. Also because pharmacy is a broad field try to get experience in more than just the retail setting such as hospital. Don't let bad experiences in one pharmacy setting ruin your perceptions of pharmacy for a career.
 
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