Best Pre-Pharmacy schools?

[Polo08816]

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@sk8rmom

Polo, that may or may not be true, but I wouldn’t recommend applying exclusively to 6 year programs. There are only nine 0-6 schools left (MCPHS, USP, Rutgers, URI, ONU, Findlay, St John’s, STLCOP, Northeastern). Costs vary, especially for Rutgers and URI (instate vs. OOS), but of the three on this list that my D was accepted to this year, all of them would have required substantial outlays of cash/loans, even with merit scholarships and grants. For example, USP’s top merit award is only $7K (if I remember correctly) and their COA is over $41K/year. Afaik, none of these school come close to meeting need, and most gap considerably. It may not be worth it, or even possible, for many kids to spend an extra $10-20K/year for a guaranteed seat from the starting gate. Also, three of these (USP, MCPHS, and STLCOP) are pretty specialized schools and their choice majors are fairly limited. The high attrition rate of most of the 0-6’s must mean, for some, that they really didn’t know if pharmacy was their niche or not. Imho, that’s an expensive and somewhat limiting way to find out…especially if you have to transfer out to find what you’re looking for.

You bring up very good points.
To be honest, I’m not familiar with the true costs of each program. It’s been a while since I was admitted and I was considering only Rutgers pharmacy and no other pharmacy program at the time. Also I’m in a situation where I pay very very little for school each semester so I can’t comment on the costs of each program for others.
I think the OP should have defined more clearly what he/she meant by pre-pharmacy. I took it as 4 years of undergrad and then 4 years of pharmacy school for a total of 8 years. I did not take pre-pharmacy as 2+4 or 0+6 programs.</p>