SIUE School of Pharmacy Drops Standardized Testing Requirement
The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Pharmacy (SOP) will drop the Pharmacy College Admission Test (PCAT) as a requirement for admission to align admissions practices with national trends among pharmacy schools. The policy immediately applies to fall 2021 admission applications.
“With many of the barriers that standardized tests can create, the environment during COVID-19 and to ensure our applicant pool is as diverse as possible, it was deemed this would be best for our prospective students,” said SOP Associate Dean Jessica Kerr, PharmD, CDCES, Office of Professional and Student Affairs, and professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice.
“We discovered that the PCAT was not as strong a predictor for success in our program as other admission variables, such as pre-pharmacy coursework grade point average,” said SOP Dean Mark Luer, PharmD, FCCP. “Thus, to address the factors that Dr. Kerr referenced and to better identify those individuals most likely to be successful in the Doctor of Pharmacy program, our admission criteria were modified.
“The School already has an average graduation rate over 95% and top 20 board pass rates (North American Pharmacist Licensure Exam®), but we believe that the adjustments made were a calculated approach to strategically move the School forward.”
To apply to the SIUE SOP, visit siue.edu/pharmacy/admission.
Photo: SIUE School of Pharmacy Dean Mark Luer.
