chances of getting in?

[mayiua]

The past few months I've been lurking tons of pre-pharm forums, including this one. Besides all of the threads on how bad the job market is, there's an equal amount of people saying how easy it is to get accepted compared to previous years.

This sounds completely different from what I've been hearing from advisors at my school (I'm in Canada), so I'm having trouble figuring out if I have good chances or not. My school requires applicants to write the PCAT, they recently made this a requirement 4-5 years ago, which I find odd. Also requires a GPA of at least 3.50 (changed to 3.00 due to lockdowns and such... not sure if this is a good thing or not). I don't remember how many people they accept; I recall it being 50-60 people per intake. Again, this doesn't line up with a lot of the things I'm seeing on forums, so I just want some insight.

I have a 3.79 GPA, not including my current semester. The lowest grade I got was a C+ in biochem, highest grades are 4.50 in calculus 1 and 2 that I took in high school.

Taking the PCAT in a few days. Only studied consistently for a few weeks but I took ochem, biochem, stats, a&p last semester and remember a fair bit of it (except biochem apparently). I'm getting 80-89%tile on Pearson practice tests, lower on Kaplan tests.

Genuinely regretting choosing pharmacy but tiger mom works in a pharmacy (not a pharmacist) and insists that the job market is fine... I have multiple back-up plans for research or other health sciences if I can ever convince her.

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[BC_89]

The past few months I've been lurking tons of pre-pharm forums, including this one. Besides all of the threads on how bad the job market is, there's an equal amount of people saying how easy it is to get accepted compared to previous years.

This sounds completely different from what I've been hearing from advisors at my school (I'm in Canada), so I'm having trouble figuring out if I have good chances or not. My school requires applicants to write the PCAT, they recently made this a requirement 4-5 years ago, which I find odd. Also requires a GPA of at least 3.50 (changed to 3.00 due to lockdowns and such... not sure if this is a good thing or not). I don't remember how many people they accept; I recall it being 50-60 people per intake. Again, this doesn't line up with a lot of the things I'm seeing on forums, so I just want some insight.

I have a 3.79 GPA, not including my current semester. The lowest grade I got was a C+ in biochem, highest grades are 4.50 in calculus 1 and 2 that I took in high school.

Taking the PCAT in a few days. Only studied consistently for a few weeks but I took ochem, biochem, stats, a&p last semester and remember a fair bit of it (except biochem apparently). I'm getting 80-89%tile on Pearson practice tests, lower on Kaplan tests.

Genuinely regretting choosing pharmacy but tiger mom works in a pharmacy (not a pharmacist) and insists that the job market is fine... I have multiple back-up plans for research or other health sciences if I can ever convince her.

So if I'm reading correctly, you want further insight as to how competitive it is to get into pharmacy school in the U.S. while at the same time you're regretting the decision to pursue the field? I will also assume you plan to work in the U.S. when the time comes:

According to the AACP (American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy), it is reported that the U.S. has 143 colleges (regionally accredited plus candidate status) with 1 additional pre-candidate program (as of July 2019) with many others in progress of opening up to the PharmD program. Of the 144 programs, 95 of them currently either do not require the PCAT or make it optional. In fact, even more have waived the PCAT in 2020-2021 cycle due to our current pandemic:

List of Pharmacy Schools That Don't Require PCAT In 2021 (worldscholarshipforum.com)

So roughly only about 34% of the programs require the entrance exam. This decreases every year as more programs are moving away from the requirement. Pharmacy was considered very competitive up until about 2005+ era when more programs started opening up in high numbers. Matter of fact, since 2005, 54 programs have opened up.

List of pharmacy schools in the United States - Wikipedia

So when you read from some of our senior members that state how "easy" it is to get in, many of them had to show some grit and work hard for that acceptance back when anything below a 3.5 GPA (on a 4.0 scale) was considered worrisome for an acceptance (pre-90's to early 2000's era). As of now, the requirements have tremendously dropped in the majority of the programs (since that time era) with many students getting interviews with much lower average scores and little to no healthcare experience.

As for your PCAT concern, Pearson Tests are very accurate in comparing how you'd do on the actual PCAT. Your GPA is more than fine. I suggest looking further into our other subforums for more information in regards to career outlook upon graduation:

Job Saturation: Is Pharmacy Worth It? Here's What You Need to Know | Student Doctor Network

Job Market | Student Doctor Network

 

[mayiua]

So if I'm reading correctly, you want further insight as to how competitive it is to get into pharmacy school in the U.S. while at the same time you're regretting the decision to pursue the field? I will also assume you plan to work in the U.S. when the time comes:

According to the AACP (American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy), it is reported that the U.S. has 143 colleges (regionally accredited plus candidate status) with 1 additional pre-candidate program (as of July 2019) with many others in progress of opening up to the PharmD program. Of the 144 programs, 95 of them currently either do not require the PCAT or make it optional. In fact, even more have waived the PCAT in 2020-2021 cycle due to our current pandemic:

List of Pharmacy Schools That Don't Require PCAT In 2021 (worldscholarshipforum.com)

So roughly only about 34% of the programs require the entrance exam. This decreases every year as more programs are moving away from the requirement. Pharmacy was considered very competitive up until about 2005+ era when more programs started opening up in high numbers. Matter of fact, since 2005, 54 programs have opened up.

List of pharmacy schools in the United States - Wikipedia

So when you read from some of our senior members that state how "easy" it is to get in, many of them had to show some grit and work hard for that acceptance back when anything below a 3.5 GPA (on a 4.0 scale) was considered worrisome for an acceptance (pre-90's to early 2000's era). As of now, the requirements have tremendously dropped in the majority of the programs (since that time era) with many students getting interviews with much lower average scores and little to no healthcare experience.

As for your PCAT concern, Pearson Tests are very accurate in comparing how you'd do on the actual PCAT. Your GPA is more than fine. I suggest looking further into our other subforums for more information in regards to career outlook upon graduation:

Job Saturation: Is Pharmacy Worth It? Here's What You Need to Know | Student Doctor Network

Job Market | Student Doctor Network

Thanks! And no, I probably should've worded it better. I fully intend on studying in Canada and wanted to see if anyone knew more about what the standards are like at Canadian schools.

Thanks for all the resources tho! Will definitely give them a read.