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In writing this book with physicians, I realized that although the core math and science classes prepharmacy and prepharmacy students take are virtually identical, there is one significant difference in how they need to approach their respective colleges – and why pharmacy students need to start preparing for residency admissions as soon as possible – and read this book. Here are some important statistics.
About half of students who want to get into a pharmacy school get in each year.
Over eighty percent of pharmacy applicants get into pharmacy school in each year.
But when it comes to earning a residency at graduation, the percentages reverse.
Only half of graduating pharmacy students who enrolled in the match will earn a residency placement, while 80 percent of all pharmacy residency applicants will earn one.
Both professions have a way of ensuring only a select group makes it to a clinical residency, but they are opposites in how they do it.
That doesn’t mean that pharmacy students don’t need to study and work hard. They do as certain residency specialties are a lot harder to get into than others. They have an exam, the USMLE, in their second year of pharmacy school, which is a big part of this selection process. But for pharmacy students, this lower residency match rate as compared to pharmacy students has many implications, from changing how they approach applying to colleges of pharmacy to what they do throughout their years there.
Over the last three years, I have helped students earn top residency placements by working with them on the big three: the curriculum vitae, basically a health professional’s extended resume, the letter of intent, a specific kind of cover letter, and their residency interview. I have seen that most pharmacy students only applied to a few pharmacy schools, not even knowing what the residency match rate for the college was at the time of admission. A student at a low residency match rate school, one in the bottom half, will need much more leadership, research, and clinical activities than one in a top tier school. What follows here is the sobering statistic relating to residency.
Of the approximately 4,000 students who earn a residency placement, 500 out of 4,000 or 1 in 8 will come from the top ten pharmacy schools ranked by residency match rate.
Only 50 or 1 in 80 will come from the bottom ten pharmacy schools.
But the cost of attending the bottom schools is not 1/10th of attending the top schools. Often, the price is higher. So, let’s take a moment to digest that.
If you are looking for a residency, you can spend over $200,000 to have a 1 in 80 chance to earn that placement. Others can pay much less than that to have a 1 in 8 probability. Why in the world wouldn’t more students go to the top residency matching schools? What should you do to increase your odds? This book has the answers.
Tony Guerra, the host of the Pharmacy Residency Podcast, helps students edit and revise Pharmacy Residency Letters of Intent one-one-one while giving year-round advice on residency applications and interviews. His TonyPharmD YouTube channel has 28,500 followers and more than 14 million downloads. He is the author of over twenty books on subjects from pharmacy residency, careers, and pharmacology including the best-selling Memorizing Pharmacology: A Relaxed Approach.
Chase is an MS, MBA-HA and MD/Ph.D-candidate. He is the Founder and educator at FreeMedEd, which he began in 2014 to consolidate free educational resources for his classmates. He also hosts the Medical Mnemonist Podcast, Rounds to Residency podcast, and is CEO of FindARotation clinical rotations service. He has explored many facets of medical education, the psychology of learning, and accelerated learning techniques.
Greg is a pediatrics resident in Austin, TX, and founder of the Med School Phys podcast. Now he is hosting a new podcast called Physiology by Physeo, which is one of the newest collaborations powered by InsideTheBoards. When he’s not being a doctor for kids, he tries to stay happy and healthy by plugging in his headphones while at the gym, or by leisurely dining with his wife. Greg is dedicated to providing high-quality, free medical education to anyone who is willing to learn.
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