<p>Did anyone apply for the TAP Program?</p>
<p>What is that?</p>
<p>i think its the pharmacy program at USC and my friend applied to it</p>
<p>Yes, I did. Although this could be considered thread necroing, I genuinely want to find out if anyone else on these boards also got in.</p>
<p>Yes. I will be finishing up the last year of the undergraduate portion of the program before moving to the Health Science Campus.</p>
<p>rdang, how was it? I know that was a very vague question, so I’ll ask a couple others. Do you recommend getting a BA/BS? Did you think that the structure of the curriculum was too rigid? Are you a really enthusiastic science person?</p>
<p>I think the TAP program is a really great opportunity for anyone who is sure they want to go into Pharmacy. You get to bypass the stress of phamarcy/graduate school applications and GRE/MCAT/PCAT testings. This makes your undergraduate experience a little less stressful. </p>
<p>Most people I know in the TAP program will be getting a BA/BS-in fact, I only know one who is not. It is up to you if you want to do that in 3- or 4-years; I will be getting a BA in Biology with a Minor in Health Communication in 3 years. I know other people getting a BA/BS in Health Promotions, Biochemistry, etc. It’s not necessary to get a BA/BS because in the end a Pharm.D is a Pharm.D and no one cares about your BA/BS. But I decided to get one because it’s nice to have a safety net since you never know what will happen in the 4-years of pharmacy school. </p>
<p>The curriculum is not rigid at all. It’s actually kind of nice to have most of your classes planned for you–you can even take the classes out of order (not the sciences though) so you still have that freedom. I’ve done a lot of comparisons, and the Pre-Pharm prerequisites are pretty much the same as a Pre-Med track (and if you want to get a BA/BS, a Biology degree is best since they overlap a lot). The TAP curriculum is no harder than any other science-focused curriculum that would lead you Med School, Dental School, etc.</p>
<p>I like science (especially Biology) so I guess you could call me a “science person” but I hated O-Chem. Haha =x</p>
<p>Hmm, that was a long response. Hope it helps!</p>
<p>Thanks! This helped shed light on several things about TAP.</p>
<p>I’m in TAP as well. I’m actually double majoring, so I’ll be here for 4 years.</p>
<p>But yeah, most people do complete their BA/BS before going to the HSC (again, I only know of 1 person who isn’t, and it’s the same guy that rdang knows). Since most people come in with a bunch of AP/IB/transfer credits, they can get a BA in biology in 3 years (since those count as elective credit). Again, it’s not required, but it is something you can fall back on if you find out pharmacy isn’t right for you.</p>
<p>The curriculum isn’t rigid at all. As pre-health student, you’re required to take all the basic science courses i.e. gen bio and chem, molbio, biochem, ochem 1+2. Those you can’t get out of. As pre-pharm students, we need to take a bunch of other classes that I think pre-meds don’t have to take (economics, communication, psychology, etc). But even then, you have a choice: microecon or macroecon, psychology or sociology, statistics in the math department or psych department or HP department. So it’s definitely not that bad. Plus, there’s a huge variety of GE classes to spice up that dreary science-based schedule.</p>