Official University Of Alberta 2015 Pharmacy Applicants - Class Of 2019

[Adehad]

@isjc... It might not be too late if you've already sent your letter of intent and pharmacist consultation form. You really don't need the email now unless you need to send them the letter of intent and pharmacist consultation form through the U of A email account. If you haven't sent those forms, that might be a problem because you might not get the ualberta email account right away.

[Adehad]

So does all applicants gets contacted for the interview?

[Pharm123]

That is a highly competitive pGPA but don't forget about how the admissions committee also takes into account your LOI, consultation form and interview.

 

(Note: What I am about to say is entirely speculation)

 

Remember, UofA does not want smart people, they want smart people who will complete the program. I'm sure UofA has rejected 4.0s on these grounds because it is very easy to discern from a LOI whether or not an applicant is legitimately into the profession. That is why the realistic pGPA is 3.7 and the university recommends that you do take two years to complete the pre-reqs so you have time to explore and understand your options. If you don't? Well, that's money out of the University's pocket. They want to bring 130 kids in and churn out 130 pharmacists.

Thanks for your insight PharmacistDude!

And good luck!

[starrynight111]

So does all applicants gets contacted for the interview?

I think the interview is probably based on your LOI. Because what else would they have to go by if final marks aren't back until May?

I had the same question so I asked Rae and she said that there is no guarantee that every applicant will get one. But she said that's a decision made by the admissions committee so she can't say how they choose. But last year most eligible applicants did have the chance to complete one.

[biochemist2015]

What is the email address that I send my LOI and pharmacist consultation form to? 

[PharmacistDude]

What is the email address that I send my LOI and pharmacist consultation form to? 

 

phstud@ualberta.ca

[Adehad]

It's on the pharmacist consultation form. phstud@ualberta.ca

[APSAOfficial]

Hello

 

I am a current pharmacy student at the University of Alberta, I am the current CAPSI JR representative on the APSA student council. As you may be aware we are currently hosting Pharmacist Awareness month, this month is full of events and campaigns aimed at reducing stigmas surrounding pharmacists! This Monday at 12-1p we will be hosting what is called a Lunch and Learn (these are events where you come grab some food and learn about a new topic) on the Role of the Pharmacist in an Inter-disciplinary healthcare team. This talk will be held in Medical Sciences Building (MSB) 231 and we highly encourage students from all faculties to attend! This is a great way to start getting involved in what could be your future faculty and a great way to get some insider knowledge on the current role of pharmacists! If you are a U of A student or in the area we would love you to join us! 

 

Thanks and good luck on midterms! 

 

 

[Olivia Pope]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if anybody could give me more info on the chances of a first-time applier getting accepted? Perhaps there is a current student on here that got accepted on their first try? Do you guys think that the fact that it is your first time applying and being a "rookie" has any disadvantages? Do they take more pity on the 2nd or 3rd time appliers? Feel free to chime in!

[ConfusedSoul1]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if anybody could give me more info on the chances of a first-time applier getting accepted? Perhaps there is a current student on here that got accepted on their first try? Do you guys think that the fact that it is your first time applying and being a "rookie" has any disadvantages? Do they take more pity on the 2nd or 3rd time appliers? Feel free to chime in!

Hey! I am a first year pharmacy student and I got in on the first try. All of the classmates that I have talked to about this, have also gotten in on the first try. I believe the faculty does not look down at you at all, being a first-time applicant.

[HeyHiHello]

This helped tremendously!! Thank you sooooo much!! When you say "related to health care" do you mean in terms of Pharmacists in Alberta and their regulations or just hypothetical situations like our last question in our letter of intent? I get that you need to tread lightly and that you don't want to give out too much information, but ANYTHING is helpful at this point.

 

Oh and by the way, how are you liking your first year so far? I heard course load is extremely chill and you have days off! I hope it's working out great for you

Thanks, again!

Hi again Olivia! Sorry I didn't answer sooner, I got a bit busy.

 

Yeah I don't really want to breach/violate any rules so I'll just say that when I said "related to health care", I meant it's more so a general question of how you see yourself in health care. Similar to question #2 on your letter of intent. It may change though, so be prepared for anything!

 

Hi guys,

I was wondering if anybody could give me more info on the chances of a first-time applier getting accepted? Perhaps there is a current student on here that got accepted on their first try? Do you guys think that the fact that it is your first time applying and being a "rookie" has any disadvantages? Do they take more pity on the 2nd or 3rd time appliers? Feel free to chime in!

I wouldn't say that it's a disadvantage to be applying for the first time. A lot of people I know got in after one attempt, including myself, so don't worry! In our class, at least 50 people (maybe more, can't remember) had gotten in after two years of undergrad, so that's pretty common. Maybe ~10 got in after one year of undergrad. I wish I could let you know if they take pity on people who apply more than once, but I'm not part of the admissions committee LOL

[kthxbia]

Hey,

 

I got in after my first attempt at applying. In my opinion the order of importance for getting in:

 

Prereq Gpa

Overall gpa (within last two years of school)

ability to do 1 full year of school with 5 classes per term (doing very good in classes during this year will be of great importance, even if they are easy option clsses)

 

I also wanted to mention something about rotations. During the summer after your first year you are assigned to do a rotation. This is a 4 week (5 days a week x 8 hours a day) rotation at a community pharmacy. I just want to say that they will have you pay 1200$ to do this rotation. Honestly this school will grab your cash at any chance you can get. They don't consider that summer is your time to work so that you might have a chance to pay their insane tuition fees the following year. I just wanted to mention this because i feel like I was never informed about this when they mentioned rotations. If you think about it, you are paying 1200$ + the money you could be making while working a summer job. For me it works out to about 5000$ cost to work for someone else... Honestly the more I continue on with this program and the quality of teaching the more I am disgusted by the sense that they don't really care about our quality of learning.

 

I just feel like i need to be the unbiased opinion on this forum since allot of people will glorify the program. With that being said, it is a mandatory stepping stone to achieve a future career in pharmacy.

[ConfusedSoul1]

Hey,

 

I got in after my first attempt at applying. In my opinion the order of importance for getting in:

 

Prereq Gpa

Overall gpa (within last two years of school)

ability to do 1 full year of school with 5 classes per term (doing very good in classes during this year will be of great importance, even if they are easy option clsses)

 

I also wanted to mention something about rotations. During the summer after your first year you are assigned to do a rotation. This is a 4 week (5 days a week x 8 hours a day) rotation at a community pharmacy. I just want to say that they will have you pay 1200$ to do this rotation. Honestly this school will grab your cash at any chance you can get. They don't consider that summer is your time to work so that you might have a chance to pay their insane tuition fees the following year. I just wanted to mention this because i feel like I was never informed about this when they mentioned rotations. If you think about it, you are paying 1200$ + the money you could be making while working a summer job. For me it works out to about 5000$ cost to work for someone else... Honestly the more I continue on with this program and the quality of teaching the more I am disgusted by the sense that they don't really care about our quality of learning.

 

I just feel like i need to be the unbiased opinion on this forum since allot of people will glorify the program. With that being said, it is a mandatory stepping stone to achieve a future career in pharmacy.

I would just like to point out that all the information about the program is on the faculty of pharmacy website, including all the cost of tuition and rotation costs. There is also a link to the full list of courses where it clearly states that there is a spring/summer rotation that you must pay for.

I would like to respectfully disagree with the statements about money and quality of education. Pharmacy is a professional program with much expected higher tuition fees and requirements. Provincial and federal loans cover over and above all tuition costs (regardless of your parents income). I believe the quality of education is excellent, and this is the first time I have heard of anybody complaining about it outright. Of course, just as any program, there will be courses that you will find boring or useless, however I can guarantee you that there is a group of people in every class that will find even the most "useless" lectures helpful. The faculty listens greatly to all the feedback that the students have.

[Koko]

Hey,

 

I got in after my first attempt at applying. In my opinion the order of importance for getting in:

 

Prereq Gpa

Overall gpa (within last two years of school)

ability to do 1 full year of school with 5 classes per term (doing very good in classes during this year will be of great importance, even if they are easy option clsses)

 

I also wanted to mention something about rotations. During the summer after your first year you are assigned to do a rotation. This is a 4 week (5 days a week x 8 hours a day) rotation at a community pharmacy. I just want to say that they will have you pay 1200$ to do this rotation. Honestly this school will grab your cash at any chance you can get. They don't consider that summer is your time to work so that you might have a chance to pay their insane tuition fees the following year. I just wanted to mention this because i feel like I was never informed about this when they mentioned rotations. If you think about it, you are paying 1200$ + the money you could be making while working a summer job. For me it works out to about 5000$ cost to work for someone else... Honestly the more I continue on with this program and the quality of teaching the more I am disgusted by the sense that they don't really care about our quality of learning.

 

I just feel like i need to be the unbiased opinion on this forum since allot of people will glorify the program. With that being said, it is a mandatory stepping stone to achieve a future career in pharmacy.

I can sort of understand where you are coming from by having your summers taken away to do rotations rather than make money for yourself. As I am one of those people that try to scramble as much funds as possible during the breaks to put towards school. But hey, I am not even in the faculty and as Confused Soul mentioned, the pharmacy curriculum and all the info on the rotations is on the ualberta website so being uninformed is your own fault. Though I do respect your point of view. 

[PharmacistDude]

And we are at the midpoint of March! Hopefully we get responses back soon for interviews! Hey kokoko, around what time did you get an interview last year?

[keinjuan]

First year rotation is a month long and you choose to do it either April or May, so you still have 4 full months of summer. You are not losing any time.

Honestly (I'm a pharmacist), having a first student is not helpful in terms of pharmacy workflow. In fact, it is more of a hindrance/annoyance if you don't enjoy teaching all that much.

In other word, the only reason pharmacies would accept a student is because the preceptor gets to teach and learn from students, not for the financial benefit of a free labour.

(I might be wrong, but I heard pharmacies that accept students are actually paid to do so and it makes sense... it's essentially babysitting.)

 

I don't have anything to comment about general quality of teaching at UofA pharmacy (some were good, some were bad.). I agree with you that some people on this forum glorify the program a bit much (I mean, it is difficult for a typical student to know about the quality of education they get as they have no good comparison eg UofS pharmacy vs UofA pharmacy or vs at least some other professional program. Also, another thing to consider is that people easily and instinctively believe their program -or their nation/religion/etc- is good based on few biased evidence.), but this is not my point.

 

My point is that rotations are essential in development of a professional. There are things you can never learn in a classroom (and by and large, this is the core stuff), and rotations are your way to learn them. I hope this becomes clear as you progress. I understand your frustration about tuition (and it had increased insanely in the past few years), but that should not affect how you feel about rotations. On the bright side, Canada has a great student loan program, and upon graduation you start making 100k/yr right away. With tuition tax credit, you can pay off your student loan in less than 6 months. I know it felt like a distant future when I was a first year, but the day does come. 100k/yr is a lot, but if you don't think it is a lot, you might want to consider going into a different field. Practically speaking, all health care professions are not that good in terms of money (except for a few specialties in medicine or dentists who owns their practice). I digressed for a bit, but I felt that your frustration has a little bit to do with this.

 

p.s. I'm a medical student who will be doing rotation for the entire third and forth year, without a summer inbetween... With your math, I am losing $250k. Just a different perspective to consider.

[PharmacistDude]

Hey kienjuan, if you don't mind, can you tell us a little bit about your journey from pharmacy to medicine? Did you complete pharmacy and then get admission into the med program? If yes, how is medical school like after completing the pharmacy program?

[APSAOfficial]

Hey all

Apsa and capsi will be hosting a hot chocolate give away in cab on friday feb 20 from 8a until 12 p! Please come out grab a hot chocolate, learn about some pharmacy myths we will be busting and feel free to ask questions about our great program, we would love to answer them!

[keinjuan]

Hey kienjuan, if you don't mind, can you tell us a little bit about your journey from pharmacy to medicine? Did you complete pharmacy and then get admission into the med program? If yes, how is medical school like after completing the pharmacy program?

 

Hey,

 

I've answered this question many, many times via PM or on the forum. Each time I write a little different but the gist is

 

 

A little bit about pharmacy -> medicine

I kinda had vague idea that I wanted to become a pharmacist since I was a little kid. I don't really know why. Upon graduating from highschool in Calgary, I applied to UA science as UC did not have pharmacy program. I got into pharmacy after 1st year and enjoyed it very much. As I got exposed more and more to health care and had a chance to talk to some inspiring individuals, I started to think medicine might be a better suited career option for me. I wrote the MCAT and applied to UA medicine during 4th year. I did not get in the first time as I did not prepare well enough for the interview with the complacent mind that my pharmacy background will just automatically win the interview. I worked full-time for a year as I applied to UA medicine again. I got in, and here I am now 1.5 years later.

 

Did you complete pharmacy and then get admission into the med program? If yes, how is medical school like after completing the pharmacy program?

Yes (obviously). Med school becomes more fun with pharmacy degree and work experience.

1. Since you know most of the basic stuff, you get to focus on things that are more interesting to you or things that you lack in.

2. You are less stressed with the massive amount of materials presented to you as you already have a framework to handle it.

3. In the areas of internal medicine, you start far ahead of everybody else and the gap does not close in a short period of time.

4. You can work as a pharmacist during weekends and fully support yourself thru.

5. You can easily impress your preceptors with unexpected knowledge or something that they do not even know about.

6. You already have a good repertoire of resources and networks for learning medical stuff.

7. MOST IMPORTANT - you don't have to take IntD410!!! (a bit of insider joke for health care students )

 

The downside, of course, is that I might be a year older than the average, but I don't think that has any significant implications. Otherwise, I can't think of any other downsides.

[Koko]

Hey guys, 

 

I have a question for you and I know this has probably been asked in the past, I tried looking around but couldn't find an answer specific to U of A pharmacy. I was just wondering if anyone's heard of the weight a "W" would carry on your transcript for this specific program? It's not a pharmacy pre-req course and I am just about finished with my degree but I am currently taking a course that I am considering to withdraw from. I've been struggling with depression and anxiety ever since the beginning of my degree and just recently began a medication therapy regimen. I have been trying a couple different drugs but the ones I am taking this semester have made it extremely difficult to function, stay awake in class; work is usually fine as it is rather physical.  I am not the greatest student but I am used to A-'s and B+'s being the worst I would do in a course and I am probably looking at a B- for this course. That is why I would like to drop it. 

 

Let me know what you think/know. 

 

Thanks guys. 

[PharmacistDude]

Hey Koko, sorry to hear about your struggles it's good to hear that you got some help and I wish you the best of health.

 

The unfortunate truth is that a "W" is a "W", meaning that an admissions committee can make whatever they want out of it. Although a B- is not the biggest blotch on a transcript (compared to an F, that is), I'd contact UofA and ask them.

 

Thanks for the insight keinjuan! I have shadowed pharmacists before and I really like the environment of a pharmacy, so I don't think I will go down your path. Nonetheless, I wish you luck on your future endeavors! 

[starrynight111]

Koko,

 

Sorry to hear that you're having to deal with the additional struggle . Applying to pharmacy is stressful enough....
Wishing you all the best!
 

I think that as long as you're still full-time, then it's ok. Because for admission, they just calculate a GPA... they don't look at the individual letter grades for each course that make up that GPA.

[Oilerfan1]

Hey guys,

 

Just wondering if anyone knows when U of A will inform regarding interviews? 

[ConfusedSoul1]

Hey guys,

 

Just wondering if anyone knows when U of A will inform regarding interviews?

I just made a quick search through my email - last year the interviews were sent out on march 18th. I wouldn't worry too much about the interview, unless they changed them radically this year. Just be yourself and have fun with it. Professor that views them told us some of the submissions he has seen last year and people have not only answered questions, but acted, sang and did a bunch of stuff I would have never even thought of. They also got in .

[Koko]

Thanks for the kind words guys, I really hope to meet some of you next year! 

Also, in case anyone is wondering, I sent an email to U of A Pharmacy and as long as it is not a pre-req they don't make much of a "W", it is as if you never took the course.