Welcome!  Please sign in on the sheet being circulated.  It’s important to maintain records of club members and attendance for SGA.

-Welcome -Recap of past meeting - Celia -Club status - Celia -Pharmacy School Requirements – Celia - PCAT preparation and dates - Shirley

 Last meeting, a panel of Mercer pharmacy school students visited to discuss their experiences in pharmacy school and their career goals.  Rina, club secretary, summarized the questions and answers from this meeting, which was forwarded to you.  The Emory Pharmacy Club recently received its charter as an official club at Emory. If you haven’t already done so, please take the time now to register on our community page. We need 10 registrations to remain a club. We currently have 4 members registered.

 The American Association of Pharmacy of Colleges (the AACP) publishes a manual each year of the prerequisites for each of the 128 schools offering a PharmD. I have a pdf available to send to you.  Although the book is useful, the best source of information is each school’s web site.  The prerequisites for pharmacy school are lengthy and vary among schools.  If you have any questions on fulfilling a prerequisite, send an directly to the school.

 To track the requirements for your schools of interest, we suggest that you make a spreadsheet with your schools listed across the top of the spreadsheet and the required courses listed as rows.  On my spreadsheet, I highlighted in red classes that I need to take.  Beige-colored cells indicate that I’ve taken that class.  I also summarized how many schools required a class to help me prioritize classes.

 The chart shows that Emory does not offer two classes required by many pharmacy schools: Public Speaking and a level two Anatomy/Physiology course with a lab.  Public Speaking is fairly easy to fulfill at another university.  Several local colleges offer the second level anatomy or physiology course with a lab, including Ga Tech, GSU, Oglethorpe, Mercer, and Agnes Scott.  I have found that most schools are flexible with accepting human or animal anatomy and physiology or physiology; however, most schools require labs with the level one and level two courses.

 Enrichment Study  Transient Study  Cross Registration

 One option for fulfilling the second A&P requirement is to take the course at a different university as an enrichment student.  This typically requires applying to the college and asking Emory to send your transcript to that college.  Once you complete that course for a grade, you can send that college’s transcript to the pharmacy school to demonstrate fulfillment of the prerequisite.  A transient letter from Emory is not typically needed. This course will not show up on your Emory transcript.

 This requires applying to that university and requesting a transcript and transient letter (“Letter of Good Standing”) from Emory. Emory allows transient study only during the summer.  The detailed rules for transient study and FAQs for transient study are available at  The application for transient study is available on-line on Emory’s web site.  There is a restriction that the total of a student’s high school AP credits, college credits transferred into Emory, and transient study credits after freshman year cannot exceed 24 credits.

 The general guidelines provide that “students cannot receive transient study credit once they have earned a total of 68 credit hours on their Emory transcripts.”  However, students who have completed 64 semester hours of coursework at Emory may receive up to 16 semester hours for advanced-level courses taken at another university.  The courses must be approved in advance by the chair of the department and a dean in the Office for Undergraduate Education and the Committee on Academic Standards.  Contact with any

 ARCHE (Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education) is a program that allows college students in the Atlanta area to enroll in a course at another university in the Atlanta area (=cross register).  Through cross-registration, you can take a course at another college during Emory’s fall or spring term.  A course taken through cross-registration can count as fulfilling a required elective for an Emory major.  Participating universities include Ga Tech, GSU, Mercer, & Oglethorpe.

 To participate, complete a cross-registration application found at atlantahighered.org/crossregistration.  The application must be signed by your academic advisor and by the cross registration coordinator at Emory (JoAnn McKenzie), who will forward the application to the host institution’s coordinator for approval.  Once all approvals have been completed, the host institution’s (for example, GSU) cross registration coordinator will register you for the approved course on a space-available basis.  The host institution’s students have first priority for registration.  You typically cannot cross register if the course is available at your home institution (Emory).

 In conclusion, the prerequisites for pharmacy school are extensive and can be daunting.  Emory offers most of the courses needed for pharmacy school. The other courses must be taken at a different university.  Keep in mind that most pharmacy schools have the requirement that all the coursework be completed prior to starting pharmacy school.  If you haven’t completed the prerequisites prior to being accepted into a pharmacy school, your acceptance will be conditional upon completing all requirements prior to the beginning of the pharmacy school year.

 This PowerPoint presentation will be ed to you.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions and to share your ideas.  For our April meeting, we will work on getting a guest speaker, such as the Mercer Pharmacy School’s Admissions’ Director, a representative from Emory’s PreHealth Mentoring Office, or a career pharmacist.  Thank you for your attendance!