Pre-Pharmacy

Students planning a career in pharmacy may apply to a college of pharmacy when close to completing a total of 63 semester hours of university credit, including a required set of core courses.Student grade point averages (GPA) are evaluated in (a) overall college work, (b) required core courses, (c) chemistry courses and (c) mathematics and physics courses. Applicants to pharmacy schools also are required to present satisfactory scores on the Pharmacy College Admission Test (PCAT) and be interviewed by the school's admissions committee.

Required core courses include English (6 credits), mathematics through Calculus I (6 credits), biology (8 credits), physics (8 credits) and chemistry (16-18 credits). The remaining credits (18-20) include electives such as sociology, economic principles and problems, public speaking, modern languages, art, music, psychology, botany, biology and computer programming.Some pharmacy schools include only 6 credits of biology and require 3 credits of economics in their core courses.

Students interested in pharmacy as a professional career should, upon admission to Towson University, consult with the prepharmacy advisor located in the Chemistry Department. Prepharmacy students need to plan a course program, declare an academic major and learn the specific admissions requirements of the pharmacy college that they plan to attend. The recommended course sequence to be taken at Towson University, listed below, is based on the requirements of the School of Pharmacy of the University of Maryland, Baltimore but is typical of many pharmacy schools.