(188) Impact of Precollege Pharmacy Exploration Program on Undergraduate and PharmD Program Recruitment

Objective : To evaluate impact of a high school pharmacy exploration summer program on interest and enrollment in a pharmaceutical sciences undergraduate major with possible matriculation to a PharmD program.

Methods: The interdisciplinary nature of pharmaceutical sciences challenges students to integrate and apply scientific knowledge from multiple disciplines to solve problems related to personal health and disease. Because drugs and disease pique student’s interest, we hypothesized that introducing students to the wide-ranging opportunities in pharmacy would increase interest and future enrollment in pharmacy-related majors, pharmacy school applications and careers. Thus, we created and implemented a sustainable, week-long science enrichment and career exploration program for high school students titled, “Pills, Potions, and Poisons” (PPP). This program provides students with an overview of pharmacy and its relationship to health, disease, and society. Students learn through a variety of approaches including lecture, discussion, games, and hands-on experiments. In addition, students explore a variety of pharmacy-related careers through hospital pharmacy visits, community pharmacy activities, visiting speakers, research lab visits and discussions with student teaching assistants, faculty and recruitment and admissions staff.

Results: From the summer of 2012 until the summer of 2022, a total of 490 high school students enrolled in our PPP program. Of those 490 students, 68 of those students went on to enroll in our Bachelor of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences undergraduate major, and 35 have enrolled in our PharmD program, with 32 of those students enrolling in both programs.

Conclusions: Efforts put towards successful precollege summer programs equip Colleges of Pharmacy with an engaging recruitment method to increase interest and overall enrollment in both undergraduate and professional pharmacy programs.