Admission Information

All prerequisite coursework listed below reflects course availability and articulation as of August 2024. If you have completed your prerequisite coursework in previous academic sessions, you may wish to consult the academic calendar, and for UBC Okanagan students, the UBC Transfer Credit Search Tool, for confirmation of course articulations.  
 

² The UBC Science One Program plus 6 credits of English is acceptable in lieu of first-year requirements. Applicants who completed the Science One Program prior to 2022W must also present BIOL 140. Other courses that are credit-excluded or anti-requisites to these courses will also be considered. Consult the Science Credit Exclusion List for more information.

³ CHEM_V 113, if taken, will be accepted in lieu of CHEM_V 123. Split courses offered by the UBC Chemistry Department as equivalents to CHEM_V 111, CHEM_V 121, CHEM_V 123 and CHEM 203 will be accepted if lab and lecture components are completed. For UBC Okanagan applicants, less than two semesters of organic chemistry will be acceptable if the coursework receives transfer credit for UBC Vancouver’s CHEM_V 203, or CHEM_V 233 & CHEM_V 235. To confirm how your courses transfer, refer to the UBC Transfer Credit Search Tool or the BC Transfer Guide.

⁴ WRDS_V 150 will be accepted in lieu of 3 credits of English. One of SCIE_V 113, LFS_V 150, or FRST_V 150 will also be accepted in lieu of 3 credits of English. For UBC Okanagan students, please note that ENGL_O 109 has been assessed to fulfill 3 credits of the English requirement. You will need to present an additional 3 credits of English coursework to satisfy the English requirement.

⁵ English courses used to satisfy the English requirement cannot count toward satisfying the humanities or social sciences requirement.

⁶ Humanities and elective courses completed outside the 10-year time limit will be considered.

Where direct equivalents to UBC Vancouver courses are available, applicants are normally expected to present these courses. Other courses that are credit-excluded or anti-requisites to these courses will also be considered. Applicants from institutions that do not offer direct equivalents to UBC Vancouver prerequisite courses are encouraged to refer to the course descriptions below to determine if the courses they have taken, or are planning to take, are suitable to satisfy the prerequisites. To check how your prerequisite coursework transfers to UBC Vancouver, please refer to the UBC Transfer Credit Search Tool or the BC Transfer Guide.

Prerequisite coursework must be taken for graded credit and transferable to UBC Vancouver.⁷ The Faculty does not complete transfer credit evaluations and is unable to provide a listing of acceptable courses or provide pre-admission evaluations as a result. Applicants will receive a formal evaluation of their academic qualifications by the Undergraduate Admissions Office after applying for admission. The course descriptions in the table should be treated as a guideline and not a definitive or fully comprehensive description of the courses that would satisfy the prerequisites. The Faculty reserves the right to refuse admission if it is determined that the prerequisites have not been met.

⁷ Prerequisite coursework completed for Credit/Pass during the January–April 2020 term will be accepted.

⁸ English courses will not be accepted if offered by the English Department of an institution in a country where English is not the principal language of instruction. In rare circumstances, courses offered outside of the English department may be used to fulfill the English prerequisite. These courses should have a primary focus on English composition, literature, communication and/or writing and be considered as part of your degree program to fulfill the English or Communications prerequisite. English as a Second Language courses will not be accepted. If you are unsure whether the course(s) you have taken will fulfill the English prerequisite, please contact the Office of Student Services by emailing undergrad.pharm@ubc.ca.
 
⁹ English courses used to satisfy the English requirement cannot count toward satisfying the humanities or social sciences requirement.

¹⁰ Humanities and elective courses completed outside the 10-year time limit will be considered.

*Applicants are responsible for submitting required academic documents to the Undergraduate Admissions Office (UAO) for evaluation. The list of documents required as well as deadlines for submission are communicated via email and available on the website. Questions about documents should be directed to the UAO through the Applicant Service Centre. For applicants currently attending courses, transcripts must show grades for 2024 Fall (Sept–Dec) and an accurate list of courses in progress for 2025 Winter (Jan–Apr) if applicable. Transcripts sent to the Faculty will not be processed.

As part of the application process, applicants will be asked to make a residency declaration to indicate whether they are a resident of British Columbia and, if so, their BC region of residence. The following are the relevant applicant groups:

BC Residents
Preference is given to qualified applicants who are residents of British Columbia when forming the PharmD admission shortlist. At least 85% of the spaces on the PharmD admission shortlist will be reserved with priority for BC Residents. For the purpose of applying to the Entry-to-Practice Doctor of Pharmacy program, applicants are considered BC residents if they hold a valid BC Services Card by the application deadline. Residents will be required to show proof in the form of a valid BC Services Card. 

Applicants from Underrepresented Areas of BC
In an effort to serve the health care needs of British Columbians who reside in underserved communities, the program gives special consideration to applicants who come from communities (PDF, 100 KB)—e.g., Districts 3, 4, and 5—outside of the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley. Applicants from underrepresented areas of British Columbia meeting a minimum threshold of 70% or equivalent on their admission average will be included on the PharmD admission shortlist.

Indigenous Applicants
The program welcomes applications from qualified self-identified Indigenous people. All Indigenous applicants meeting a minimum threshold of 70% or equivalent on their admission average will be included on the PharmD admission shortlist.

Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut Residents
Residents of the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut are treated as BC residents and will be required to provide equivalent documentation to the BC Services Card.

Out-of-Province Applicants
Given the prioritization of BC residents, out-of-province applicants will be included in the PharmD admission shortlist once all eligible applicants based on the above criteria have been placed.

The admission average is calculated on the most recent 30 credits of undergraduate coursework completed (on interim and final transcripts). 

This includes all undergraduate-level coursework completed that is transferrable to UBC Vancouver. A minimum average of 70% or a 2.80 GPA is required. Given the competitiveness of the PharmD program, applicants can expect that a higher average will be needed in order to be admitted to the program.

• As stated in the UBC calendar, admission to UBC is competitive and satisfying minimum academic requirements does not guarantee admission. In determining admissibility, UBC may consider the extent to which an applicant has: 
  • excelled, as evidenced by consistently strong grades, and/or the number of courses registered and then successfully completed in any given term;
  • selected courses that are relevant and/or complementary to the program to which admission is being sought;
  • selected a coherent sequence of progressively more challenging courses;
  • pursued studies having close comparability in learning outcomes with courses typically taken within the first two years of an undergraduate program at UBC.
• Only graded transferable undergraduate coursework will be included in the admission average(s). Grades from coursework that does not receive transfer credit at UBC Vancouver will not be included in the admission average. In-progress grades are not included in the interim admission average calculation (i.e., grades for coursework taken in the January–April term after the December 1 application deadline). In order to ensure that all admission conditions are satisfied, final grades will be reviewed and included in the final admission average calculation.
• Admission averages do not include IB, AP, or A-Level exam grades.
• Only coursework completed within 10 years of the desired program start date can be considered, with the exceptions noted above (i.e., if applying to the 2025 Winter intake [September 2025 start date], only coursework taken from September 2015 onwards is eligible to be considered for admission).

In addition to a strong academic background, the PharmD program seeks applicants who possess non-academic traits that are suitable for the practice of pharmacy. Eligible applicants will have the opportunity to demonstrate these traits by participating in the Pre-Recorded Interview Questions and Scenarios (PIQS). The PIQS process is conducted through an online platform and will require applicants to verbally respond to interview questions and scenarios, as well as provide a written response.

All qualified applicants will be invited to submit responses to the PIQS. Only responses from applicants included in the PharmD admission shortlist will be considered for admission.

Due to the nature of the PIQS, we cannot accommodate requests to reschedule for any reason.