Jeff Ruder and Lindsey Watts are academic advisors and admissions committee members at the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy, which has educated pharmacists for Oregon and beyond for more than 100 years.
Updated application info for 2013-2014 is posted on the College of Pharmacy website. Make note of the August 1 “Early Consideration” deadline.
Also, we’ve created a video version of our application workshop! If you missed our workshop this spring, or don’t live near Corvallis, this is a great way to find out more about applying to the Pharm.D. program. Feel free to post questions on Formspring after viewing!
The Oregon State University College of Pharmacy has updated its list of required prerequisite courses. These changes take effect for students applying for admission for Fall 2014.
You can read the list of prerequisites on the College of Pharmacy website. The website also has useful information about optional but valuable coursework that can further prepare you for the Pharm.D. program.
As always, if you have any questions, email us at pharmacy@oregonstate.edu or ask on Formspring.
Not for Oregon State Pharm.D. admissions. If you are a non-native speaker of English, we will evaluate your English language proficiency through your essays and through the interview process.
International students should remember that our admissions committee asks that you complete some of your prerequisite coursework (in particular the upper-division science courses) in the United States. See our FAQ for more details about this. International students who want to complete those prerequisites at OSU should apply for admission to OSU through the Office of Admissions.
Not at all. The Oregon State University College of Pharmacy does not consider PCAT scores in our application process. A good score will not help you and a bad score will not hurt you. In fact, you don’t even need to take the PCAT to apply to OSU.
Think about the image you want to present when applying for admission. You want your letter writers to be people who know you well (so they can say lots of nice things about you) and people familiar with graduate study in the sciences, professional degree programs, or the practice of pharmacy (so they can say why those nice things will make you a good pharmacist).
In our experience, the most useful letters come from science professors or practicing pharmacists, because they have the most familiarity with those topics. This means it’s important to build relationships with such people as a pre-pharmacy student, so they will know you well enough to write a good letter. PharmCAS asks recommenders how well they know you when they submit their letters of recommendation. You don’t want your recommenders to be saying they only know you a little – you want them to be saying they know you well.
No. Oregon State’s anatomy, physiology, and microbiology prerequisites must be met with coursework taken at the upper-division level. “Upper-division level” means advanced courses designed for college juniors and seniors. Such courses often have substantial prerequisites and 300- or 400-level course numbers (or 100-level course numbers if you’re in California). Community colleges do not offer such courses, which means these prerequisites cannot be completed at a community college.
You can complete all of the other prerequisites at a community college, as long as the college offers appropriate coursework. Email pharmacy@oregonstate.edu for more information on course equivalencies or if you’re not sure how to meet a particular prerequisite.
The College feels that requiring these advanced prerequisites will enable us to go further in educating you about the pharmaceutical sciences once you’re in the Pharm.D. program!
There are two supplemental application essay prompts this year:
What should you write about? Well, make sure to answer the questions. The first essay should focus on your goals, which means you may need to spend some time thinking about what exactly your academic and professional goals are (beyond just “becoming a pharmacist”). Explain why Oregon State is the best place for you to work toward these goals – we want to be convinced that attending the OSU College of Pharmacy is the logical next step for you. This means you may need to spend a little time researching the college and its programs.
As for the second essay – we’re genuinely curious. We want you to explain why you chose the people that you did to write your letters of recommendation. Furthermore, we hope that asking this question will cause people to put a lot of thought into exactly who they ask to write their letters.
Oregon State’s deadlines for Pharm.D. applications for Fall 2013 admission:
These are received-by deadlines, meaning that all your materials need to be received by that date. It is not a postmark deadline. PharmCAS needs to receive your transcripts, letters of reference, and so on and OSU needs to receive the OSU Supplemental Application materials.
Welcome to this blog about the admissions process for the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) program at the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy.
We hope to provide helpful information for prospective students, insight about how the admissions process works, and answers to random questions about the process of becoming a pharmacy students.
This blog is not required reading for prospective students, but those who do read it are likely to be just a little more savvy about the ways of Pharm.D. admissions!
