I am a 3rd year Pharmacy student attending St. John's University in NY. I would like to transfer to a pharmacy out near Arcadia or San Jose, CA because I recently learned that there will be no compounding test to become a pharmacist in CA. And I'm taking useless compounding classes. I'm in a straight 6 year program. Are there pharmacy schools that will take transfers and how many years would I need to finish? I saw USC-los angeles is a 4 year? is that after your regular 4 year undergraduate courses? I'm confused about that. I would like to transfer by Fall 2011 because I'll be starting my 4th year and I don't want to waste my time taking useless classes since I plan to move to california right after I graduate from NY. Please give me some feedback! Thanks!
Answers & Comments
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It is almost impossible to transfer into a six-year or seven-year program. If you will earn a bachelor's degree during your current program, you could apply during the fall of the academic year in which you will earn the bachelor's degree as a new student for a four-year pharmacy program.
However, I would make a well-educated guess that it will be very difficult for you to be admitted to a four-year graduate program if you have left a six-year combined program. I can think of no basis for making the change that admission committees will consider to be reasonable. Do not let them know that you do not want to learn compounding. They will probably consider such a position to be somewhat insulting to the profession and indicative that you do not want to learn all of pharmacy.
Pharmacy schools, like all other graduate programs most want students who are intellectually interested in the discipline and a contempt for compounding would be a very strong indication that a student is not intellectually interested.
The UC San Francisco program is so difficult for admission that I do not consider it to be worthwhile for you to apply. The University of the Pacific program gives so much preference to its own undergraduates that I do not consider application worthwhile.
Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona (near Arcadia) and Touro University--California College of Pharmacy, a little over an hour north of San Jose may be your best opportunities.
However, an absence of a compounding test from the state licensing exam does not mean that compounding classes will not be required. The universities may want their graduates to be able to pass the test in all states.
Your unusual objective will require a lot of research to insure the outcome you seek. The additional expense of studying for two more years at expensive private universities hardly seems worthwhile.
I make no personal judgment on whether your object is "right or wrong", just on whether it is very practical.
Long Beach State has a great drama department and is one of the best for teaching also.