In December I was admitted into Pitt with conditional acceptance into their pharmacy program and Pitt is my top choice! However, I was not awarded with any scholarships and probably wont receive much financial aid, but I’m out of state and Pitt is pretty darn expensive. I also recently was admitted into UVA and because it’s in state it is much much cheaper. However, they do not have a pharmacy school. I’m wondering if the conditional acceptance for Pitt outweighs the fact that it is so much more expensive?
Going to a public school OOS will cost you more. Pitt pharmacy OOS is around $30,000 just for tuition for 6 years is $180,000. Add to that living expenses and tuition increases.
Ideally you will go to a school where you can get a scholarship to help with some of the cost.
The conditional admission will hold a spot for you in the pharmacy class but you still have to have a good overall and science gpa 3.25 I think, and take the pcat and have an interview.
You will have to make sure this is correct, but I think if you do prepharmacy at Pitt Titusville you can still keep the conditional admission and the first two years might be somewhat more affordable.
Pitt Titusville has an agreement with Pitt and Lecom.
Did you apply to schools in VA for pre-/pharmacy? Do they have guaranteed admission programs for high school students?
I guess it comes down to what you can afford. For the first four years you as a student can only borrow $5,500 to $7,500 a year.
http://www.upt.pitt.edu/academics/pharmacy here is some info about Pitt Titusville pharmacy
@gagamasala73 that’s a tough decision. UVA is a great school for many reasons, but if they don’t offer the program you want then that’s obviously an issue. When you get conditional acceptance for Pharmacy at Pitt, you still do apply after the first two years, it’s just that if you meet the criteria you’re in. About 1/2 that enter have conditional and the other half don’t. In my son’s class(he’s fourth year at Pitt so getting a BS in April and then two more years for PharmD.) There are 113 people in his PharmD class. Of the 113 there were something like 10 that had bachelors from either Pitt or other schools, and there were I’d say another 10-15 that went somewhere else for the first two years and then the rest did their first two years at Pitt. (Don’t hold me to those numbers, but that’s about the break down I remember from the White Coat Ceremony) So in theory, you could go to UVA for the first two years, take all the requirements and then apply to get in for the 4 years of actual Pharmacy school. That being said, from a social perspective it’s easier to go to the Pitt from the beginning. It would probably be hard to leave UVA after two years and kind of start over. Not impossible by any means, just more difficult than being there from the beginning.
I would suggest trying to make it work financially and coming to Pitt from the beginning if it’s truly Pharmacy that you’d like to major in. It’s a great program with great employment opportunities. We are out of state also, but DS got a full tuition scholarship for the first four years. We’ll be paying the full price the next two.
Best of luck!
i agree, this is tough, titanmom, even if conditional, you still need to have certain stats to get into pharmacy school, correct? what are those stats and what kind of stats do you need to get into pitt pharmacy from the outside? this may help the op.
yes, conditional is just that, conditional upon the following:
Students who receive the conditional admission are expected to perform well in their pre-professional courses regardless of SAT I scores. In order to secure a place in the PharmD Program, students must earn:
a letter grade of a C or better in all preprofessional courses with no repeated courses.
a 3.25 or greater overall GPA in preprofessional courses
a 3.25 or greater GPA in the required Math and Science courses
NOTE: Math and Science requirements must be taken at the University of Pittsburgh, unless Advanced Placement credits were obtained from the School of Arts and Sciences.
And they have to take the PCAT, apply and interview like everyone else does.
@ctl987 @TitanMom16 Well I know conditional is just conditional, however if I was applying to say Pitt’s pharmacy program coming from UVA, I would also have to have those stats AND MORE to be a competitive candidate to even get in. While being at Pitt, I would just have to make sure I have the criteria (not that i’m saying it’s easier). I don’t know if what I’m trying to get across made sense… haha. But I’m also wondering since starting salary is also a lot for a pharmacist, would it be feasible to pay those large amount of debts off? And if getting scholarships while at Pitt is a thing?
hi, i was wondering about GPA cause a 3.7 or higher would be hard to mantain(which i think is around gpa for some of pitt’s other conditional admit majors). however, a 3.25 is very doable even for a tough major like this. how much would it cost to get a B.Sci degreee at UVA and then go to the pharmacy school of your dreams(for the sake of planning let;s just shoot for your dream school) v just going to pitt teh whole time? also, what about VA undergrad plus costs of pharmacy schools u think you;d have a good chance at getting into down road? teh debt issue is huge and i don’t know how marketable a pharmacy degree is so i follow your concerns there. im sure titan mom can jump in on that area. i think Pitt has some schollys you can pick up while there but i know very little about this, i am sure others can and will pipe in on this as well. also, you’ll find how about need based aid at pitt next month(assuming you already filed your FAFSA) so maybe that can help bridge the gap. and i don’t know pharmacist salaries but assuming it is range of 50K a year, you would be able to pay off the 200k debt “relatively easily” assuming you hold off on having a family. it would take awhile but would be doable. but what i don;t know it how easy is to find pharmacy job after you graduate. you may know more on this than me.
Yes Gaga, if you can’t hit Pitt’s conditional requirements GPA marks at whatever school that you choose, you’re not going to be a competitive candidate for very many pharmacy schools. If you go to, say UVA or another 4-year school, your likely going to be there all four years and need to graduate with much better than the conditional stats in order to be competitive when you apply to a pharmacy program as, most likely, a post-bacc. In the end, you have to weigh your financial situation with the path that makes the most sense. But if you are a good student, you should be able hit those requirements wherever you go. You’ll likely save a few years in school if you just go to Pitt to start, so you need to weigh that as well…cost of any extra years and cost of losing income that you’d receive if you were already out of school working.
When you look at professional degrees like pharmacist, dentist, MD, there is no going around debt unless your family can afford full price of the program. But if you can limit the amount of debt that is desirable. Yes, as a pharmacist you might be able to make $100,000 a year, but it is not guaranteed. I heard somewhere that you should not take on more debt than what your yearly expected salary will be.
The point is that there are several pharmacy schools in every state, you need to look at costs and naplex pass rates in addition to the program. So if you can do the prepharmacy part at a lesser cost it could help.
It depends on the family finances. And what’s available near you.
I just did a loan calculator and $200,000 at 6.8% for 10 years would require over $2,300 payment a month.
Depending on where you would live after school, rent, utilities, car, etc and such a high payment may be very hard.
And it would be for 10 years, so you’d be 34 by the time you pay it off ( and pay back almost $300,000). So starting a family before that would be even harder.
So look at all the options.
How about VCU?
http://uc.vcu.edu/academic-advising/pre-health/pre-health-sciences-programs/pre-pharmacy/
They have prepharmacy and pharmacy
How would the costs compare?
@ctl987 @mommdc There’s no point in mentioning other schools for my undergrad because it is too late too apply and I have to look at the options I have right now. Looking at VCU and other schools right now would be pointless. I didn’t apply to VCU because their pre-pharmacy isn’t guaranteed. I’m just saying I need to choose between Pitt and UVA. For Pitt total costs for 2 years of undergrad would already be around $80,000 roughly (room and board, tuition, books, dorm, etc) and my family can pay around $50,000 of that. Which means I would need to find a way to make up $30,000 for my undergrad, and then after that I would be in the pharmacy program which is $30,000 a year (tuition only) and my family can give me around $10,000 so I would need to make up the money else where. If I went to UVA it would be $40,000 total for my undergrad (4 years) and I would be able to pay that, and then I would go to a pharmacy school wherever I got in. So basically going to UVA saves me around $30,000. But pharmacy degrees right now are very high in demand and the average debt of medical school students is around $180,000 where they pay around $1,000-$2,500 a month for loans and can pay it off in 10 years. And with a salary guaranteed over $100,000 that doesn’t seem to awful, especially since I’ll be 24 when I graduate and I am definitely not planning to start a family at that age.
One thing to keep in mind that we discovered is when we fill out the FAFSA for our son for next year we don’t have to count our income because technically it is graduate school and he’s 22. What that will “buy” him at this point, we don’t know. I’d love to have anyone chime in who’s DS or DD are in graduate school!
http://www.hrsa.gov/loanscholarships/loans/healthprofessions.html
The only thing I know is that there are grad loans and grad plus loans and I think you can borrow up to COA.
And I thought for health professions loan purposes the parents should still provide their financials on the FAFSA to determine need, even for year 5 and 6, which are post-bac
We will help our D as much as we can with room and board costs, books, etc in the first four years (she has full tuition) but the loans she takes out will be for her to pay back. We have two other kids, one graduating three years behind her.
So by your estimate, UVA saves you $30-40K for your undergrad portion, but it takes four years instead of two. Presume relatively equal pharmacy school costs regardless of where you go (and it likely is to be similar because it is a professional program and even LECOM is $25K a year). But you get into your career 2 years earlier going to Pitt (because you enter after only two pre-pharmacy years), and you assume a $100K a year starting salary (for your first two years a total of $200K minus say, something like $50K in taxes those first two years, for a net of $150K), going to UVA would actually cost you $110K-120K more because of lost wages.
Go to Pitt, take out loans like many students, and live thrifty for a couple years (like you are still a student) and pay back a sizable chunk of those loans.
@GagaMasala73:
I would strongly suggest that you carefully calculate your financial involvement with getting a PharmD. D1 just graduated from Pitt Pharmacy last year (Class of 2014) and I happen to think that the education and opportunities that she received from Pitt were unsurpassed. She was able to conduct research projects that were published in peer-reviewed professional journals, work as a pharmacy intern in a world-class hospital, apply for and receive grants for community service projects, become a named Fellow in two national programs, participate in professional rotations literally around the world, attend multiple professional conferences with subsidies and stipends from Pitt and ultimately receive eleven interview requests out of twelve applications for post-graduate residency programs. Pitt Pharmacy has an outstanding reputation and world-wide renown. (Her preceptor in Australia was a Pitt grad!)
HOWEVER, at this point, several new schools of pharmacy have recently popped up and each year the number of graduating PharmD’s increases. Competition for pharmacist jobs and residency opportunities is increasing steadily. In other words, there’s a good chance that starting salaries for pharmacists in the future might decline. There’s really no guarantee of getting a $100,000 starting job as a new PharmD graduate. Add up what it would cost to go to UVA for four years of undergrad and then add four years of Pharm school graduate tuition and living expenses versus six years at Pitt (two years at undergrad tuition and four years at grad school tuition) and figure out what would be the most financially sustainable way to get your PharmD. By the way, a third of the Pitt class of 2014 went into residency and/or fellowship programs. While these programs are of benefit in their future careers, they also mean that they only get paid about 50% of what a practicing retail or clinical practice pharmacist gets paid during their residencies. That’s a further burden on loan repayment.
This is not at all, to discourage you from pursuing a career as a pharmacist. Just, as the dean of the University of Michigan School of Pharmacy told me six years ago - "You have to be a good steward of your money."
PM me if you would like more details or additional information.
Hi. If going to Virginia saves you 30000 I recommend pitt. The debt will suck but I think the conditional admit to your dream career which is in a high paying field and had a good employment outlook is worth 30000. Assuming u get job shortly after u graduate the extra 30000 will be a doable debt. The only other question is do u have a pharmacy program u would rather go than pitt.
And sorry I just saw other note. If u go to Virginia you will be in school for 2 more years?
Also if you start at UVA and then later still decide to go for pharmd, ACP and Lecom for example have a 3 year pharmd program which then would be 6-7 years and would save on the loan total. $30,000 for UVA and maybe $100,000 for 3 year pharm school.
ACP requires 72 credits (Lecom 62 I think) that should be doable in 2-3 years, then you can apply there and elsewhere and if for some reason you don’t get in then you can finish your BS at UVA and reapply.
If you get no aid, the first 4 years you will be able to borrow $5,500 -7,500. The rest your parents would have to take out in plus loans. So for the first two years (at Pitt) you would borrow about $10,000 and your parents $20,000.
Then for two years (P1, P2) you would borrow $14,000 and parents $66,000? Will they be able to do that?
And for last two years (P3, P4) you would be on your own with grad/grad plus loans of possible $80,000
So that would be $104,000 for you in loans and $86,000 for your parents plus the $50,000 they are giving you already.