What do colleges look for when applying?

What are some good colleges to look at applying to if I want to go into pharmaceutical studies?

• I'm currently a junior in high school and I need to start thinking about what colleges I want to visit over the summer. I'm interested in becoming a pharmacist, but I'm unsure on a few things: 1. What are some colleges with good pharmacy programs? I live in northwest Ohio, so schools around Ohio, Michigan, etc. are preferable but I'm open to other suggestions as well. I'd really like to go to the University of Michigan, how is their program? 2. How should I approach a degree? Should I major in Chemistry? I'm clueless really. Thanks for your help! :)

• Answer:

  I'm going into pharmacy as well. I go to University of Pittsburgh right now and I hear good things about their program but it is also quite small. I'm sure there are lots of good ones but I don't know much about that sorry. If you want to become a pharmacist there is usually a six year program to get your PharmD degree (which is what you want to get if you want to be a pharmacist). You would go into whatever school you choose and do Pre-Pharmacy. This covers all the credits you'll need to get into pharmacy school in two years and then the next four years will be in grad school studying pharmacy. If you are seriously interested in pharmacy you should try to take some AP courses while you're still in high school, especially AP chem and AP bio. Even AP econ is a useful course to take because lots of majors, including pharmacy, require econ credits (at least at Pitt). Of course you should do what course load you can handle in high school, I'm just saying that if you take these now it will be less to do later. No one recommended me to take them even though I could have handled them and I really wish someone had, so I'm recommending it for you! Also with whatever school you are interested in going pharm school at you should look into an early acceptance program, they may be called 'conditional' acceptance. These get you accepted into pharm school right out of high school instead of waiting to apply until the end of sophomore year, but you have to keep good grades up. I'm not sure exactly how it works but it is certainly something to look into if you are serious about pharm school. Conditional acceptance another thing I wish someone had told me about so here ya go!