What is considered a "good" pharmacy school gpa?

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abbie_toonie

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Hello SDN,

I'm a rising P2 and my P1 gpa is a 3.82 (all As, A- in therapeutics and a B in an elective... Darnit!)

I really want to maintain it above a 3.8, but am aware that the program only gets tougher. I think I can do it if I don't skip classes like I did with my elective last semester.

So I am wondering, what is considered a "good" gpa for residencies and employers?

Thanks

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I would say that "good" starts at 3.5-3.6. Excellent is 3.75+ while outstanding is a 3.9+
 
Hello SDN,

I'm a rising P2 and my P1 gpa is a 3.82 (all As, A- in therapeutics and a B in an elective... Darnit!)

I really want to maintain it above a 3.8, but am aware that the program only gets tougher. I think I can do it if I don't skip classes like I did with my elective last semester.

So I am wondering, what is considered a "good" gpa for residencies and employers?

Thanks


It doesn't matter, sweet pea. At the of the day you're a JAP. Just Another Pharmacist. And take it from me, I was at the top of my class before grade inflation really got out of control. You are not really a student to the college. You are a customer, a cash flow instrument. You will be serviced as such.
 
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It doesn't matter, sweet pea. At the of the day you're a JAP. Just Another Pharmacist. And take it from me, I was at the top of my class before grade inflation really got out of control. You are not really a student to the college. You are a customer, a cash flow instrument. You will be serviced as such.

This just got me oddly, but only temporarily, depressed.

Thankfully I have all the propaganda my school shoves at us about being a "top 10 school"... sigh...
 
Hello SDN,
So I am wondering, what is considered a "good" gpa for residencies and employers?
I don't believe employers generally care about GPAs, but residencies will. They care more about therapeutics grades than the overall GPA. From the resident grading sheet I've seen it was full points for all or mostly As, -1 point for all/mostly Bs, and 0 points for Cs.
 
For licensing, only that the GPA will let you leave with a degree. For fellowship or residency applications, I never look at GPA besides making sure they didn't repeat a year (and Niosh uses the same scale that is used for screening normally which you get credit for decent grades but it is only one consideration among several). There's some leeway though if we happen to know the school (Rutgers, UConn, University of Florida, MUSC, Iowa) tend to have lower GPA's (average about .2-.4 less) than their peers but are well known to have more punitive faculty about grading. I wouldn't suggest you do the "2.2 will get me through" but you don't have to be Dr. 4.0 either. For hiring actual pharmacists though, I never look at the GPA ever (don't even care at that point if they repeated a year), and don't even look at the OPM evaluations unless the candidate did not graduate in either the US or Canada. Possession of an unrestricted license and really how well you interview in comparison with what you put down in your CV is kind of a thing.

(One other thing, if I see an MS or PhD graduate degree with a 4.0 apply in a technical field for some of the jobs I currently oversee, I almost always scrutinize their transcripts. I usually will reject them for reasons that they did not push themselves as hard as they should have if they did completely perfectly at their graduate work for the GPA. A 4.0 GPA at the graduate level is viewed as highly negative in the 2nd year for the inability to choose the appropriate level of difficulty in their studies as they probably didn't select the terminal classes in their series and did not spend enough time on what they should have been doing in terms of publishing.)
 
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GPA doesn't matter.

Residency is not mandatory for hospital.

/thread
 
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GPA above 3.5 is good in my opinion but it doesn't really matter. Even for residencies, the people are looking for who will be the best fit not who has the highest GPA. For example, I graduated this year and the valedictorian of my class didn't match for residency but someone with a GPA closer to 3.0 did.
 
GPA above 3.5 is good in my opinion but it doesn't really matter. Even for residencies, the people are looking for who will be the best fit not who has the highest GPA. For example, I graduated this year and the valedictorian of my class didn't match for residency but someone with a GPA closer to 3.0 did.

That absolutely sucks... so intelligence isn't valued in the Pharmacy community. Good to know.
 
That absolutely sucks... so intelligence isn't valued in the Pharmacy community. Good to know.

You're assuming intelligence is correlated with GPA. Look at me. I was valedictorian and everybody here thinks I'm a raving lunatic idiot.
 
You're assuming intelligence is correlated with GPA. Look at me. I was valedictorian and everybody here thinks I'm a raving lunatic idiot.

I may sense the sarcasm, but at least a modest correlation exists.

And I've been reading your posts. You're not a raving lunatic, rather you're a neurotic pessimist. And as a fellow neurotic pessimist, I agree with a lot of what you say. I should probably be reading less of this forum because it has been getting me depressed recently. LOL.
 
I may sense the sarcasm, but at least a modest correlation exists.

And I've been reading your posts. You're not a raving lunatic, rather you're a neurotic pessimist. And as a fellow neurotic pessimist, I agree with a lot of what you say. I should probably be reading less of this forum because it has been getting me depressed recently. LOL.

Take it from me, on the spectrum of "normal" she's closer to delusional.

Pharmacy is indeed not the profession it was 10 years ago, but it's also not the doomsday profession that some people on here make it out to be. I have no sympathy for people pulling in 100k+ per year and STILL complain about nothing.
 
Most people with a 4.0 aren't even that smart, they just study 12 hours a day and regurgitate information. Type A personalities, perfectionists, that can't problem solve or think on the spot unless they memorized what to do out of their textbook.

This isn't everyone but it has generally held true through undergrad and pharmacy school.
 
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My school doesn't even have a GPA grading system anymore. Its H/S/F now.
 
Employers generally don't care about GPA. This goes for all fields.
 
That absolutely sucks... so intelligence isn't valued in the Pharmacy community. Good to know.
Lol. Anyone who takes Adderall and sacrifices their social life can get a 4.0. Says nothing about their intelligence
 
Most people with a 4.0 aren't even that smart, they just study 12 hours a day and regurgitate information. Type A personalities, perfectionists, that can't problem solve or think on the spot unless they memorized what to do out of their textbook.
Hah, I've seen this first hand. Then, after someone else solves the problem and explains it to them, you seem them try to tell someone else how to do it.
 
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