<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>