If you’re worried that you are going to have a hard time getting into a pharmacy school, reading about the 10 least competitive pharmacy schools in America might provide some relief. These are among the easiest pharmacy schools to get accepted into.
To reach the end of the road to becoming a successful pharmacist, a bachelor’s degree is a necessity, followed by four years in a pharmacy program after which you will finally be awarded a Doctor of Pharmacy Degree. Depending on how long your undergraduate program was, becoming a full-blown pharmacist will require seven to eight years.
There are certain prerequisite courses that an aspiring applicant needs to have taken to be able to enroll in a pharmacy school. Usually, these include one to two semesters each of chemistry (general and organic), biology, physiology, microbiology, physics and mathematics. To find out more about the requirements that pharmacy schools usually have, check out this comprehensive list.
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Furthermore, a good score in the Pharmacy College Admission Test (PCAT) is always a plus. The fortunate aspect of this test is that there are no passing marks, which is why colleges usually do not state a minimum score on their eligibility requirements. The actual taking of the test is the only essential. The score of admitted students is relative to how other students fared in the test.
All these things are the must-haves of an application into a pharmacy college, but for value addition, it never hurts to have some experience. An internship at a pharmacy here and there will increase your chances of getting in. But if you think you don’t have a good chance of admission in the first place due to less than impressive grades, well then keep on reading to find out the least competitive pharmacy schools in America. If you’ve lost all hope though and want to consider a career change, maybe the Least Competitive Nursing Schools in America will be a better read for you.
Now let’s talk about the methodology used to compile this list of least competitive pharmacy schools in America. I referred to the list of pharmacy schools in the US prepared by SmartClass, a source that took data directly from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. The schools were then ranked on the basis of average GPA of students admitted. The less the GPA of the admitted class, the less competitive it will be. In case of ties, I figured that the school with the better quality should be higher up on the list. And how was that quality determined? Well, after completing a Pharm.D program, graduates are required to give the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) in order to obtain a license for practice. So the schools where students had a higher average NAPLEX pass rate were ranked better. Let’s finally list down the colleges that made the cut.
