Pre-Pharmacy going into Pharmacy College?

There are more than 120 colleges of pharmacy across the nation. There are lots of programs that only require you complete your pre-pharmacy courses, which is roughly 2 - 3 years of college. Register for the PCAT after taking or during organic chemistry, students start applying as early as their sophomore year. If you don't get in the first time, you are still in college actively pursing your degree. If you get in, then you can be finished with pharmacy school at the age of 23 or 24, making six figures with less debt.

If you really want to get your bachelor's degree, consider a unique major or minor in something besides chemistry or biology, so you can be marketable and find fulfilling employment while you apply to pharmacy school. It does not matter if you have your bachelor or master degree, what matters is that you are successful the first time around in most of the prerequisites and that you start developing relationships now with admissions and faculty. Visit the pharmacy colleges that most interest you, apply to a summer pharmacy camp to learn about different practice areas.

Yes, it would but it's also overkill in terms of money and time invested. Pre-Pharmacy isn't a degree, it's just a set of courses designed to cover all the pre-requisite courses needed to get into a Pharmacy school. You can major in whatever in high school and satisfy the requirements but it is most common to major in some sort of science. Yes, you can which is why you always need a fallback plan. Some people don't get into Pharmacy school until their 2nd or even 3rd try. If you can't make it within your 3rd try I would advise going into a different career path.

1. A 0-6 pharmacy school is a complete pharmacy school. You don't need to transfer. 2. PCAT is not required. 3. You apply again and/or get a bachelors. 4. It depends on your bachelors.

Getting a masters before applying to a pharm.d program is just redundant and unnecessary. Sure it may "look better" but having a bachelors is more than enough The only reason to get a masters before applying to a pharm.d program is if your undergraduate gpa sucks and is too low to get you in to a pharm.d program. Thats like going in to medical school, most students don't get a masters before applying to medical school unless their undergrad gpa isn't good enough to get accepted to medical school.

You also have to think about the costs. Getting your pharm.d isn't cheap so why add on unnecessary student loan debt by getting an unnecessary masters degree?

Pre-pharm is NOT a major, it is a specialization or course option you take just like pre-med. You would major in biology, chemistry, art, philosophy, psychology, really anything but you take the required pre-pharmacy classes. Once again, its like med school, lots of doctors majored in music for their undergrad degree before going to med school.

And lastly, ya, its highly probably you don't get accepted to a pharm.d program even after undergrad. You have to keep your gpa up high, do some extracurriculars, and have good test scores to get admitted. If you don't get in you better have a back up plan. If you choose a major without a defined career then you could find yourself with lots of debt and no career if you don't get in to a pharmacy program. Liberal arts majors like psych, sociology, poly sci, and english dont lead to much other than teaching jobs. Science degrees like biology and chemistry often times require a masters degree to get any decent job working in a lab.

Really I would major in something like business, accounting, or computer science so that if you don't get accepted to a pharm.d program you're not stuck with a useless degree and no career.