Which school would you choose?

[Hello1996]

West Coast, Marshall B. Ketchum and CHSU

Which school would you choose?

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[Timbo]

Haha do I have to pick one? They are all so absolutely terrible. I guess if I had to, I would choose West Coast because it is the only one out of the three that is accredited. CHSU is probably the worst one out of the bunch because they have been in candidate status since 2012 yet are still struggling to get accredited. FYI if you want to practice in California you'll need to have graduated from an ACPE accredited school (source).

Despite this West Coast still only has a 66% NAPLEX pass rate - that's like 5th worst in the country. So I feel like they may lose accreditation eventually. Also 62% of their graduates end up unemployed: Program Statistical Data - Doctor of Pharmacy | WCU

 

[BC_89]

West Coast, Marshall B. Ketchum and CHSU

Which school would you choose?

Moving to Pharmacy School-Specific Discussions for related topics from other students applying or currently been accepted to your school choices.

I'll start with a breakdown of rubrics to look at when deciding a program:

1) Regional Accreditation (Not pending or candidate status programs)
2) Cost (Tuition, Cost of Living, Transportation, etc.)
3) NAPLEX pass rate (List of School NAPLEX Pass Rates)

With these in mind, here's my thoughts with each program:

1) Marshall B. Ketchum - Not regionally accredited and with over 140 programs to choose from, stay clear of this one.

2) CHSU - Not regionally accredited and on top of this its a private school with higher cost of attendance. Stay clear of this one.

3) West Coast - Just reached regional accreditation not even two years ago (up for renewal this June...) so by default you would have to choose this one in comparison to the other programs that couldn't pass the first guideline I presented here.

The cost of tuition alone is $175,120 as of 2017 (which implies it could be higher now than it was then). This is not including housing cost in the region. The Average Studio Apartment Rentals in this location is $1455 (keep in mind, a studio....nothing bigger). Multiply this factor for the 4 years you'll be in school and thats an additional $69,840 (Not including the utility bill). Combined that puts you at $244,960 not including food, student insurance, transportation, so on and so forth.

My friend, if you pick this path, you need to move out of California and start applying elsewhere. The true numbers out of this program will put you close to $300,000 in debt. Also to note, this past cycle the California state licensing exam was revoked for graduates that passed due to a "cheating investigation" that put many new graduates to go from licensed to being a no-more-licensed pharmacist....Crunch these numbers and please consider going elsewhere if this is something you choose as a career.

**Edit** Look at my NAPLEX hyperlink and you will see West Coast is at 66% pass rate...…To put nicely, that is beyond terrible....not a good investment for this career choice at this specific university

 

[MelatoninAddict]

Hope you don't mind me hijacking the thread to ask something similar. I'm torn between the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Houston. The University of Houston has a better NAPLEX pass rate, cheaper living condition (family is based in Houston), and I had a better interview experience there. Really, it seems like for the four years in pharmacy school, I'd be happier there. But the University of Texas has fewer graduates who end up unemployed; UH had 6 unemployed graduates and 29 graduates falling under "Other" (other categories are community, hospital, and post-graduate training). UT had 6 graduates fall under "Other" or "No information." It's difficult to tell whether this is because UT has better resources or because UT's students are more driven, as it's more competitive to get into that school.

UT Program Indicators: College of Pharmacy PharmD Program Quality Indicators
UH Program Indicators: https://uh.edu/pharmacy/_documents/acpe/acpe-program-disclosure-2019.pdf

 

[deleted562805]

West Coast, Marshall B. Ketchum and CHSU

Which school would you choose?

I would pick none of those schools