Working as a pharmacy tech. Increase your chances?

[Lonestar Chris]

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Right now I'm still taking my prereq's and was curious how much better would your chances of getting in to pharmacy school if you have that experience, even if it's only a year or two?

 

[Jibby321]

It's shows that you know what you are getting yourself into. It def won't hurt your chances.

 

[blueheron]

Not necessary though, I only had about 30 hours of volunteer experience in a hospital pharmacy. At my school, academics, PCAT, interview, and references were weighted more heavily than experience, in that order.

 

[PhunwithPharm]

It depends on the school. Some schools as Blueheron stated, don't care as much. However, other schools take experience into consideration. You definitely will need as least some type of pharmacy experience to show that you are interested in the field and know what they do (your essay specifically asks you why you want to get into pharmacy, and without experience it's kind of hard to answer that).
I will state that at almost every interview I went to, 95% of the students all had pharm tech experience, so the only way I personally was able to stand out was a variety of different volunteer work I did (hospital, senior home, hospice, medicare office, etc.) in addition to my pharm tech experience.
Of course it's better to have strong grades + high PCAT than 2-4 years of tech experience and low stats. Just get enough experience to know how pharmacy works, but don't let it interfere with your academics.

 

[Lonestar Chris]

@PhunwithPharm Thanks for all the info. I sincerely appreciate it.

 

[blueheron]

Agreed I had high PCAT and a good GPA/ chem degree.