<p>I am planning on pharmacy school, after a B.S. in Chemistry- would that be a good path? Should I double-major or pick up a minor as well? I know that I have to take classes that fulfill the prerequisites to get into pharmacy school, so would there still be room left in my schedule?</p>
<p>I would also like advice of anyone who's been to UCI for pre pharm. For instance, what I should do as far as internships / working with pharmacists early on / securing letters of recommendation is concerned. </p>
<p>Any advice about UCI in general would be appreciated, too. :)</p>
<p>I am not related to UCI, but I am a Pharmacist for over 20 years and interviewed a lot of pharmacy graduates in my career. I noticed your link because D is admitted to UCI business school.</p>
<p>As far as I know, GPA is the most important criteria for admitting to any pharmacy school. I saw students admitted to Western, UOP, USC directly with GPA of 4.0 and they’ve only finished their 3rd year in their undergraduate studies in UC, Cal States, or even CC. Most of these students have various majors in Biology, chemistry, Biochem. That means what particular major is not that important. UCI offers Pharmaceutical Science major now, that should be the best major to apply pharmcy school but not typically give you any advantage to get admitted. And general science majors should give you broader opportunities to apply other health-care related fields. </p>
<p>I asssumed as long as all the pre-pharmacy courses are taken, you are OK and ready to apply. Just go to the web sites of all the pharmacy school you want to apply and check out what courses they required. I haven’t heard any pharmacy school required a BS degree to apply. You should not have any problem to get those courses through your chemistry major and you should apply as soon as you’ve finished all the courses if you think you have a competitive GPA.</p>
<p>And you should start to look for jobs in retail or hospital pharmacy. Registered as a pharmacy technician with working experience is also a plus for helping you to gain admission.</p>
<p>Hope this could help.</p>
<p>My recommendation is if you are NOT majoring in biology. Take your BIO pre-reqs at a local community college.</p>
<p>This is because of the lab situations they have at uci. You have to take 93-99 (2 years) before you can start on the upper divisions. And you need to take several upper divisions to even take a lab. Also UCI does not have all the pre-reqs for pharmacy. You have to take your public speaking and human anatomy elsewhere because at UCI they don’t offer it.</p>
<p>So yeah take bio forsure at a CC. If you are not majoring in bio.</p>
<p>Also you don’t have to major in science or bio/chem to become a pharmacist. Anything major along with the appropriate pre-reqs will be just fine.</p>