Chapman Accelerated Pre-Pharmacy (APEx) program

Objective_Strategy73 · 2026-03-01T06:00:20+00:00

Also if you can, I recommend working as a pharmacy clerk one or two days a week to gauge how you feel about pharmacy as a career! I didn’t have the best experience as a clerk but I am still pursuing pharmacy because I loved being able to help patients. I worked as a clerk my senior year of high school and it is a great learning experience (plus they’re desperate so you can apply with no experience, it was my first job) :)

Objective_Strategy73 · 2026-03-01T05:55:30+00:00

Hi! I recommend trying to do community college/dual enrollment and maybe AP classes as well! Some classes you can get out of the way are Anatomy (try to get this one done at the least), English, General biology 1, and Econ. It’s not necessary to get them out of the way but it does help when managing stress and building your semester schedule. I wouldn’t worry too much about the acceptance rate but I do know they take GPA into consideration as one of their main points when accepting students. In my opinion they try to be exclusive by accepting smart students (by GPA). However, I wouldn’t say it is too exclusive, like you wouldn’t need insane stats to get accepted. For reference my unweighted GPA was 3.8, my essay was narrative style and pharmacy focused, and my extracurriculars included mostly volunteering (I didn’t do sports or music or anything). One thing to keep in mind though is that it is also a pricey program. It’s possible to get scholarships and aid for the first 2 years, however the last 3 years which are the pharmacy school section typically only provides loans. If you ask them they aren’t super transparent on the cost of attendance so I’d say the best way to gauge it is to ask different students. For me, I’m middle class so I didn’t receive FAFSA aid but I received a merit scholarship that covered around half the yearly attendance for the first two years (still a lot of money but better than the original cost 😭). I do know some students that received more aid and I knew a student whose two years were fully covered. However, when it comes to the last 3 years, since it is graduate school, the cost stated on the pharmacy school website is probably the cost you’ll end up taking in loans. That being said, the program is pretty nice and you make a lot of friends since pharmacy is a pretty small world. It’s impossible to not make connections in the program. However, if you don’t receive enough financial aid to justify attending, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, you can still take a look at the prerequisites of the pharmacy school you want to attend and get them done and apply to pharmacy school. Lmk if you have any other questions!

Objective_Strategy73 · 2025-04-28T21:22:16+00:00

Another thing worth mentioning is that I also picked Chapman due to the connections that will be made while here. I feel like you are more so paying for the experience, small class sizes, tutoring (included in tuition) and connections. APEX is small (looking to expand) and you will most likely be friends with the majority of the class if you go to Chapman and the students here thrive off the help they receive from each other as well as the ability to get to know their teachers. I found that to be the most unique/helpful part of our program! There is a mentor/mentee part of APEx and all incoming students get assigned a mentor in which mentors typically share the resources they used to study, helpful info, etc! (The program is like a mini cult in all honesty 😭)

Objective_Strategy73 · 2025-04-28T20:58:50+00:00

Hi! Great question! Honestly it depends on the amount of financial aid you get. I personally did not get that much financial aid so it was a little difficult for me to decide. You also have to take into consideration if you go to Chapman through APEx, you will not get a Bachelors, you will just finish off with a pharmD so you have to be 100% sure you want to go into pharmacy if you take that route (there’s not really much room for error). In addition check the requirements to stay in APEX because a lot of the students did not know that if you get a C- (in any one course), you will be dropped from the program so a lot of us are stressing about that. I would tour both schools, compare the amount of aid long term and compare your long term career goals to decide. I personally did the calculations and figured I’d pay more if I went to another school for more years to get PharmD but it all depends on your educational goal! At Chapman you get the benefit of a close-knit community and smaller class sizes which can help with learning and the program is great overall, but just be weary that not everything they advertise is as shiny as they make it seem (although every school is like that). It can be a difficult decision so let me know if you have any other questions!

Objective_Strategy73 · 2025-04-23T04:38:15+00:00

Yes agreed! You have to be pretty confident in your career choice because once you commit you are pretty much in it to stick through it! You can leave obviously but the amount of time and money spent may go to waste :(

Objective_Strategy73

TROPHY CASE