Academic Requirements

To be considered for admissions to our PharmD program, applicants must meet the following academic requirements:

• Bachelor's Degree
• Minimum GPA Requirements
• Prerequisite Coursework
• International Coursework/Degree Evaluation (if applicable)

Important: While you do not need to have completed all academic requirements at the time of application, please note that all academic requirements must be fulfilled prior to matriculation if you are offered admission. It is recommended that you have most of the academic requirements completed or in progress at the time of application to ensure a smooth transition into the program.

Bachelor's Degree

A bachelor's degree from an accredited institution is required for admission. While there is no required major, a solid foundation in sciences is essential for the study of pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences.

Below is a graphic for the Most Identified College Majors for Accepted PharmCAS Applicants from the 2024-2025 PharmCAS Applicant Data Report released on November 12, 2025:

Minimum GPA Requirements

Applicants must have a minimum PharmCAS cumulative overall GPA of 3.0 and a minimum PharmCAS cumulative overall science GPA of 2.8. Please note that cumulative GPA includes coursework from every college or university attended, not just the institution where the bachelor's degree was earned.

PharmCAS will calculate your GPA during the application verification process. You can also use the GPA calculator on the PharmCAS website to estimate your GPA before application submission.

Prerequisite Coursework

Completion of the following prerequisite courses with a grade of C- or higher at an accredited college or university is required. To see a list of pre-approved courses from hundreds of schools nationwide, please visit our Institution Course Equivalencies.

Additional requirements:

• Our policy is that science prerequisite courses may be no more than 10 years old. If any science coursework is beyond the 10-year time limit, they must be retaken. Some exceptions to this policy may be made to applicants who have worked in an environment that allowed them to remain up-to-date on the subject in question. Exceptions will only be granted by SOAR upon review of the applicant's academic and work history.
• Letter grades are required for all prerequisites. Pass/No Pass (P/NP) grading from 2020-2022 will be accepted. Any P/NP grading outside of this timeframe will require review by the SOAR team.

Considerations:

• Online coursework is acceptable, but we highly recommend taking in-person courses wherever possible, especially for labs.
  • Prospective students who plan to complete prerequisite courses through online platforms not offered by an accredited U.S. higher education institution (including third‑party partner platforms; this excludes university‑affiliated Extension/Extended Studies programs such as UC San Diego Extended Studies) must email our team before enrolling. This allows our team to review the course content in advance to determine whether it provides the level of academic foundation expected from accredited institutions and whether it can satisfy the prerequisite requirement(s) in question.
• Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) credit will be honored based on how your undergraduate institution(s) awarded the credit.
• English courses taken outside of the United States will not be accepted toward meeting the English requirements unless English is the official language of the university or college attended and all instruction (except for foreign language courses) is conducted in English.

International Coursework/Degree Evaluation (if applicable)

If you have completed coursework or earned a degree from an international institution, you must:

• Complete a World Education Services (WES) evaluation. Please note that PharmCAS specifically requires WES evaluations, so other evaluation services will unfortunately not be accepted.
  • WES evaluations should be submitted as part of your PharmCAS application alongside all of your official transcripts.
    • If you'd like for us to do any kind of prerequisite evaluation prior to submitting your application, you may also choose to send your WES evaluation to Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science via the AccessWES portal. However, please keep in mind that a fee will be incurred every time you send your WES evaluation to any entity.
  • Note that your WES GPAs will not be included in the overall or science GPA calculations in the PharmCAS application verification process. However, we will manually calculate the cumulative GPAs to include all coursework.
    • If our manual calculation determines that you do not meet the minimum GPA requirements, we must deny your application, even if your US coursework meets the minimum requirements.
• Complete at least one year of full-time study at a four-year college or university in the United States prior to application. A four-year college or university is one that is accredited to award bachelor’s degrees. Enrollment in a community college does not satisfy this requirement.
  • This can include graduate-level coursework, such as a Master's degree program.