The UAMS College of Pharmacy requires 60 semester hours of prerequisite coursework from a US-accredited institution to apply for the PharmD program. Applicants may apply prior to completing prerequisites, but they should be complete by the end of the spring semester prior to fall entry. On a case-by-case basis, applicants may be allowed to take a course in summer I semester prior to fall entry. Contact the admissions office at 501-686-8889 or copadmissions@uams.edu with any questions. Applicants with coursework from foreign institutions must submit a course-by-course foreign transcript evaluation from WES or ECE to the college.
All prerequisites must be completed with a grade of C or better. Credit and non-credit or pass/fail grades will not be accepted except for courses taken during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (2019-2020 and 2020-2021 academic years).
All prerequisite courses and labs may be taken either in person or online. Courses may only be applied to one prerequisite only. AP, IB, or CLEP credit will be accepted as long as these credits appear on official transcripts. There is no limit to the number of AP, IP, or CLEP courses.
If you attend a college that uses the quarter hour system, you may convert semester hours to required quarter hours by multiplying by 1.5. Example: 4 semester hours X 1.5 = 6 quarter hours.
A prerequisite checklist is available here.
Core Courses
| Courses | Semester Credit Hours |
| College Algebra | 3 |
| Chemistry 1 & 2 w/labs | 8 |
| Organic Chemistry 1 & 2 w/labs | 8 |
| Biology 1 & 2 w/labs* | 8 |
| Microbiology w/lab | 4 |
Non-Core Courses
| Selectives: Choose from Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Genetics, Quantitative Analysis, Physical Chemistry, Statistics, Calculus, Physics, Critical Thinking, Logic | 9 |
| General Electives (your choice) | 20 |
| TOTAL | 60 |
Credit Hours for Financial Aid
In order to be eligible for federal financial aid, students must have 72 semester credit hours of coursework. If a student has less than 72 hours, no financial aid will be available until completion of 72 hours. As the UAMS College of Pharmacy requires 60 semester hours of prerequisite coursework for pharmacy school, in most cases, students would need to complete an additional 12 hours of coursework or less during the fall semester of the first year of pharmacy school. At that point, they would become eligible for financial aid. For more information, please contact our UAMS Financial Aid department. Students who come to pharmacy school with 72 semester credit hours or higher will be eligible for financial aid.