"We have had an overwhelming number of qualified applicants, with as many as 200 of them easily meeting the standards to be accepted into the rigorous four-year doctor of pharmacy program. Unfortunately, we can only accommodate between 88 and 100 students in the incoming class."

-- Dwaine Green, admissions director,
UK College of Pharmacy.

March 29, 2002 (Lexington, Ky.) -- The University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy has received a record number of applicants for next year's incoming Pharm.D. class. The college received 344 applications, an increase of 56 percent over last year and more than double the number of students who applied for admission in 2000.

"We have had an overwhelming number of qualified applicants, with as many as 200 of them easily meeting the standards to be accepted into the rigorous four-year doctor of pharmacy program," said Dwaine Green, director of admissions. "Unfortunately, we can only accommodate between 88 and 100 students in the incoming class."

Although the College has a proposal to expand the pharmacy program and add up to 50 more students per class to help alleviate a statewide and national pharmacist shortage, funding for the project is unlikely during the state legislature's current session.

To determine which students will be accepted as members of the Class of 2006, the College's Admission Committee will interview approximately 150 of the students with the best combined grade point average and PCAT scores. Those applicants then participate in three different interview sessions with College of Pharmacy faculty members, current pharmacy students and practitioners.

"We always have many practitioners who volunteer to be part of the admissions process each year and they are always very impressed by the quality of the pool of applicants," Green said.

The surge in applicants also will likely lead to next year's incoming class having the highest average GPA and PCAT scores in the College's history.

"We are excited to continue to attract the brightest young men and women in Kentucky to our program and to be able to provide a high quality educational opportunity that will not only benefit them in their future careers but the citizens of the Commonwealth," said UK College of Pharmacy Dean Kenneth B. Roberts. "It continues to be our goal to be able to move forward with our expansion plan and increase our enrollment allowing us to educate more pharmacists and better serve the health care needs of Kentuckians."