Pre-Pharmacy at WSU

According to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), pharmacists are ‘medication experts who manage patient care and promote wellness.’ When most people think about a profession in pharmacy, they picture working behind a counter in a drug store. The reality is that the field offers pharmacists the opportunity to work with a variety of people in various settings. Pharmacy specialty areas include:

Ambulatory Care
Cardiology
Community
Compounding
Geriatric
Hospital
Infectious Disease
Nuclear
Oncology
Pediatrics
Industry
Poison Control
Psychiatry
Veterinary
Emergency Medicine

Regardless of the specialty area, pharmacists focus on patient care, medication expertise and population health, and pharmacy management.

Preparing for Pharmacy School at WSU

Many pharmacy programs in the United States do not require an applicant to earn a bachelor's degree prior to entering pharmacy school. Instead, they look for a specific set of courses to be completed, most commonly referred to as prerequisites. There are a few pharmacy programs that indicate a bachelor’s degree is preferred.

Students who intend on completing only the prerequisites needed to apply to pharmacy school are coded as ‘pre-pharmacy’ and assigned to a pre-pharmacy at advisor in the Pre-Med & Health Science Center. Students who prefer to earn a bachelor's degree and complete the prerequisite courses will have an assigned major advisor. Those students can also meet with a pre-pharmacy advisor regularly to make sure they are on track to apply for pharmacy school upon completion of their undergraduate degree.

To learn more about how to be a competitive applicant for the pharmacy program in the WSU College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, students are required to attend an information meeting. These meetings are held on the first Tuesday of each month. Other pharmacy programs may offer similar meetings. Attending these meetings will give applicants a strong understanding of the applicant profiles each school is looking for.