What should I do? General Advice Needed

[magik10]

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Hi everyone!

I have a few questions about how I should prepare my admissions to pharmacy school and what I should do to improve the areas that I am lacking in.

This fall, I will be a junior, but I still have a few classes to take for the Pharmacy schools I am interested in (UW-Madison, Concordia, and probably some other Midwest pharmacy schools). Most importantly, I still need O-Chem and Bio II, both of which I will be taking this fall. I also have not taken the PCAT, and while lurking these forums the past few months, I get the feeling that the consensus is not to take the PCAT until after O-Chem and Bio II, so my plan is to take it either in January or summer. My first question regarding this is is which PCAT should I take, January 2012 or summer 2012? For all other subjects that will be on the PCAT, I have taken the respective classes (e.g. Chem I/II, Bio I, Calculus, and English), so I should be prepared for that. I have been studying my old notes and reading Kaplin’s PCAT book to further prepare me.

Overall, I feel that my grades are pretty solid (I can post all my grades if more detail would help) as I have a 3.7 GPA, strong math and science grades, and my last two semester GPAs have been 4.0. However, my biggest worry is that I am seriously lacking in experience. 🙁 Currently, I have zero (worthy) hospital/pharmacy/volunteering experience. The best I had was a job from high school to last year, but my company closed so I have been unemployed since then. My idea was to get a pharmacy technician job, but after a year of applying, I have had zero luck and only received one interview, which was canceled the day before. Obviously, I am worried that a (hopefully) good PCAT score and good GPA will not be enough for an interview at the schools I am interested in. My question is what should I do to fix this? Again, after lurking, I realize that a pharmacy tech job can carry a lot of weight during a school interview as it shows the interviewee that you have first hand experience in a pharmacy, but for me, this appears to be unattainable.

Finally, in addition to no experience, I have no source of LORs. 🙁 In my two years at my university, I have never once felt the need to see a professor (which in retrospect was unwise). I realize that pharmacy schools require LORs, so how should I go about obtaining them? I can probably have my counselor fill one out, but what about the letters that should be from a professor? Should I just go into a previous professor’s office and ask for a letter, or should I ask a TA instead?

This is my first post after spending months on this site so I apologize in advance if anything is incorrect/incomplete/unclear/too long/etc.

Thanks and any advice would be appreciated! 🙂

 

[hye345]

I can't say much regarding experience (or at least pharmacy experience), since I don't have any either 🙁 You could check with your local hospital, and see if they have any volunteer program. In all likelihood, they won't be taking anyone in the pharmacy department (due to liability reasons), but any experience in the health-care field is better than none at all.

With the LOR's, I was in your shoes at the end of my Junior year (one year back). Before then, I also never felt the need to be an active member in class, much less go to my professor's office hours, since I usually did generally well (or if I didn't, I wouldn't care too much... not the best attitude, I agree hehe).

In my experience, so long as the professor knows who you are, and you do well in the class (a B or better), then most professors are open in helping you out with a letter. Here are some quick tips:

• If the professor asks questions to the class, try to make an attempt to answer. Its something of a fine line though... try not to appear like a know-it-all (all the time), he/she might get suspicious, and take you for a know-it-all
• If its a lecture hall or classroom setting, try to sit in the front, and if possible, make small talk with the professor occasionally, so he/she remembers your face.
• Last, but not least, try to go to the professor's office hours at least once or twice. This is especially important, because not only will the professor remember your name, but it will show him/her that you are not afraid to admit to what you don't know, and that you wanna improve. The 2nd part is assuming that you are seeing the professor to get some help with an assignment, but the visit can also be because you are interested in his/her field. I suppose in theory, it is possible to fake interest, and pretend that you're intrigued in the field, but I could never do this with a straight face, and I wouldn't recommend it for moral reasons 🙂

 

[Passion4Sci]

OP you seem good to go. Experience is nice but just extra.

Be careful about LoRs from TA if you go that route. Some schools only conditionally accept them and some don't accept them at all. Check www.pharmcas.org to be sure, if you do end up needing one.

 

[magik10]

hye: I know exactly what you mean about the know it all part. In my chem discussion, it seemed like every day I was the only one answering questions as no one else ever volunteered. Unfortunately, it was instructed by a TA so there is a chance that even if I could get a LOR from them, it may not be accepted by the schools I apply to.
Anyways, what did you end up doing for your LORs? Did you ever ask any teacher that you had before your senior year for a LOR? I know that my last semester physics professor (who I said virtually nothing to) would at least recognize me based solely on my grades (I had the highest or second highest in the class 😀). Do you think I should try asking him for a LOR?
Since I will be a junior this fall, I will take your advice and at least see one or two professors a few times so that they can hopefully write me a letter. I sort of figured that that would be a good way to get a solid LOR, yet I never made the effort to visit my professors.

Passion: So if my GPA stays at about 3.7, and I get a solid PCAT score (80+?), do you think that those two factors would be enough for an interview at one of my mentioned schools, even without volunteer or pharmacy experience? Since summer just began for me and tech positions seem to be out of the question, I am strongly considering volunteering at a nearby hospital or getting some sort of job. Do you feel that volunteering carries significant more weight to admissions than a job? Income from a job can always help, but if volunteering can give me a much better shot at admission, then I would much rather go that route.

 

[Passion4Sci]

Passion: So if my GPA stays at about 3.7, and I get a solid PCAT score (80+?), do you think that those two factors would be enough for an interview at one of my mentioned schools, even without volunteer or pharmacy experience? Since summer just began for me and tech positions seem to be out of the question, I am strongly considering volunteering at a nearby hospital or getting some sort of job. Do you feel that volunteering carries significant more weight to admissions than a job? Income from a job can always help, but if volunteering can give me a much better shot at admission, then I would much rather go that route.

3.7 + 80 PCAT is a great combination, absolutely. You should almost surely land interviews without a problem. If it's volunteer -or- work, and you could do either with roughly the same effort, I'd take the job and start socking away money. I mean, none of us are AdComs so we can't say with absolute certitude whether job > volunteering or the other way around. We can guess that volunteering might look better because you're not being compensated for it and thus it's more of an achievement than working, but at the same time, a job shows that you're reliable and want to do more than just be a student.

If it's a job that isn't pharmacy related and the volunteering is pharmacy related then that's a game-changer for me. But if it's unrelated work vs. unrelated volunteering I'd take the job.

 

[hye345]

hye: I know exactly what you mean about the know it all part. In my chem discussion, it seemed like every day I was the only one answering questions as no one else ever volunteered. Unfortunately, it was instructed by a TA so there is a chance that even if I could get a LOR from them, it may not be accepted by the schools I apply to.
Anyways, what did you end up doing for your LORs? Did you ever ask any teacher that you had before your senior year for a LOR? I know that my last semester physics professor (who I said virtually nothing to) would at least recognize me based solely on my grades (I had the highest or second highest in the class 😀). Do you think I should try asking him for a LOR?
Since I will be a junior this fall, I will take your advice and at least see one or two professors a few times so that they can hopefully write me a letter. I sort of figured that that would be a good way to get a solid LOR, yet I never made the effort to visit my professors.

Well, my first LOR, I sorta obtained the 'long' way... I had a professor in the summer of Junior year, and even though it was in a lecture hall setting, it was still summer, so there weren't that many students, so we could ask/answer the professor questions pretty easily. In that class, I probably answered a few questions here and there, and I usually sat near the front (not because the professor would know me, but because my contacts prescription was slightly out of date . I also went to see him during his office hours twice, so he could answer a few questions of mine, and after the second time, he asked my for my name, so I guess that was a good sign...

Anyway, early in senior year, I started to get ansty about my lack of LOR's, and he was the only science professor that came to mind, so I emailed him, asking if I could sit down with him and discuss my future goals... That went well, except I never bought up the LOR, I wanted to wait until another 'meeting'. A few months later, I emailed him a long follow-up email, showing him my progress, and asking if an LOR would be possible in my case, and he said yeah.

My next two LOR's (from professors) are from my Computational Biology professor, and my public speaking professor. For the former, I was a fairly active member in class (it was a pretty small class), and I was actually enjoyed the work (pretty rare for an upper-div bio class), so I went into his office hours once, to ask about potential career paths/opportunities in bioinformatics. I told him that I was currently at a crossroads with regards to that field and pharmacy, and he was very helpful (even recommended me a book I could read to learn more about biology 'programming'). In light of what he told me, I emailed him twice afterwards, the 2nd one informing him of my decision to continue the pharmacy route, and asking if an LOR would be possible for me, and he said yes.

For my public speaking professor, because of the nature of the course, everyone was pretty comfortable with the professor, and in my case, I had already emailed her after the course, explaining that I had joined a public speaking club, and if she would be so kind as to email the students from the class and try to refer them to us, so I'd figure it was worth a shot to ask, and she accepted.

I also asked several other professors, but the issues they had were either 1) I was not an active member in class/they didn't remember/know me, or 2) I didn't get a good enough grade for the class. For one of the classes in the former category, I got an A in the class... so that by itself might not be enough if you just kept to yourself the whole quarter/semester.

Anyway, good luck, keep us posted.