Pharmacy What are my chances at pharmacy school admission with a 3.5 GPA?

[BC_89]

Hi,
I recently decided to switch from pre-med to pre-pharm. I am a biology major and will be entering my senior year. After I graduate I will be getting my MBA then hopefully continuing on to pharmacy school. I am not too familiar with how competitive pharmacy school is and was wondering what are my chances of getting accepted to Temple University, Rutgers University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, University of the Sciences with a 3.5 overall GPA? I landed a job at a pharmacy and will be working there for the next year or so and I will be taking my PCAT this upcoming September.

I would research this sub-forum a bit:

Job Market

Pharmacy job market discussions and opportunities.

forums.studentdoctor.net

In short, if you cast a wide net to your top choices as well as “safety” schools with a 3.5 GPA and working in a pharmacy with a Bachelors, I’d be surprised if you didn’t get a few interviews.

Others who’ve never worked in pharmacy with just 2 years of pre-reqs and No PCAT score (as some don’t require it) have gotten interviews with 3.0 or less stellar of a GPA.

I’d contemplate reasonings for the switch as the market is not glamorous right now for graduates and cutthroat for residency trained students as well. Nonetheless, your chances of acceptance are better than you’d think.

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[lord999]

Temple and Rutgers, lower end of the competitive scale, but doable with other matters as good or better. FD, a almost guarantee. PCP (University of the Sciences) - probable admission.

Temple and Rutgers: If your alma mater is at either school, you'll be in a better position for both even at the other (there are quite a number of Temple grads at Rutgers and vice-versa). Either school is excellent to matriculate into for pharmacy, but for graduate school, Temple has the edge in sciences and Rutgers has the edge in industry and regulatory affairs, but they are both the uncontested best two in terms of regulatory affairs. PA is a terrible pharmacist market, and was always bad even before the current cycle.

Questions: Why are you switching? Do you have any pharmacy experience? Do you understand the market right now? Why are you going to the MBA prior to pharmacy school (it will not help your admission chances)?

 

[lord999]

The reason I am switching is I don't really like dealing with direct patient contact and prefer working in a cleaner environment which is amongst other things.

Please take this advice as a friendly warning from someone who deals with career burnouts as an official matter. There is something in the above sentence that is both an honest thought and is something that disqualifies you from the health professions as temperamentally unsuited. Given that, you might want leave out the PharmD as that is not an impediment to working at a pharmaceutical company. The jobs that are offered to MBAs and PharmDs are similar for the cleaner jobs, and if you do not want to get your hands dirty with patient affairs (and you will even in industry as well as pitch black matters). Your heart is not in it from the answer you just gave, and I can foresee a dark career trajectory with that mindset. Save yourself some grief and follow your actual dream. There is no prestige loss in not going into healthcare due to the number of regrets we are seeing.

You may argue that you know people who have that feeling who go into medicine and pharmacy all the time. And I would respond yes, and the coping mechanisms tend to be detrimental to everyone's existence.