Where should I go for pharmacy school? UF, UPitt, UW-Madison
February 12, 2013 11:55 AM   Subscribe

I'm trying to decide what Pharmacy school to go to and I'm very stuck. I've already been accepted to UF, UPitt, UW-Madison. I'm waiting to hear back from UT-Austin, and Chapel Hill, but deposits are due and I need to make a decision ASAP.

Ranking
They are ranked UF and Upitt - 14, UW-Madison - 5, UT - 4, Chapel Hill - 2, but I'm not sure if ranking is as important in pharmacy school as in law school and I'm having a hard time figuring that out. I'm especially conflicted because the only sort of ranking comes from US news and world report. I've looked to student doctor network, and the individual school's websites. Are there any resources I'm missing that might help me pick what academic program is best for me?

Money
I would get in state tuition at UF ~95K, UPitt is ~112K, UW ~125K, and UT and Chapel hill are around 170K.

Location
I'm a 24 year old female. I grew up in Miami and went to school in UF. I LOVED Gainesville. It's quirky and crunchy. There's a lot of fun local restaurants and bars. However I might be ready for something a little bigger.

What should I know about these places when making my decision. I visited Madison, Austin, and Pittsburgh for the interview but I was only there for two nights. Pittsburgh and Austin left the best impression on me.

Please help me with any input! Thank you!
posted by LaunchBox to Education (14 answers total)
 
Congratulations! The world is your oyster!

I love Pittsburgh!

It's a small city, but the people are very nice and it's pretty easy to live there. Pitt is right downtown, you can see it from miles away.

But ANY of those schools is great! You can't go wrong.

Madison is also crunchy, although the winter there is a phenomenon unto itself.

Chapel Hill is very pretty, and I have friends there. Husbunny went there and liked it a lot. The weather will be easier for your to take.

Austin is a thriving, hip town with tons of fun stuff to do.

You have an embarassment of riches. I say, pick the place with the program you like the most and the money that makes it the best deal for you.

Wow, I am in awe of your fabulousness!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:03 PM on February 12, 2013 [4 favorites]


For what it's worth, I work in a very specific-focus pharmacy (veterinary), and when it comes to hiring pharmacists, experience is much more important than which school they went to. Even for folks fresh out of school, clinical rotations and work/volunteer experience is a much bigger deal than the name on the diploma.

If you happen to be at all interested in veterinary pharmacy, UNC is a good choice, because you can more easily do a rotation at my pharmacy with my boss, who is possibly the pre-eminent veterinary pharmacist in the country. But is it worth almost twice the cost of Florida? Not sure about that.
posted by Rock Steady at 12:05 PM on February 12, 2013


I'm especially conflicted because the only sort of ranking comes from US news and world report.
heh.

Why not cold-call a couple local pharmacists, ideally at a research hospital, and ask them? Bring brownies or donuts.

Madison is a nice place to live, with good folk, good food, pleasant locale. It's quirky and crunchy. You can hack it once you have the cold weather gear.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:07 PM on February 12, 2013 [1 favorite]


Where do you want to end up? Pharmacy school isn't like medical school or even top law schools in that the market for pharmacists is far more regional than national. If you go to UW, odds are good you'll wind up working in Wisconsin or the upper Midwest. If you go to Pitt, you're looking at Pennsylvania and the greater Mid-Atlantic, plus Ohio. Etc. Pharmacy school will qualify you to work in any state. But to the extent that employers have existing relationships with particular schools, they're more likely to be regional than not. So your odds of settling somewhere within half a day's drive of your alma mater are pretty decent.

That being said, the market for pharmacists is a lot more commodified than that for lawyers or physicians. Far more hiring is done through traditional HR and job postings than for other professional jobs. So if you do go to UW and want to work in Florida, you just need to get your Florida license and start applying. But you'll probably wind up forfeiting any advantage that your school's networking opportunities would otherwise afford you. But enough of the job market doesn't work that way that this isn't as big a problem as it would be in another professional program.

Ultimately though? There is sufficient demand for pharmacists, particularly in retail, that where you go isn't nearly as important as the mere fact of having the license. Unlike JDs, the perceived quality of which varies drastically, a Pharm.D. is a Pharm.D. is a Pharm.D. This is a bit less true if you want to go into research or some sort of high-end specialty practice, in which case you'll want to take a look at what each particular school tends to emphasize. This program may be on the cutting edge of radiological pharmaceuticals, while that one may have an awesome antibiotic program, etc. But if you're just looking at doing general pharmacy, retail or otherwise, any degree will basically do.

With that in mind, my suggestion is the place that permits you to graduate with the minimum amount of debt. Student loans suck, big time. The difference between UF and Pitt is probably low enough to base a decision on the city, but $170k seems unjustifiable seeing how you can be just as employable for $50k less.
posted by valkyryn at 12:11 PM on February 12, 2013 [4 favorites]


Since all of the schools appear to be generally well-respected, I would place most of the emphasis on price. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate my completely thoughtless but fortunate decision to get a cheap in-state education, since I am now 36 and the end is not in sight for paying off my husband's grad school loans. Student loan debt is very, very unpleasant and if you don't feel strongly for any other reason, that's a great one to place the most importance on.
posted by something something at 12:13 PM on February 12, 2013 [3 favorites]


All four of those towns are great places to live. Obviously, if weather is important then consider that. I would do research on each school's placement services and success and couple that with cost and location and make a choice that way.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:14 PM on February 12, 2013


Why not cold-call a couple local pharmacists, ideally at a research hospital, and ask them?

When I was in your situation I did exactly this. I spoke to people who recruit for the kind of job I was working towards. I straight up asked them which place on my CV would make my application more likely to be successful. You might get a very simple, specific answer, or they might all tell you they couldn't care less, as long as your grades are good. I had pre-existing relationships with the people I asked, but everyone loves to be asked for their opinion, so cold-calling tomorrow morning will work fine too.
posted by caek at 12:42 PM on February 12, 2013


If you go to UF you'll end up with less debt. You also already know what part of town you'd want to live in, and you'd be able to go home on occasional weekends and breaks a lot more cheaply. Once you're out there working you'll have more money to go see the world.
posted by mareli at 12:48 PM on February 12, 2013


If you've never lived anywhere that has real winters, I would stay away from Madison. As others have noted, it is an entirely different world from November to March there, and if you're not ready for it, it's not a good thing to add to your schooling stress. These are all solid schools, and the difference between #2 and #14 is pretty small, all in all. So prioritize how comfortable you'll be in the place.
posted by Etrigan at 12:54 PM on February 12, 2013


Also, what kind of pharmacist do you want to be? Are you thinking you'll do a residency after pharmacy school?

And I totally agree: make price a big part of your decision. The 80K difference between UF and UT/Chapel Hill is huge. Yes, even when you're making pharmacist money.
posted by mskyle at 1:04 PM on February 12, 2013


Response by poster: I want to do a residency after pharmacy school. I like critical care a lot but its really the only thing I've been exposed to as far as hospital pharmacy.
posted by LaunchBox at 1:10 PM on February 12, 2013


Mad-i-son, Mad-i-son! I don't know anything about how Madison's pharmacy school stacks up to the other pharmacy schools, but Madison is truly a dream city. It is a special place.
posted by qivip at 6:15 PM on February 12, 2013 [4 favorites]


Where would you like to live once you complete your pharmacy training?
posted by Good Brain at 6:32 PM on February 12, 2013


Best answer: I really don't think pharmacist residency programs work the way physician/surgeon residency programs do, where there are obvious top programs that tend to be filled by candidates from top schools. All physicians and surgeons need to complete a residency program, so there's enough demand to made the application process pretty competitive. By contrast, only a small minority of pharmacists choose to go on to residency.

Browse around the websites of a few pharmacy residency programs you'd like to attend. Look where the current residents came from. You'll see a slight bias for people from local programs, e.g., the Johns Hopkins program has more people from UMD than you might otherwise expect, but other than that the results are pretty random. There are tons of pharmacy residents from schools I've never even heard of. And I don't mean just never heard of the pharmacy school, I mean entire universities that I didn't know existed. To me, this suggests that while where you go to pharmacy school may make some difference in your ability to get into a specific residency program, there are generally enough spots available to meet demand, and going to an at least halfway decent school is probably going to be more than adequate.

Now if you want to really be a leader in the field, do cutting-edge research, and publish in the best journals, then yeah, you should probably think about trying to go to schools with the most robust academic reputation. But if you want to be a practicing pharmacist, even in a specialty practice, one school really does seem as good as another. Or, at least, the difference between UF and UNC isn't nearly enough to justify the difference in price tag.
posted by valkyryn at 8:44 AM on February 13, 2013


« Older How to transition from commenting on blogs to...   |   LaptopFilter: is this ASUS ultrabook the machine I... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.