The Importance of Pharmacy School Accreditation
If you are considering applying to a PharmD program, the first—and perhaps most vital—step is making sure that the schools you apply to are properly accredited. Accreditation is the process by which an independent outside organization reviews the faculty and curriculum of a school to see if it fits a particular standard. When it comes to pharmacy schools, accreditation is paramount. If your school isn't accredited, your degree might not be worth more than the paper it's printed on.
What is Accreditation?
By attending an accredited pharmacy school, you can rest assured that you are receiving at the very least the standard level of pharmacy education. This assurance is very important to a variety of other entities, including other schools, possible employers, and your state's licensing and certification agencies.
The United States Department of Education maintains an online database of accredited colleges, programs, and universities. If a school you are interested in is not in that database, be very, very cautious about attending that school. If you attend a non-accredited school, some of the issues you might face include:
- Other schools and employers may not view your degree as valid.
- You will not be able to receive federal financial aid.
- If you transfer to another school, your credits at a non-accredited school might not transfer with you.
- You will not be able to sit for any of the state licensing exams.
The Accreditation Process
There are numerous accrediting organizations in the U.S. Some of them are local, which tend to have higher standards, and some of them are national agencies, which tend to have lower standards. The major accreditation agency for pharmacy programs is the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), which was established in 1932.
According to ACPE's website, its primary purpose is “to provide a professional judgment of the quality of a college or school of pharmacy's professional program and to encourage continued improvement thereof.” The actual accreditation process begins with a pharmacy school that wants to gain or maintain accreditation with ACPE. The school pays a fee to be evaluated by ACPE according to an established set of criteria that judge the school's faculty, curriculum, and facilities. Obviously, if the school meets or surpasses the criteria, then it gains accreditation.
There are three types of accreditation statuses:
- Pre-candidate status: Applies to schools that fulfill eligibility requirements, but do not have any enrolled students.
- Candidate status: Applies to schools that had pre-candidate status, but now have enrolled students. If you graduate from a school with candidate status, don't worry. Graduates of candidate status programs are treated the same as graduates of a fully accredited school.
- Full status: Indicates that the school or college is fully accredited.
On the ACPE website you can find a list of the pharmacy programs and continuing education providers that possess some level of accreditation from the ACPE. You can also check out our list of ACPE-accredited pharmacy schools.
Article Resources:
Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
U.S. Department of Education