<p>What is a great school in the midwest or southeast for freshman interested in both Pharmacy and PreMed (liberal arts). My daughter is trying to decide on schools. She wants to study pharmacy.... but also thinks premed may be a good base in case she changes her mind during school. We have visited many UNC, Univ of Illinois at Chicago, Purdue, Univ of Cincinnati, Ohio Northern, Miami University, U of Michigan and Michigan State. Either she wo uld major in Pharmacy, Chemistry or Biochemistry. HS stats... 3.85 GPA... , several math and science AP classes and all the rest of the typical stuff. Any advice on Great Schools... regardless of her decision on pharmacy or premed studies...?</p>
<p>Well, my local state school, University of Kentucky, has a pretty good pharmacy program, or so I'm told.</p>
<p>Some of the schools she visited do not actually have pharmacy schools (Michigan State, Miami U of OH). If she's interested in pharmacy, she needs to do a lot of research into the prepharm major at each school, since at many schools it's a very specific track. Each pharmacy school has different requirements, which makes trying to apply to several schools tricky. If you're on one school's track, you may not be meeting the prepharm requirements for another school. Most pharmacy schools will not accept science and math AP credits, since they want you to take their own classes. </p>
<p>Having said that, Ohio State has a good program, as does Cincinnati and U-Michigan. She may qualify for the pharmacy guarantee at one of those schools, Ohio Northern or even a med school or pharmacy school guarantee at Toledo. Qualifying for a guarantee is a huge benefit, since the admissions stats are in the 25% of applicants range. (My kid is now applying to SUNY Buffalo's School of Pharmacy, which is ranked very highly by USNews --plus it has a pharmacy guarantee for entering students who declare themselves prepharm majors and maintain a specified GPA in science and math classes).</p>
<p>Pharmacy schools' admissions criteria have changed even from two years' ago when my kid was applying to colleges (some schools, like UCONN, are now limiting applications to their own students, and Duquesne is now accepting applicants only from their affiliated schools. My kid has also found that some schools are changing from 0-6 or 2+4 to 4 + 2/3 -- ie, they are moving towards requiring a BS for the pharmacy program). </p>
<p>I've seen Kentucky's school of pharmacy recommended several times. I actually met with an admissions counselor in U-Kentucky's School of Pharmacy with one of my kids, and we were told that they only accept a small percentile of OSS students each year. When you consider that many OSS applicants have already earned a BS in chem, bio, etc., it becomes a real stretch for OSS applicants who might be looking for a 2+4 program.</p>
<p>The questions for premed programs tend to be different - what are the advisors like, how many kids in a premed program change to something else, how many kids who stay in the premed program actually get into med school. My kid who was also deciding between premed and pharmacy met a professor at U-Delaware during our college visits, who gave him a real eye-opener about the number of declared premed students who get weeded out. This professor warned that the stats about kids who are recommended by the Premed Committee end up being the only kids whose credentials are so good that they'd get admitted anyway....so that claiming 85% of students etc. are admitted through the Premed Committee is a questionable statistic. (Ultimately, my kid decided to pursue pharmacy.) </p>
<p>I suggest that your D take a look at U-Michigan, Ohio State and Pitt, for great premed and pharmacy programs. All of these schools have great programs in both majors.</p>
<p>Thanks for your comments. I told my daughter to apply to u of m even though she likes state better (no pharm program).... If she can get in early acceptance into their pharmacy program it would be too good to pass up. I guess we should look at OSU... although she expressed no interest there, a visit won't hurt. We did visit ohio northern. I and she really liked.... but so remote.... they would have to provide a lot of incentive for us to strongly consider.... we can be bought :)</p>
<p>Butler University, Indianapolis</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, 50% of the students here actually study a subject outside of the life and physical sciences. It has a reputation for being premed central, though its not real because only 25% of the student body is premed, wide course offerins and top programs in humanities, social science, hard science fields. There are so many majors, it is very flexible if you decide not to pursue premed or pharmacy studies.</p>
<p>Chilly: The first 2 years of pre-pharm and pre-med fulfill many of the same requirements. I think getting a well rounded education is a great plan if she's undecided. But pharmacy school admissions are getting very tough, as neonzeus said, and she might want to look at 2+4 schools with early assurance programs if she's leaning in that direction.<br>
The midwest/southeast ones I know of are Nova Southeastern, Palm Beach Atlantic, Mercer, Midwestern, Butler, Drake, UofM- Kansas City, Univ of Nebraska, Univ of Toledo, Hampton, Shenandoah, and UVA. Also, Univ of Findlay has a program which is not yet fully accredited - I believe they have to graduate their first class of PharmD's.</p>