<p>I am a senior in high school and currently deciding where to go to college next year. I was deferred from UNC (OOS) and will hear back in mid-March. I want to study pharmacy, and I know UNC has a great program. My only concern is that I don't really want to have to get a bachelor's and spend 8 years to get my PharmD. It seems that it would take me about 3 years to complete UNC's prerequisites for the pharmacy school. I am OK with this but I am concerned that I will have a disadvantage when applying because I don't have a bachelor's degree. According to their website 80% of their students have bachelor's degrees. Do you have to have superb grades/interview/pcat to get in without a bachelor's?</p>
<p>Also, how hard do you find the science courses at UNC? I come from a really good high school (blue ribbon) and am basically a straight A student with lots of honors and AP but do you find that UNC is a lot harder than high school no matter where you come from? I know if I go for undergrad I will need really good grades and I am just curious if getting high grades is really difficult.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for any possible info on either of these topics.</p>
<p>If you are “on schedule” for pharmacy school at UNC, you complete all your requirements in the first two years of undergrad, apply, and then start pharmacy school your junior year. Then pharmacy school lasts four years. However, fulfilling the requirements in two years is almost impossible unless you come in with a lot of AP credit for science classes. Everyone I know who was “on schedule” for pharm school after two years had to do summer school to fit everything in - it was hardcore. A lot of people choose to do four years of undergrad and get a BA before applying to pharm school because it is just easier to spread all the requirements out over four years and not get burned out.</p>
<p>All that being said, everyone I know who has applied to pharmacy school has gotten in, so I don’t think it is as nearly competitive as med school, dental school, etc. As long as you have decent grades, a good PCAT score, and you’re not a total creeper in the interview, I think you should be absolutely fine. A lot of people I know applied their junior year, so they were just a year behind schedule.</p>
<p>The difficulty of science classes at UNC has been well-documented in previous threads (and I have written about this before if you search my past posts). It is really hard to do well in science classes but not impossible.</p>
<p>I hope this helps! Let me know if you need more info. : -)</p>
<p>It sounds like UNC gives strong priority to those who actually did their undergrad at UNC and aren’t trying to transfer into the pharmacy program from another school. Cause their website does say they only accepted 155 out of 710 applicants (22%), but you make it sound like most people who apply from UNC undergrad get in. I wonder how many of the accepted students are from UNC undergrad…</p>
<p>Now that you mention it, it does seem like the vast majority of pharmacy people here either got in during undergrad or got in after graduating from UNC. In fact, I’ve never even thought about people from other schools going to the pharmacy school here (which is really dumb since I’m sure there are a few - I’ve just never met any!). They must give priority to UNC people.</p>
<p>Just to put things in perspective, out of five of my good friends who started in the fall w/ me as bio majors, only 1 of us is still pursuing it. Chem will kick your butt. </p>
<p>If you make it through as a biology major you will get a great education but for some (like me) realized it’s just not worth the effort/stress to continue with it.</p>