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matt, wut's the job prospect like for pharmacists now and in the future?
what is the atmosphere like among pharmacy students? i'm guessing pharmacy schools isn't pass or fail like medschools. is it super competetive like BSc or more friendly?
does GPA matter in pharm schools as long as you are in no danger of failing? is it only important if you want to go for your masters or transfer to other programs?
Carleton Chemistry 2013
Toronto Pharmacy 2014<--- accepted
Stanford Chemistry?
Knowledgeable in: Carleton science, PCAT, Toronto Pharmacy, HS stuff, and Starcraft
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CheeseCake wrote:matt, wut's the job prospect like for pharmacists now and in the future?
what is the atmosphere like among pharmacy students? i'm guessing pharmacy schools isn't pass or fail like medschools. is it super competetive like BSc or more friendly?
does GPA matter in pharm schools as long as you are in no danger of failing? is it only important if you want to go for your masters or transfer to other programs? Pharmacists are in high demand right now and should continue to be for the next long while. However, the role of pharmacists is changing: to quote one of my professors, "pharmacists will be more of knowledge dispensers than medication dispensers." Pharmacy technicians are becoming educated and regulated, and, as a result, their role in the pharmacy is increasing. They can do all the physical work (counting, bottling, and packaging pills; receiving prescriptions; compounding; etc...); however, they are not able to do the cognitive work (dosing, conducting patient histories, developing care plans with patients, answering drug-related questions, interpreting lab results, etc...), and a pharmacist must always sign off on a prescription. The increasing tech role means that pharmacists have more time to spend with patients. At least at U of A, the skills courses are pass/fail; the lecture courses are graded... I think med school is the same way. Once you're in a professional school, there is no real need to do well. Our profs and upper-year students constantly tell us this. If you get in and pass all your courses in pharmacy school, then you obviously have the ability to memorize. That's really all that your GPA says about you: that you can put the effort into memorizing a lot of material. Employers don't really care about this that much; what is much more important is that you be a good communicator. A lot of people still very much have that "I must get as high a GPA as possible" mentality, but people hardly take it to the level of hurting other people to benefit themselves. Not that I ever experienced that in undergrad... I mentioned above that my classes consist only of other first-year pharmacy students, which makes it easy to meet people. There are lots of opportunities to meet classmates: numerous social events (at least one a week), group projects, seminars, volunteering, pharmacy student-specific intramurals, in the pharmacy student lounge, and more. And you actually do want to meet your classmates because you know you'll be in essentially all the same classes as them for the next four years. Thus, rather than being cut-throat, it is a VERY friendly environment. At U of A, you have to get a GPA of at least 2.7 with no course mark less than 2.0 to stay in the program. Other than meeting that minimum requirement, I suppose you would want to do well if you want to pursue graduate studies afterwards or transfer into another professional program.
BMSc Honours Specialization in Medical Science, Minor in Psychology UWO '09 Bachelor of Pharmacy University of Alberta '13
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Good pharmacist salary survey: http://www.opatoday.com/documents/2006wbwes.pdf
BMSc Honours Specialization in Medical Science, Minor in Psychology UWO '09 Bachelor of Pharmacy University of Alberta '13
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Somebody posted this on the U of T forums:
"Actually, the traditional job market was used to 120 new graduates per year. UofT 0T9 Class was the FIRST class to reach the new 240 seats, so the supply has already doubled. Now that Waterloo is open and is accepting 120 students per year (exception is their first class which has an enrollment of 90), PLUS approximately 220 IPG's, we have a total of around 560-580 new pharmacists being licensed every year. This is around five times the supply the job market was used to just 5-10 years ago.
The supply has recently met demand in the US with pharmacy schools opening at a rapid speed all over the country. The job market in urban centres in Ontario has already reached saturation. The only real silver lining is that demand in rural (and I'm talking not about Aurora rural, I'm talking about 3 hours plane flight north of Thunder Bay rural) is still high."
This seems like a pretty accurate statement for Ontario but I'm not sure how it applies to other provinces. I think that as more pharmacists get licensed (keep in mind Waterloo still hasn't had its first graduating class), there'll be more competition for jobs particularly in urban areas. Plus, it seems like Waterloo is looking to increase the number of seats so that means even more Pharmacists are going to be licensed. Pharmacy schools in Ontario are also looking to implement the Pharm D in the near future so I'm not sure what that means for people with Bachelor of Pharmacy degrees (especially those who have just recently graduated).
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U of T didn't double in size and Waterloo wasn't created just for the fun of it. Those additions were made because numerous pharmacy regulatory bodies thought that graduating ~360 Ontario pharmacy students per year would be what is needed to meet the demand for pharmacists in Ontario.
Graduating 120 students per year was ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. U of A has been graduating 130 students per year for the last long while... Alberta's population = 3.5 million; Ontario's population = 13 million. Relatively speaking, Ontario has a population more than 3.5 times greater than Alberta's, which would mean we'd have to graduate at least 450 pharmacy students a year to even be on the level with Alberta.
Manitoba is an even better example because all U of M pharm students are from Manitoba and, presumably, stay in Manitoba to practice. U of M currently graduates 52 pharmacy students per year. Manitoba's population is 1.2 million, less than a tenth of Ontario's. Relatively speaking, Ontario would have to graduate at least 520 pharmacy students a year to be on par with Manitoba.
I'm not worried at all, and obviously that post wasn't made with careful consideration of the facts.
Furthermore, just look at the "career opportunities" portions of the chain drug stores' websites. The job market is NOT saturated.
BMSc Honours Specialization in Medical Science, Minor in Psychology UWO '09
Bachelor of Pharmacy University of Alberta '13
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taken from stress therapy
today i got my PCAT (pharmacy college admission test) scores back. i got an 82 percentile in composite. This is a solid score for toronto pharmacy and an excellent score for somoene who only had a month and a half of university studies under his belt. too bad i can't use it because one of my writing section score is 0.5 mark below the minimum required. now i have to miss all the christmas parties and new year parties i've been rly looking forward to because i have to prepare for january PCAT. F*CK!!!!!!
how did u guys do?
Carleton Chemistry 2013
Toronto Pharmacy 2014<--- accepted
Stanford Chemistry?
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This thread makes me want to become a pharmacist.
Meatball Engineering '12
能ある鷹は爪を隠す
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CheeseCake wrote:taken from stress therapy
today i got my PCAT (pharmacy college admission test) scores back. i got an 82 percentile in composite. This is a solid score for toronto pharmacy and an excellent score for somoene who only had a month and a half of university studies under his belt. too bad i can't use it because one of my writing section score is 0.5 mark below the minimum required. now i have to miss all the christmas parties and new year parties i've been rly looking forward to because i have to prepare for january PCAT. F*CK!!!!!!
how did u guys do? Wow, that sucks so much ass, considering that most people get 3/3.  That's an amazing composite though, considering you didn't even take any orgo/A&P/microbio. How hardcore is the orgo anyways?
McMaster BSc '13
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How is the job security/prospects for Pharmacists?
Are you almost guaranteed to find a job(Salary with 6 figure income) when you graduate?
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The number of current job opportunities for pharmacists is astounding. You're essentially guaranteed a job if you graduate and get licensed. Whether it's a six-figure income or not will depend mostly on where you are willing to work.
BMSc Honours Specialization in Medical Science, Minor in Psychology UWO '09
Bachelor of Pharmacy University of Alberta '13
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Hey matt =)
I'm currently a first year student in UofT.
I was just wondering, when applying for the pharmacy application, are you able to pick the subjects that you want them to look at?
Let's say you have 2 years of uni under your belt and you completed more than enough of the required subjects or have more than one credit in a particular subject,\
Are you able to pick and choose the credits with the highest averages and place it on your application?
Or will the university that you are applying to just look at you're entire cumulative average and pick your first year courses?
My first semester hasn't been that amazing when it comes to my marks. After my finals I know for at least one or two of my classes I know I will receive a high 60 or low 70.
My fear is that these marks will greatly affect my average in the long run. My plan is to get another credit in that subject next year and hopefully the universities will look at that one in replacement for that requirement I need for pharmacy school.
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Unfortunately not. They are going to request your transcript (a list of all the courses you've taken in university and your marks in those courses), so they will be able to see all your marks. Will they take all your marks into consideration? Maybe, to some extent. They tend to put more emphasis on your marks in the prerequisite courses.
BMSc Honours Specialization in Medical Science, Minor in Psychology UWO '09
Bachelor of Pharmacy University of Alberta '13
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mynameismattgotmlgo wrote:Unfortunately not. They are going to request your transcript (a list of all the courses you've taken in university and your marks in those courses), so they will be able to see all your marks. Will they take all your marks into consideration? Maybe, to some extent. They tend to put more emphasis on your marks in the prerequisite courses. Especially chemistry marks.
McMaster BSc '13
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hey matt
i would like to know what extracurricular /research experience you had before applying to pharmacy school.
also, what did you state as your primary reason for going into pharmacy vs physiotherapy, dentistry, etc
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I volunteered a little bit in a research lab at Western, and I listed intramurals, Western Billiards Club, and Western Pre-Med Society as my only extracurriculars. Actually, I may have also listed the nursing home I volunteered at for my 40 hours of community service in high school. Nothing special.
My dad is in the dental business, so he wanted me to go into dentistry, but I couldn't see myself doing delicate surgeries in people's mouths for the rest of my life. I didn't want to do medicine because it seemed like too much work, and I didn't want a job that I'd take home with me.
What really appealed to me about pharmacy (and still does) is the variability. You can work in community practice (i.e. in the drug store), in hospital/clinical practice (and I'm not talking about in the drug stores that are in some hospitals; I mean as a pharmacist who works with doctors and nurses to provide the best drug therapy to the hospitalized patient), as a consultant pharmacist who visits nursing homes (and has a role that is a mix between that of the community pharmacist and that of the hospital pharmacist), as a drug information specialist (working in an office that doctors, dentists, and fellow pharmacists call if they need more information on a drug), and in industry (helping with marketing, writing drug information "monographs", and more).
Aside from that, you can work part-time (may not sound special, but it's pretty uncommon among health professions), as a relief pharmacist (a pharmacist who works on short-term contractual basis at a number of different pharmacies, e.g. work a week at one pharmacy, then work a week at another pharmacy... Essentially what you're doing is filling in for pharmacists who go on vacation. The nice thing is that you get to choose if you want to work or not. If you want to take July off, then just don't take any contracts for July), and as a pharmacy owner.
And, there are pharmacies in pretty much every town in Canada, so I could go pretty much anywhere that I wanted to in Canada. I could work at a busy pharmacy in a city, where I'm pretty much just checking prescriptions, or I could work at a quieter pharmacy in a small village, where I'd be able to spend lots of time talking with patients.
I always wanted a job that wouldn't bore me. Upon realizing that I'll eventually get bored of my job, no matter how much I like it to begin with, I decided that I wanted a career that could have me doing different things through my working life. I can't think of a career that fits that better than pharmacy does.
BMSc Honours Specialization in Medical Science, Minor in Psychology UWO '09
Bachelor of Pharmacy University of Alberta '13
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Hi Matt
I am currently in my third year and plan on finishing my undergrad in human kinetics with a minor in health sciences. I was just wondering if you could help me as to whether it would be a good idea to take honours next year. I've heard some different opinions and I'm scared it'll lower my average, especially since dal (the school i plan on applying to) doesn't take gpa into concern but only looks at your pre recs and last year of study averages. my average right now is about an 82.
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Hey there Matt ,
before I ask my couple of questions I'd just like to say thanks ! I'm sure you've helped out many people already with this thread .
I was wondering how the pharmacy program actually worked . I'm applying to university now and I was wondering , if you can get into most pharmacy programs after one year of undergrad do you continue with your undergrad studies ? Or would you have to take courses that your undergrad studies need and take pharmacy courses as well?
Also I was wondering if you had any knowledge on which university programs within Ontario I should be aiming for if I wanted to get into pharmacy . I currently have Life Science at UTSG , Waterloo , and McMasters looked into but applying to only three programs seems like a risk to me .
Hope to hear from you , or anyone else with past experience or knowledge , soon . & thanks again !
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No. Once you're in pharmacy school, you wouldn't be able to continue with your undergraduate studies at the same time.
Pretty much every school has a life science program of some sort, and I highly doubt that one is considerably better than the others.
Waterloo has one of the easier to get into life sci programs in Ontario... I think an 80% average would guarantee you an acceptance there. A low-to-mid 80 average should be good enough for U of T and Mac, although you may need more like an 86% average or higher this year to get into Mac (because they supposedly aren't taking as many students this year). With that exception, an 85% average should be good enough to essentially guarantee you acceptance to any life sci program in Ontario.
BMSc Honours Specialization in Medical Science, Minor in Psychology UWO '09
Bachelor of Pharmacy University of Alberta '13
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Alright , thanks a lot Matt ! Hope this thread continues and maybe I'll be able to contribute to it if I ever succeed in this field 
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Hello, I got a few questions about pharmacy.
Most of the pharmacy programs require calculus but is there a university that does not need it?
This is just to double check - If I go to UFT and take the 'Pharmaceutical Chemistry' program and pass its 2 years course, I am guranteed into the pharmacy school (which is +4 another years)? Also, is it possible that somewhere along the way, I change my career to a Concurrent Teacher with bio & chem as my 2 subjects? Or if I take that program, I must stick with it till pharmacy school?
Sorry if my questions are a bit confusing.
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