My Chances of Getting into These Pharmacy Schools

Pre-Pharmacy & Pharmacy School
1

<p>I will be applying as an intended Pre-Pharmacy major to both Purdue University and Butler University in the Fall.
I'll be applying to other engineering schools elsewhere. I'm also hoping for a spot in the Honors College/Academic Housing at Purdue if I get in and decide to go.. Here are my stats:</p>

<p>Applying for Fall 2015 term
Indiana Resident</p>

<p>Class Rank: 80 out of 751
Unweighted GPA: 3.6
Weighted GPA: 4.132
ACT: 32
SAT: 1660</p>

<p>Some coursework examples:
Freshmen year: Chemistry Honors (B+ both semesters)
Geometry Honors (B+)
Level 2 German (A+,A+)</p>

<p>Sophomore Year:
AP Chemistry (C 1st sem, B+ second sem; 3 on AP exam)
College Algebra 2/Pre Calculus (C+, B)
Level 3 German (A,A)
Junior Year:
AP English Language (B, A-; 3 on the exam)
AP Calculus AB (B, B+; 5 on the exam)
Honors Trigonometry (1 sem, B)
Honors Anatomy and Physiology (B-, A-)
Dual Credit American History (A, B+)
Level 4 German (A, A)</p>

<p>Senior Year Classes:
AP Biology
AP Economics
AP Calculus BC
AP German
Physics Honors
Organic Chemistry</p>

<p>EC's:
Solo violin competitions (7th -12th)
School's (3rd place at state) symphony orchestra (9th-12th)
-performed in the pit of the Nutcracker Ballet, original version (not watered down music)
Private Violin Lessons (7th-12th)
German Club President (11th,12th)
German Honor Society Vice President (11th, 12th)
German Honors Society Secretary (10th)
German Club Secretary (10th)
Model United Nations School Treasurer (12th) - just started this organization for this coming fall
Student Government House of Representatives (11th, 12th)
Orchestra Big Brother Big Sister Program (11th, 12th)
Orchestra Leadership Team (10th, 11th, 12th)
-Raised $11,000 for Red Cross in one night by collecting change at Lucas Oil Stadium
AIM Mentoring Program (11th)
-upperclassmen mentoring, tutoring, and giving advice to freshmen; meeting with them 4 times a month
National Honors Society (11th, 12th)
Director's Assistant at Beginner Summer Orchestra Camp (8th-12th)
-taught private lessons to behind students, supervised parent pick up/drop off</p>

<p>What are my chances of getting into Pre-Pharmacy? I'm really active in my school and community and work very hard in my schooling. If it helps, my parents both only obtained two year degrees from Vincennes.</p>

2

<p>If you apply to Butler for Pharmacy, you enter as a direct admit to the pharmacy program and as long as you meet certain criteria you will continue on to get your PharmD in 6 years. At Purdue, you take pre-pharm classes then apply to the Pharmacy school. The Fall 2013 admissions at Purdue had 690 applications, with 150 getting admitted. Average age was 22, so I’m not sure if one can imply or not that most applicants already had a bachelor’s degree. Your ACT score is good and your EC’s also, but I’m not sure how the schools will look at your grades. Chemistry is an integral part of a pharmacy major, and your grades aren’t the highest. I’m guessing you would get admitted to Purdue, but you will have to have fairly stellar grades and a good PCAT score to get into the Pharmacy school after taking your pre-reqs. Not sure how competitive Butler is these days, so I wouldn’t want to guess your chances there.</p>

3

<p>I’ve already done enough research on the differences between 0-6 schools and 2 + 4 schools. And I knew how the PCAT went and the expectations for GPA requirements. </p>

<p>My school counselor said I’m really well prepared. This response was very shocking. He told me that taking AP Chemistry and Organic Chemistry before graduating was a leg-up… His daughters are both pharmacists. Hmm. I guess people see things differently.</p>

<p>I’ve also talked with a friend of mine who is in his second year of pre-pharm at Purdue and he didn’t even take anything beyond Honor’s chemistry. </p>

<p>Thanks for your input</p>

4

<p>Swap out a few of your classes with IB, and I’m on the same boat as you OP. From what I know, Purdue pre-pharm shouldn’t be much of a problem for you. Butler on the other hand, well, that’s a decent sized reach. Good EC’s, and Organic is nice, but Orgo would play more of a role if you took it before applying. Though to my knowledge, there isn’t much of a difference in terms of which pre-Pharm school you go to, though then again, I literally just started researching this today. </p>

5

<p>I’ll explain my reasoning on my earlier response since you were shocked. If I’m an adcom at a 0-6 school, and depending on the applicant pool, I’d be looking at your science grades. Fantastic ACT score,great classes, but if there are a lot of applicants with those same classes but higher grades in chem, A&P, etc I’d be looking at that. Of course, if the school looks more at class rigor, and test scores, then the grades may not have that much impact.</p>

<p>At a 2+4 school, your friend is correct- you could have taken all humanities in HS and as long as you take the required prereqs at college, it won’t matter. But you are correct-you are going to be extremely well prepared to take the pre-reqs because you’ve had exposure to Organic, AP chem and physics. I don’t know a lot of HS kids that get a whole organic class. That will definitely put you ahead of students who haven’t taken any hard sciences like you have. And your AP calc score might even get you out of math- congratulations on getting that score.</p>

6

<p>Thanks for the input. I was recommended by our chemistry teacher at my school to take organic senior year, because I took AP chemistry so early. He said Organic would be a good way to put chemistry back on the brain before I graduate. As far as Butler goes, I heard some people claim I could easily get in; others say I could not. On a financial note, Butler apparently does not give out merit scholarships to students going into pharmacy as their path, because they know they will find applicants willing to pay full price for the 0-6 program. </p>

<p>I really appreciate your responses and time!</p>

7

Just to notify others who could find my post and are curious on their chances getting into these schools later… I got into Purdue, Butler, Manchester, and University of Kentucky. I was offered 20,000 in scholarship for Manchester and 12,000 at University of Kentucky. I would not recommend Manchester due to my experience visiting the school. If you attend Manchester for Pre Pharmacy you’re not applicable to apply for Purdue’s Pharmacy school due to the lack of biochemistry in Manchester’s curriculum. Manchester’s Pharmacy school isn’t accredited yet.

8

I’m glad you posted. I was wondering where you got in. Congratulations on your acceptances! Have you made a decision yet?

9

My daughter applied to Butler, Purdue and Manchester as well. She had a 1920 on her SAT. We found Manchester was quite generous with their financial aid as well. $17K in merit and $3500 since an aunt is a Manchester alum. Still, the cost is $28K for tuition. Manchester IS a new program, but after having received like $35M from Elli Lilly to start up their pharm program I’m loathe to write them off when Eli Lilly has shown faith, backed by money, in them.

We are scared of Purdue since you have to reapply to the pharm program there after the 1st two year of pre-reqs. And it is a big school - with approx 40K students - which isn’t what we were looking for really.

Honestly, Butler seems like a happy medium with almost 5K students, and their Butler promise that if you enter their pharm program you get to stay in and finish the 6 years barring you really screwing up. Of course the happy medium option costs by far the most - at like $36 tuition and $12K room and board. She got some sort of scholarship at admission but its a long way from covering that bill. Ugh. So Emmabear, I’m really looking forward to hearing where you decide you are headed. Good to know that information about Manchester’s lack of biochem making it ineligible for a transfer to Purdue. Hmm.

Never applied to U of K…perhaps I should have explored that option. Hmm.

NOTE: she didn’t take physic, calculus (she’s taking pre-c as a senior) or organic chemistry. How did she get in to these schools? Well, I’m guessing her higher SAT than yours, but I honestly think its because she got herself licensed as a pharm tech in training and is interning as a pharm tech in training at a local pharmacy. I would recommend that to anyone trying to get into a prepharm program hint hint

10

@OMG1108, did you look at Duquesne? They are giving out merit scholarships between $10,000 and $20,000. And for pharmacy the scholarships are good for 5 out of 6 years as far as I know.
Even if you would only get the $10,000 it would still be alot cheaper than Butler, normal tuition is $35,000 plus about $10,000 for R+B.
Although I’m not sure what the science and math requirements are.

If you go to one school for prepharmacy then you have to make sure you take all the prerequisites for any of the pharmacy schools you might want to apply to and if you’re not guaranteed acceptance into the pharmacy program you would want to apply to quite a few of them.

They have quite a difference in requirements, for example Kentucky requires like 73 credits of prerequisites and some other schools are around 65. Also you might want to check how many students from OOS are accepted into the pharmacy program and how much different the OOS cost is for year P1-P4.

11

@OMG1108- If your D chooses Butler, even with it being more expensive, keep in mind that she’ll be out in 6 years and earning a salary 1 to 2 years before students in some of the other programs. Yes, some kids do get accepted into Purdue and UKy after 2 years of pre-pharmacy, but a lot have a bachelors degree. I think UKy says only 13% do the 2 +4, most are on the track to make it 7 years. And with the predicted unemployment rate of 20% coming up the sooner she can get out and get a job, the better. (I’m hoping that rate is wrong, but all of the industry journals are giving dire predictions). Another thing that may or may not be an issue with Manchester (have to admit I’m not familiar with it) is that established programs have established clinical rotation sites for their students. With all of the new Pharmacy schools opening up some of them are having a hard time finding enough sites for their students.

12

I’m a sophomore in high school in NJ and was wondering what my chances are for Rutgers and university of the sciences 0-6 programs.

I was also curious if senior year counts with what classes I’m taking because I will take a good amount of AP classes that year as well as physics reg, which Rutgers recommends to take. I want to make sure they look at senior year too since I’ll take many science AP classes that year.

Also, I’ll be taking the new 1600 pt SAT, and was wondering about what score will be needed for admission to rutgers and USP. I have very smart kids in HS so is class rank very important?

-Freshmen: Hon alg 2, Hon eng, spanish 2 reg, Bio hon
GPA: 4.0(most u can get in my school is this) and weighted: 5.75/6.0

-Sophomore: Hon precalc, spanish 3 hon, hon eng 2, hon chem, history 1 reg
Getting good A’s so far so most prob will be: GPA: 4.0 and weighted: 5.8/6.0

-Junior classes: Hon spanish 4, AP ENG, AP Calc 1, history 2 reg, AP bio

-Senior classes: AP spanish 5(maybe), AP Calc 2, phsyics reg, AP chem, AP eng, AP world cultures