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Students interested in pursuing a career in pharmacy are best suited majoring in either Biology or Chemistry. By choosing one of these majors the student is most likely to get all needed prerequisite courses. However to ensure you have completed all pre-requisites for your school of choice, the pharmacy school’s individual criteria should be checked carefully.

Prerequisite

If the student chooses to major in Biology they should take the following courses:

• BIO110 - Principles of Cell and Molecular Biology (3 semester hours in LASP)
• BIO110L - Principles of Cell and Molecular Biology Laboratory (1 semester hour)
• BIO111 - Core Principles of Organismal Biology (3 semester hours)
• BIO111L - Core Principles of Organismal Biology (1 semester hour)
• BIO210 - Core Principles of Ecology and Evolution (4 semester hours)
• BIO211 - Core Principles of Genetics (4 semester hours)
• BIO227 and BIO328 or BIO327 and BIO328 - Human Anatomy and Physiology I and II (8 semester hours)
• BIO330 - Microbiology (4 semester hours)
• BIO491 - Biology Seminar III (1 semester hour)

A total of 35 semester hours must be taken in Biology with 30 semester hours of Biology at or above the 200 level.

Students must also fulfill the following chemistry, math, business, and physics requirements:

• CHE101, 101L, 102 and 102L - General Chemistry I and II (8 semester hours)
• CHE351, 351L, 352 and 352L - Organic Chemistry I and II (8 semester hours)
• MAT203 - Elementary Statistics (3 semester hours)
• MAT222 - Calculus (4 semester hours)
• BA222 - Macroeconomic Concepts (3 semester hours)
• PHY201, 201L, 202, 202L - General Physics I and II (8 semester hours) or PHY203, 203L, 204, 204L - Calculus Physics I and II (8 semester hours)

Admission Test and Application Service

A student wishing to apply to pharmacy school will take the PCAT (Pharmacy College Admission Test) and apply most likely through PharmCAS (the Pharmacy College Application Service); most schools (92 out of the 129 schools) use PharmCAS.

The PCAT consists of 6 sections:

• verbal
• biology
• chemistry
• reading comprehension
• quantitative reasoning
• a written essay

Useful Websites:

• Pharmacy career information: www.aacp.org/pharmacycareers
• For an excellent description of this career visit: www.explorehealthcareers.org
• PCAT information: http://www.pearsonassessments.com/haiweb/Cultures/en-US/site/Community/PostSecondary/Products/pcat/pcathome.htm
• PharmCAS information: http://www.pharmcas.org/