Your honest input will be highly appreciated

[Trackster]

Hello everyone, this year was my first year applying to pharmacy school and I got rejected.... sad indeed. But anyways, since then, I've been wondering what can I do to improve my chances for next year. Would I need to take the PCAT again or I must have done really bad on the interview? Is it because I'm an out-of-state in the school I applied to? Various questions keeps popping to my mind that I could not answer. To let you know how unwise I was,I only applied to one school (too much overconfidence) and obviously,you all should
have noticed that English is not my first language (I'm an international student) but that is not an excuse...

Anyways,my stats are as follows

3.8 Science Gpa
3.8 Non Science Gpa
Graduating this May
Did a 5 month pharmacy volunteer in both in-patient and out-patient
Have a lot of extra curricular activities (actually I'm an athlete) but not a lot of giving to the community where I live.

Second time PCAT taker. I took my first PCAT in October last year and the second time this January to improve my chances.

First PCAT:

VERBAL: 32
Reading:28
Quantitative:55
Biology: 60
Chemistry:67
Composite: 45

Second PCAT:
VERBAL: 29
Reading: 29
Quantitative:52
Biology:69
Chemistry:99
Composite: 73

No matter how hard I tried, my English scores got worse.
Your honest input will be highly appreciated. Honestly,do you guys think I need to retake the PCAT or what should I do?Just to let you know,you guys are wonderful in this forum and God bless everyone.

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[omnione]

Lesson to future applicants: NEVER only apply to one school! It only takes alienating your interviewer to leave you waiting another year!

For you Trackster, I would take the PCAT again over the summer and apply to more schools. Your PCAT score was held up by that 99 Chemistry score that skewed the rest of your scores. So, I would improve on the other sections.

Otherwise, everything else is fine. I would also ask that school you applied to exactly why you were rejected. They may not be upfront, but they could tell you.

 

[Dr.Biassi]

I think you need to retake the PCAT. You need to get better scores since you are an international students

 

[Farmercyst]

Applying to more than one school will help. Retaking the PCAT would probably help. Don't know when you applied, but earlier helps usually. One thing I'd be concerned with is your Reading/Verbal. Having never taken the PCAT I can't really comment on the difficulty, but the percentiles seem to be rather low. Your post doesn't really show any deficiencies in grammar, so I'm wondering why the low scores. No offense intended here, but is there a reading issue that causes problems with Reading Comprehension type questions. Without knowing anything else about your application and seeing low percentiles on Reading/Verbal, again having never seen the test, how were your PS and Supplementals?

 

[Carboxilic774]

I would take the PCAT again too. Check your PS and see if it was weak. What school did you apply to? Did they give you an interview at least?
Thank you

 

[miceheart]

Get your bio and chemistry and math high enough to cover your bad verbal. I had very bad verbal 24%, but my math and chem is 99%, so I got into mayland and ohio state. also really know what you want and work it into your person statement. I got 4 interview request, so low verbal is not dead end. if you can, i will retake pCAT again, but if you can not, try to improve you other parts. your GPA is high enough to compete. get more experience and work you personal statement, that's where you shine and who how unique you are.

 

[The Kernal]

Maybe you should consider applying to schools that don't require a PCAT. I used my PCAT as a way of drawing attention away from my GPA, maybe you could consider trying to apply with your GPA (which is exceptional) as a strong foundation for your application. Let your application show your strenghts not your weakness.

 

[elysian]

I would recommend applying to schools in California since those schools don't require PCAT. If you believe you can improve the verbal and reading sections of the PCAT, then retake it. Otherwise apply early next year.

 

[musicc]

How did you get such a good GPA and crappy PCAT scores? Retake the PCAT and study extra hard. Practice! Practice!

 

[Quiksilver]

get a job in pharmacy. Having a job in pharmacy is worth more then volunteering. The sooner you do it the better.

 

[babyvi3thonnie]

I also got rejected the first time around because of my PCAT score....yea you definitely needs to take the PCAT again and just apply to as many school as you can afford especially the schools that do not require the PCAT such as Nevada, Northeastern, and Colorado...Good luck...

 

[Trackster]

I would take the PCAT again too. Check your PS and see if it was weak. What school did you apply to? Did they give you an interview at least?
Thank you

I applied to the University of Arizona and i got interviewed but was later denied admission. Thanks for your input.

 

[Trackster]

I also got rejected the first time around because of my PCAT score....yea you definitely needs to take the PCAT again and just apply to as many school as you can afford especially the schools that do not require the PCAT such as Nevada, Northeastern, and Colorado...Good luck...

Thanks babyvi3thonnie, for next year I will definitely apply to a lot of schools and take the PCAT again. Are you in Pharm-school now?

 

[Trackster]

Applying to more than one school will help. Retaking the PCAT would probably help. Don't know when you applied, but earlier helps usually. One thing I'd be concerned with is your Reading/Verbal. Having never taken the PCAT I can't really comment on the difficulty, but the percentiles seem to be rather low. Your post doesn't really show any deficiencies in grammar, so I'm wondering why the low scores. No offense intended here, but is there a reading issue that causes problems with Reading Comprehension type questions. Without knowing anything else about your application and seeing low percentiles on Reading/Verbal, again having never seen the test, how were your PS and Supplementals?

I applied around October-November and as previously mentioned, I tried so hard the second time that I used different study guide for the english part but it just got worse. Permit me therefore to say maybe my reading comprehension skills are . Anyways, thanks so much