Would appreciate any advice

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21PharmD

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Hello, I am a first year pharmacy student who is becoming more and more interested in a career in medicine. My overall undergraduate GPA is 3.38 and i graduated with a BS degree. Now since i plan to complete the pharmacy program before i apply to medical school, I wonder if anyone has any advice as to what i can do now to improve my chances of being accepted. Also is my Pharmacy gpa likely to be weighed heavily by the adcoms? Will a PharmD degree help me in any way? Things I have considered were retaking courses that I did not do as well over my summer breaks. If anyone has been in a similar situation, or has any advice on how i can move forward in preparation for the application process it will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

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Hello, I am a first year pharmacy student who is becoming more and more interested in a career in medicine. My overall undergraduate GPA is 3.38 and i graduated with a BS degree. Now since i plan to complete the pharmacy program before i apply to medical school, I wonder if anyone has any advice as to what i can do now to improve my chances of being accepted. Also is my Pharmacy gpa likely to be weighed heavily by the adcoms? Will a PharmD degree help me in any way? Things I have considered were retaking courses that I did not do as well over my summer breaks. If anyone has been in a similar situation, or has any advice on how i can move forward in preparation for the application process it will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

The PharmD degree will not be considered as heavy as your undergraduate gpa. To improve your chances, you need to do extracurricular activities, such as shadowing a physician and volunteering. Also, I don't know how pharm school is structured, but if you could I would do some research as well. Just show them that you want to be a physician. As for your undergrad gpa, I think some improvement would be necessary if your goal is an MD school, but if you are applying DO, your gpa is competitive enough.
 
Thanks for the quick reply! I appreciate your help. I was wonderring if you think it be better to boast my gpa throuh the courses im taking in phartmacy school or should i go back and retake undergraduate courses? This is what is perplexing me most, but i am ready willing and able to meet all of these challanges.
 
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Thanks for the quick reply! I appreciate your help. I was wonderring if you think it be better to boast my gpa throuh the courses im taking in phartmacy school or should i go back and retake undergraduate courses? This is what is perplexing me most, but i am ready willing and able to meet all of these challanges.

Well, you'll need to boost your gpa by taking some additional undergraduate courses. The reason is because undergraduate gpa will only be counted when you calculate your gpa for med school. Graduate courses, such as pharm school, don't count towards the gpa that med schools will weigh. With a 3.3 to almost a 3.4, doing well in one additional year of post bacc work will help raise your gpa, and you can use that time to do some shadowing and volunteering too.
 
Your PharmD classes are graduate level classes and will not effect your undergrad GPA. You will be helped somewhat by an excellent grad school GPA, as they tend to be upper level science courses. The quickest way to redeem your low GPA, would be to get an MCAT score of 34 or better. The slowest way would be to earn your PharmD, then take post-bacc (undergrad level) classes in a four-year college, earning straight As. Working as a pharmacist would be considered "clinical exposure" essential for a good med school application (more so if you participated in hospital rounds/multidisciplinary teams). You'd also be expected to interact with sick people in other ways (via volunteerism or employment) and shadow a doc or three to show you've had experience of what a medical career would entail. Volunteerism is considered essential in some form, not necessarily medically-related, to show your humanistic side. Leadership experience should also be listed on your application.

I'd suggest you also visit the Non-trad forum of SDN where you'll see posts by other PharmD students and pharmacists who are meeting the same challenges in order to prepare for med school applications: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?f=110 Put in the search parameter of PharmD and a lot of threads with good info will pop up.
 
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