0-6 pharmacy programs and my chances

Neonzeus
Thu, 16 May 2013 21:08:46 +0000

At least when my kid first went to Buffalo, getting into the 2+4 program wasn’t hard at all. The trick was to get into the +4 part of the program. If a student met a specified GPA in prepharm classes, the student didn’t have to take the PCAT. Otherwise, the student had to take the PCAT and apply as a regular applicant for the +4 part of the program. There was no preference (supposedly) for Buffalo’s own prepharm students going through the application process. Whether a student met the specified GPA level or not, an interview was required. Many students took the PCAT and applied to a few other schools just to improve their chances of getting in somewhere, although it appears to be getting harder and harder to apply to multiple schools because (1) schools like UCONN, Toledo and Duquesne changed their admissions process to only accept their own prepharm undergrad students; or (2) schools had different prepharm requirements, which were harder to achieve at other schools due to the limited number of electives in a prepharm program.

There were a LOT of prepharm students when my kid was a freshman. Most of them were weeded out in calc, organic chem and physics. My kid tells me that he doesn’t know anyone who didn’t get weeded out at Buffalo who didn’t get high-600s in math for their SATs, although this is just his perception with no hard-data to back it up. To assess the possibility of weed-out, I think it’s a good idea to ask if prepharm classes are graded on a curve, and to ask how many prepharm students are admitted. You can then research how many students are in each pharmacy class, and see how many PharmD students came from that school or from another school. Lots of research, and the schools don’t make it easy to figure this out.

As a parent who saw my kid sweat his way through the +4 application, I also suggest looking at backup majors when picking a school. If you change your mind during 0-2, you don’t want to find yourself stuck at a school that you picked only because of its pharmacy program.

You might look at Ohio Northern’s 0-6 program along with Butler. I know when my kid was a Junior in high school and hunting for pharmacy schools it was a real research project! Every single school seemed to have a completely different program and rules for getting admitted.

By the way, my kid took the PCAT once cold (heck, he always tested really well, no sweat). He came out of it in shock. After that, he studied really hard before taking it again…vocabulary index cards and all…and raised his score over 20 points into that 90%+ percentile. You can prepare for the PCAT!

Good luck with your applications! The only place where we found some helpful advice on admissions for pharmacy schools was the pharmacy student forum on the student doctors site, but we’re not allowed to give other websites on CC. Perhaps your guidance counselor can help with digging out that site. I do remember that the advice was to get some pharmacy experience before the +4 application and interviews, so you’re on track with that.