UCSF Phi Delta Chi Pledgeclass Presentation - Part 4

Student Panel - Real raw and uncut stories at UCSF - Part 2

Question: In your opinion what made your app stand out?

2 - I started really late. Not until the 2nd semester of my junior year. I only had the math prerequisites. What made me stand out? I did a lot of theater, worked as a waiter, and in an animal lab. It showed a lot of passion. [Note: How many times was that word used now?] Theater and nothing to do with medicine, but you do learn about leadership, directing actors, group work, time management, etc. I worked on a grad project, it combined theater and medicine. We worked with elders to see how they'd like to have a better relationship with their doctors. [I think I may have lost a little bit of the content there.] Do what you like and not just what you think they want to see. As long as you have passion [Ding!], it will show, and the admissions committee will see it.

Q: What was the strangest interview question you were asked? (Not necessarily at UCSF.)

1 - At UoP, the professor asked me if, since I was the symposium chair for the pre-pharmacy club, he asked me if I've done anything illegal in setting it up, or if I was asked to do anything illegal, and how did I go about handling the situation. I didn't know how to answer it. I think I ended up telling him that the school gives you a certain amount of money for specific things like PR. We needed money elsewhere for the event, and had to work out how to shuffle money around. I explained that hosting a successful symposium was the ultimate goal. An answer to a question like that will show your character.

Guy (also a pledge, but not on the panel) - I applied to Hawaii, and the interview was going great. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, real or fictional, who would it be and why? I ended up saying Wonder Woman. His response was, "Oh I love comic books!" We spent fifteen minutes discussing comic books. I rocked the interview.

2 - They ask you questions like that because they only know you on paper. They want to get to know you. I got asked if you could be an amalgamation of two people, who would they be? I said Brad Pitt and Kobe Bryant. I want to look good, and Kobe's athletic and cool. I want to be like him.

Q: What aspects do you enjoy most of pharmacy school?

3 - One of the best things is getting to know all of our classmates. We have a great group. During my undergrad, I had the mentality that as long as I get above the curve, I'm fine. I don't need to set it, as long as I'm over. [Laughs.] In grad school, it's all set. Because of that, your mentality has to change. Before going in you think everyone has to be cutthroat and competitive, and want to set the standard, but that's not true. Classmates are really willing to help you. Classmates who don't procrastinate as much make these really nice charts. I'm doing other things so I don't have as much time, and I look at their study charts. They're not thinking, "Oh no, this person might do better than me."

2 - Upperclassmen will sent you cheat sheets and their tests. If your grades are slipping, the staff will help you. They've very supportive.

Q: What is the most challenging aspect?

5 - There are so many things you can do outside of studying. There are a lot of orgs to join. As an undergrad, I wasn't very involved. Business, reserach, serving, etc. Professional frats. It's exciting. You want to join them all. But there's only 24 hours in a day. I want to do things I find interesting, but have time to study. You're with the cream of the crop. People study a lot. You need time management to squeeze everything in. But everyone is supportive. You don't have to make your own study guides. There are study guides galore. [Note: Nice to know, but for me, as well as other people I'm sure, making the study guide is part of the learning. But still nice to know if necessary.]

Q: How is the academic work load compared to undergrad?

5 - I study less now than when I was an undergrad. There are so many things you can do. The stuff we're learning now is a lot more applicable. OChem comes back. It never leaves. BioChem too. They're classes you've seen before. It's doesn't seem as bad.

1 - [Says the opposite of 5] As an undergrad, you take a combination of easy and hard classes to balance things out. You can't do that anymore. Finals week is death.

Guy - We have a class size of 122. You can pull out a B or an A in undergrad if you fail your first exam. Most of the classes now just have a midterm and final. And homework doesn't count. You see OChem again, but it's very specific what they want you to know.

Girl - They tell you what you need to know over and over again. They repeat it a lot. They make a point and put in effort so you internalize it.

Q: Last thoughts?

Someone - Don't get discouraged. I felt I had to apply right away. But I took two years off. I didn't want to, but I applied and got rejected. At the time I was discouraged, but looking back, it was probably good for me. Time to find myself and if I really wanted to do pharmacy. I felt that made my application stronger 'cause I found that reason. Don't feel like you have to apply right away, and there's a certain timeline you have to follow.

Guy - I'm 36. It's been fifteen years from undergrad to pharmacy school. But it doesn't make a difference. We're all there now. It makes the experience richer to have variety.

1 - Word of advice from my mentor saying that personal statements are important. When you're doing all these extracurricular activities, you may forget about some details that make you stand out. When you do an experience, take out a word file and type it our right away so you don't forget anything. Then when you look back you can say, "Oh, I can write about this experience, or that experience."

Girl - I did that, and when it came to my application, it helped a lot. When I shadowed a pharmacist, I asked myself what made that person a good pharmacist. When you write your personal statement, you can say, "I fit the criteria." Another thing people overlook is that a lot of people talk about how pharmacy fits your personality, but don't forget about how you can help and contribute.

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Then that was it. For me at least. They opened it up for questions from the audience, but I had to excuse myself to make it in time to see Wicked: A New Musical. I would have liked to have stayed. Overall it was a great presentation. Besides all the factual information and advice giving, they also gave off a great vibe, and seemed genuinely excited to come speak to us. That's always a great thing when making a presentation, and hopefully is a sign of their experience overall as student pharmacists.

UCSF Phi Delta Chi Pledgeclass Presentation - Part 3

Now it's time for the student panel.  They had six members of their pledgeclass sit up front, with preset questions. Questions from the audience was opened up afterwards, but unfortunately I couldn't stay because I also had tickets to watch Wicked:  A New Musical. (Which was awesome by the way.) For ease of taking notes, I just numbered the panelists, rather than try to remember their names.

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Student Panel - Real raw and uncut stories at UCSF

Question: Tell us about yourself. [Ok, that's a not a question, but you get it.]

1 - Grew up in SF, went to Lowell High School. Went to UC Berkeley as an undergrad.

2 - Graduated from Berkeley in 2007 as a Bio and Theater major, took two years off to work on pharmacy [to be a better candidate?  Or prerequisites, I missed that.] and to act.  "And I like bunnies."

3 - Grew up in SF, went to Mills then UCSD as a BioChem/Cell Bio major, with a minor in Healthcare and Social Issues

4 - Grew up in Oakland, went to Berkeley [Lots of Berkeley folks], graduated in 2008 in Molecular Biology, took one year off to work in a hospital.

5 - Grew up in Taiwan, went to a community college first, then UCSD in BioChem/Chem.  Graduated in 2004, "So I'm above the average age." Worked for five years for pharmaceutical companies, Genentech [and one other].  "I had a bunny."  I've never worked in a pharmacy.

6 - Grew up in SF, went to Lowell High School, then Berkeley in Molecular Toxicology. "I was supposed to be the year of the bunny, but I ended up being born in January, so I'm the year of the tiger."

Q: What attracted you to pharmacy?  Why Pharmacy?

1 - I was always interested in the sciences.  They were my favorite classes in elementary.  When I was 15, there was an opportunity to intern at the UCSF drug production lab, so I tried it out.  All the pharmacists and students there seemed really happy.  As I found out more and more, I became more and more intrigued.  I've been really glad I chose this.

2 - I always liked camping.  But when you're out there you always get stung by something or there's poison oak, and my brother had asthma, and I would always freak out.  I was also interested in the sciences.  I volunteered in a pharmacy and I liked being there with the patients, not all of them are nice, but some of them are, and they'll bring you food.  [That probably doesn't make sense to you guys who are reading this, but it made sense when I was there!]  You're always learning.  There's so many opportunities, so much to learn.

Q: How did you prepare? For pharmacy school.

3 - I'm probably not the best example.  I was in my third year when I decided.  I joined the UCSD pre-pharmacy society.  I got exposure there.  I worked discharge at a pharmacy. [That may not be totally right.]  I did my research, and talked to relatives.  For extracurricular activities, I volunteered for walkathons to raise money for the underprivileged, and danced a lot.

5 - I didn't think I wanted to do it.  When I decided, I took classes at community colleges after I graduated.  I needed a break from high school.  There are things that you do that you are passionate about.  Write about that in your personal statement.  You might think like you don't have anything to talk about, but if you look back over the years about all the little things you've done, you'll see you've done a lot.

6 - Everything counts.  I worked in a bug lab for three years.  It doesn't seem related, but just knowing how to do research, and put together a book and presentation... those are skills you'll be using a lot.  Put it all in your toolbox.  Hopefully it's big and always expanding.  

What did you find most challenging?

4 - There are five main areas they look at.  Personal statement, interview, academics, extracurriculars, and letter of recommendation.  Don't forget to emphasize extracurricular activities.  They want to see a track record of serving the underserved communities.  They want to see passion.  Doesn't have to be pharmacy related experience.  Doesn't have to be health related.  I tutored for three years.  You'll be educating patients as a pharmacist, so it's similar.  It doesn't have to be science related.  I studied Japanese for three or four years, and mentored foreign exchange students.  I think the admission people were interested in that experience.

What's something you wish you would have known?

5 - The personal statement is super important.  You're trying to describe yourself in five essay questions.  There are 1,300 applicants.  Spend a lot of time there.  It was challenging for me to be personal because I've been training to be objective.  Make sure it's stuff you're passionate about.  It could be something simple like taking your grandma shopping every week.

6 - Be organized overall.  There isn't one deadline.  There are multiple deadlines.  There are very similar deadlines.  There is a general and supplemental application.  I didn't do a good job of that.  I only applied to two pharmacy schools.  A lot of people do five or more.  For USC, I thought the deadline was November 3rd, but it was November 2nd.  I came back from a camping trip and it was closed, so I missed it.  But I'm glad since I saved some money.  [Everyone laughed.]

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I'm going to cut it off here, and put up part 2 of the student panel tomorrow.

UCSF Student Panel at SFSU - Part 2

[Continuing the conversation from the 2nd Year UCSF Student, at the event hosted by the Pre-Pharmacy Association... We left off with comments and questions about the interview process...]

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Q: Do they ask questions about current events?

A: Oh yes.  Yes they do.  If they make it through all the questions they needed to go through,  they'll ask something like, "What do you think about the future of pharmacy?"  If you think pharmacy is all community pharmacies, you need to be prepared to know it's moving away from that.

If you really want to be out there, you might want to say you're interested in MTM pharmacy.  Medical Therapy Management.  They can get paid hundreds of dollars for just a ten minute consult.  These days, a lot of the elderly are taking tens of pills in a day, and the schedule of what to take and when so it's effective and won't be dangerous is complicated.

Q: How is that different from community pharmacy?

A: There, they just give you a prescription, and you advise them about that specific drug.  With MTM pharmacy, you'll sit them down and go over their whole history.  That's something important in HIV clinics where there are just so many drugs out there.

Drugs are becoming very individualized and not just one blanket drug for one condition anymore.  There was this woman who was taking morphene for pain.  And because of her genetics, it got into her breast milk, and it ended up killing her baby.  [This is extremely paraphrased.]  Pharmacogenetics is the big thing now.  Hypertension, liver function... they affect different people in different ways.

Touro did a study... [This part... I'm not quite sure that I can even get the essence of it down.  Something about a study to help show that it's important for schools to teach pharmacogentics I believe.]  UCSF is one of the few schools to have that class.  People with different backgrounds need different drugs.  It's kind of like sterotyping, but not.  It's used to help them.

[Somehow what she did to become a pharm tech came up.]

A: Honestly, I bought a book at Borders, studied for a week, and passed.

Everyone should get their license.  It's a good back up.  Well, not back up exactly.  But some people became a tech to lead to pharmacy, but found out they were happy just being a tech.  A lot of the pharm techs that I work with know more than a lot of students.  They really know drugs.  It's like being a pharmacist without the responsibility.  (An aside: Insurance companies need a lot of pharmacists.)

Being a tech is easier to move between the different divisions.  When you're a pharmacist, you need to know everything about the particular place you're working in.  As a pharm tech, you only need to focus on the drugs, and so it's easier to make the switch if you want to get experience in the different areas.

And it's good to start learning the drugs early.  You learn a lot as a tech.  It helps a lot in school.  They want you to know over two hundred drugs right away, but if you've learned about a lot of them already, it gives you a lot of free time.

Pharmacists can work in so many areas.  Psych wards need to have a pharmacist on site.  There are classes to teach you about the different fields.  We have an elective for prison pharmacists.  You get taken to San Quentin and everything.

HIV is a disease with no cure.  You can specialize in that.  Genentech needs to hire pharmacists to look over projects.  You can oversee everything and not get your hands dirty if that's what you're looking for.  That's what I did at Bayer.

You can get into law and work for the government.  Healthcare is the big thing right now and they want the input from doctors and pharmacists.  [Something about laws that I can't read in my notes.]  Right now something being considered is making birth control and over the counter drug.  So many people are buying it, and there has been a study to show that the risk of death in using birthcontrol is lower than the risk of getting a lethal infection while a woman is pregnant.

Pharmacists are even the ones that administer euthanasia drugs.  It's in Nevada or some other state where it's legal.  Not in California of course.  But there, while the doctor may decide, it's the pharmacist that actually administers the drugs to stop the heart.

[Some how it got back to applications.]

A: You can check out PharmCAS right now if you want.  Just know that it gets wiped out every year.  As for letters of recommendation, most people get one academic letter, one extracurricular, and one from a pharmacist.

USC, UCSD, they had 500 word essays.  I pretty much just copy/pasted parts (from my UCSF application).  Essays are definitely the hardest part.

Q: Do you know any international students, and is the process any different?

A: It's pretty much the same thing.

[Somehow it back to why UCSF again.]

A: UCSF was the cheapest school.  Not now.  Tuition has gone up 30%.  $1000 every quarter.  It would be nice if somehow when you got accepted into a school, you could sign a contract telling you "This is exactly how much you're going to pay each quarter."

Q: How are you paying for school?

A: It's different for me.  I live with my parents, so housing is free.  Books can cost a lot.  I work at State (as an intern).  If you want to get involved, techs get paid the most in hospitals.  You learn the most about drugs there [I believe that's what she said, my notes were too hard to read right there.]

[She then mentions that she's working at a couple places.]  Twenty hours a week pretty much pays for each quarter.  I tried getting loans for the first year, but having to pay 7% on top of that was too much for me.

There are also a lot of scholarships out there. 

[Somehow changed to study/student habits.]

Some people are still completely focused on grades once they're in.  But once you graduate (from pharmacy school) grades don't matter.  If you're working as an intern while studying, you're more likely to get hired than if you got all A's.

[Back to money.]

Taking that year off, and working as a tech helped to offset the loans.

Q: What's your daily schedule like?

A: I'm a special case.  [Because she's working... then the answer transitioned into what classes are like.]  You really learn the drugs.  I can draw you lipitor.  Or the structure of cholesterol.  Then you'll be asked to make an imaginary drug that fits in there.  Some [other stuff] I learned through work.

[Change of topic again.]

In [some?] HIV clinics, the pharmacist will write the whole prescription now, and just hand it to a doctor to sign off on it.  They'll just take a look to double check.  Pharmacists have that dispensing power now.

[Back to the interview process.]

A: You might be asked to talk about a difficult problem you had to face, or a co-worker that was hard to work with.  Use names, and make it personal.  Make it so your answer isn't something that can be faked.

You need to prove you're not just a bookworm.

You'll all find a school.  There are so many schools out there.  Just the fact that you guys are all here says something.  I applied late, and I still got in.  You guys are doing so much more than me already.

[Transition to types of work.]

There are pharmacists that are temps.  They get sent around to different pharmacies that need work, and they get paid for food, gas, and travel time on top of the actual hours working.

Q: What were the most useful prerequisite classes?

A: OChem.  That leads to advanced OChem.  PCHem too.  Biology and all that.

There are some people who are 21 and they're pharmacists now.  They took all their prerequisites in one year out of high school and applied.

USC and UoP have the most prereqs.

If you get together and sets goals for each day, you can get through PharmCAS in a week.

Q: How long did it take you to write your personal statement?

A:  It took me a week.  I got down and just started writing every single step that led me to pharmacy, and it ended up being 6,000 words long.  The essay can't be more than 1,600 words.  So I asked one of my English professors to help me trim it down.  That was the teacher I also asked for a letter of recommendation.

One school requires a resume... UoP?

Make sure to do research one all the schools you're applying to.  Know what the goals of the school are and focus on that.  It's worth it to just apply everywhere.  It's just $40 more dollars for a chance to get into a pharmacy school.

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There were some other random bits that I didn't write down, but I think I got pretty much all the main points.  There was a lot of interesting stuff in there, and new stuff that I hadn't heard before.

Prison pharmacist class?  That's cool.  I don't think I'd want to take that class specifically, but it makes me wonder what kind of other classes are offered.

Paying for school without loans?  That's impressive.

I'm definitely glad I went to the event.  And I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

UCSF Student Panel at SFSU - Part 1

The SFSU Pre-Pharmacy Association set up a UCSF student panel Wednesday night.  Well... set up a UCSF student for us to talk to.  One of the two could not show up for one reason or another.  Was that a problem?  Absolutely not.

The event was very relaxed.  We all sat in a circle, and just let questions fire away.  The student was a second year student, and she kept on firing out information left and right.  One question would just ignite all sorts of side tangents from her and there was a lot of information presented to us in the two and a half hours that she was there for.

I could try grouping all the information into relevant info clusters... but I'm probably going to be doing that a lot in future posts.  This time you guys'll get to enjoy the randomness that I got to enjoy.

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UCSF Student - Hi, my name is [keeping this out for privacy].  I'm a second year student.  Why don't we all sit in a circle.  If you like this kind of setting, the school in Sacramento is group oriented.  What's it called?  I think it's Northstate.  [Note: This whole thing is going to be paraphrased from my notes.  I'm going to try to be as accurate as possible of course, but this is not word for word.]

Why did I choose pharmacy?  I was originally a pre-med student, but I don't like bood, phlebotomy, the whole "do no harm" thing,... and gross mucus.

When you get into pharmacy, I thought you would get eased into it, but in the first month, you're already doing immunizations.  Flu, hepatitis.

Taking a year off was a big change, but it was a good change.  I was working in research/industry.

Pharmacy is a dynamic field.  You get to interact with other fields.  In clinics it's half research, half ___ [Me: Why can't I remember the word!  It should be so obvious].  There's management where you can run your own formulary.

What was the most difficult part?  Getting started on California applications.  It took a month to finish my applications.  (Her aside:  I used to work for Bayer, then had a job as a technician, and now intern at a clinic.)  UCSF has a good workshop for the supplemental application.  You get ask what it is they're looking for.  On the apps, a lot of it is monotonous work.  You could get your mom to do it.  Name, address, grades.  I also got last minute letters of recommendations.

For the interview, you get paired up with one professor and one student.  Make sure you know what you wrote on your application.  They choose who you interview with based on your application.  This isn't a fact, but from talking with other students, it seems like a lot of them were paired up that way.

Q: How do you answer the question "Why pharmacy?" without having it sound like a generic answer?

A: [I forget her full answer.]... look for some kind of personal story.  What got you to decide to pursue pharmacy, and not just "I like helping people."

[Continuing from before the question was asked.]  You get paired up that way so there is some common ground there for a flowing conversation.  There is a set number of questions they want to hit, but the order is different based off how the conversation is going.  [I thought that was interesting.]

Q: How did you prepare for you interview?

A: I got hired just a couple weeks before my interview as a pharm tech.  My boss did a mock interview with me.  Everyone should do a practice interview, even if it's just with family or a friend.  He really grilled me on what I know about pharmacy.  And when I went home he got me panicked enough that I did a lot of research on the website about what kinds of clubs and organizations they have, what conventions they're known for, etc.

Q: Why UCSF?

A: Basically I grew up here, and I wanted to stay close to home.  Then after already choosing that, I kept on hearing that it was basically the best school in the universe.  It's academically driven hospital so you'll get lots of clinical experience.  Lots of orgs on campus, and they got me really excited to join one.  Lots of social events.

Since SF has a lot of very distinct districts, there is a lot of opportunities for translational work if you know another language.  There is an HIV clinic on campus and you can shadow people.  If you want to get more into law and politics, Sacramento isn't that far away.  In the city there is some kind of heath fair almost every Saturday.

The P2/P3 students get to basically run the school.  There is a proctor that signs off on the liability forms, but we basically get to set up what we want.

Q: What other schools did you apply to?

A: Pretty much every school in California.  Do apply early.  UCSD has a fairly lenient application process.  They just have one essay.  Definitely have someone read over your essay and help you with grammatical stuff, etc.

To prep for your interview, know your own essay.  You don't want to write something on there that you don't really know much about and then get asked about it.

Q: How many questions are on the application?

A: It's a template.  Maybe nine questions, with a tiny box that you have to fit your answer into.  PharmCAS is the easy part.  Touro doesn't ask for your supplemental applications unless you pass the 1st tier of screenings.  You just have to do your research.  Some applications are electronic, and some have to be post marked by a certain date.  Those are scary.  That's why I just walked mine in.

Q: On questions about extracurricular activities, is it ok to write down random things?  Or should it all be pharmacy related?

A: It's better to be well rounded.

Some people say that if you're into research, you have a 50% better chance of getting accepted because there is just so much funding for research out there, and if you're into research they're hoping you'll stay on with UCSF after graduation and bring that money to the school, but that's not necessarily true.  Some people say you have to become a pharm tech before apply, but that's not necessary either.

UCSF has the least amount of prerequisites.  When I decided to go into pharmacy, I had 25 units to go, and I finished those in a year.  English classes, etc.  There's a link on the website which shows you all the equivalent courses.

I was interviewed late in the process.  I thought there wouldn't be much chance for me, but I got in.  It happens.  You hear stories about people getting the news.  One student was already in a school in Arizona, and was done with his first year.  He applied again to UCSF, got accepted and left the school.

Q: What's the on site essay like?

A: The on site essay is easy.  They questions are generally like "Rank these four things and [explain] why."  Just use common sense.  Choose the ethical reason over money.  They pretty much just want to see that you speak English.  You can't write on the back of the paper, or outside of the box.  Just one period outside of the line and you fail.  Don't write too much.  You can read more about what questions other people got on studentdoctor.net.  Communication, following directions, and having a moral conscience.  It seems like that's what they want to see.

If you have bad grades, don't bring it up.  They don't have access to transcripts.  Emphasize stuff like involvement in other things and community service.

Q: What about the question that's asking something about the "human condition?"

A [A lot of people chimed in on this, and came to a consensus that the question is purposefully vague.]

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And I think I'll cut it off right there.  I'm not even close to halfway through my notes.  There was essentially no silence for the two and half hours that the UCSF student was there.  Come back for Part 2!

UCSF Preview Day - Part 4 - Student Panel

So the student panel consisted of three students, a 1st year, 2nd year, and 3rd year student.  All of them had been working in the real world before applying and becoming accepted by UCSF.  We were told, however, that they do not fully represent what their classes look like as a whole, as many student are recent graduates.  All three of them were dressed in every day clothes, and not in dress clothes like the student panel at UoP.  I don't know if that was because this wasn't the full day experience, or because that's just the culture/environment here.  I suspect the later.  I'll know when I go back to see the full presentation in the spring.

The admissions director Joel Gonzales asked most of the questions of himself to get the Q&A session going.  The students alternated who went first when answering the questions.  All the answers are going to be paraphrased of course.  I didn't record it, I just listened and typed.

1) What attracted you to pharmacy?

Student #3 - Family was all pharmacists, she tried teaching and found it didn't fit her personality.  She tried working for her sister and found she enjoyed working with the elderly population.

Student #2 - Was working in industry, drug discovery research.  He didn't have any direct pharmacy experience, but he wanted to go into clinical research, and UCSF was a good program for that.

Student #1 - He liked the uniqueness of the pathways that UCSF offers.  (As we find out in question 2, he only applied to one school.)  He was working in finance for the last 9 years, but wanted a change.  He graduated with a biochem degree so already had a science background.  Took a pharm tech course at City College of San Francisco, then when he was ready applied.

2) What was the application process like?

#1 - The time commitment was the greatest challenge.  The PharmCAS and the Supplemental Application are very robust so the school can get a holistic view of you.  You have an opportunity to address every issue you like.  Don't BS on it.  I only applied to one school, but I probably should have applied to more.

#2 - I applied to everywhere, and the this [UCSF] application takes longer than everyone else's.  I did about 20 revisions.  It's so hard because of the word limit and you want to make sure you get the most out of every word.

#3 - The essay writing was really challenging.  What makes you unique is a hard question to answer.  I did a lot of revising.  The Supplemental Application workshop [that UCSF offers] is great.  I flew in for it.  Afterwards I went home and revised my statement of purpose.

3) Did you do anything to make yourself a better applicant?  Why do you think you were chosen?

#1 - I left my job to go to school full time for a year, and to get some experience and something to talk about.  Among there class there are a lot of common traits.  A lot of community service and leadership.  It's an exceptional group.

#2 - Concrete things?  I volunteered at a hospital pharmacy for a year and took refresher courses because I had been out of school for a long time.  I was a bit nervous about fitting it at first because I was older, but even though there is a lot of diversity in the class, there are similarities.  This group was very different from a lot of the other places I interviewed at.  I think I was admitted because of my essays.  Some people still tell me they remember my essay.

#3 - I agree about the essay part.  They remember it.  As for what I did?  I have teaching experience, and a lot of experience traveling to other countries.  I also worked at my sister's pharmacy for a year and a half.  I also researched all the different fields of pharmacy and went to all the school's websites.

4) What don't you like?  What do you like?

#3 - The school part.  There is a lot to memorize.  I enjoy interacting with all the people and participating in the different organizations.

#2 - The stress about taking exams.  The classes get really exciting in the 2nd year.  Some of the leadership stuff is exciting.  People notice leadership qualities.  I wouldn't have expected to become class president.  I'm quiet.

#1 - [He's only been a student at UCSF for two weeks] After just eight days of class, midterms are already next week.  Good time management skills and organization are important.  I look forward to groups, and I signed up for the homeless clinic.

5) Did you work while in school?

#2 - No because of the economy.

#3 - Not during the school year, but I do work with my sister in the summer.

#1 - I have an internship at the VA hospital

6) Where did you take your undergrad?  And how does that level of work compare to here?

#1 - University of Colorado at Boulder.  It's the number 2 party school.  Here the classes are fast paced.  They're not exactly harder, but there is a lot more to it.  You need to keep things balanced.

#2 - UCSC and two years at a community college.  The work here is definitely harder.  There's just a lot of material.  It's all time-management.

#3 - UC Irvine.  Got a bachelor's in psychology.  I got by with cramming.  I later went back and took classes at a community college.  That was harder.  The workload is about the same as those science courses but there is a lot more information.

7) Final question.  What piece of advice do you have?

#3 - Make sure you know this is what you want to do.  Get some experience in it.  Don't just do it for the money.  Develop good study habits.

#2 - I enjoyed applying all around the country because it made me feel better about my choice.  I chose this in part because of the pathways.  I also saw a difference in the interview.  I was also considering UNC and UT.

#3 - Really do some exploration within yourself.  Know what you're going to do.  Reach out and talk to people.

Certainly a lot of good information here.  I think I'm on the right track.  It will definitely be good to take a look and print out the supplemental application.  It sounds intense.  And even though I'm years away from applying, starting early means I have more time to make revisions.