Pharmacy Interview Help and Answers

thank you very much, this will hopefully prove v helpful
have interviews at bath man and nottingham, it would be good to hear back about your nottingham one as this is my top place at the moment.
manchester sounds like hell, how do they expect us to be able to answer those questions, surely we are going there to learn those things.
Did they seem to mind that you couldn't answer lots of things?

Interesting - your experiences are exactly the same as mine last year! Did you get all the people at Manchester telling you ho much better than Notts they are? if so, ignore them. Nottingham is far better

wow, thatnx for sharing that.
Manchester does sound dead awful now.i dont think they'd expect you to know all that, hopefully.

Thanks for the info you provided, it was very helpful, and good luck for your nottingham interview, and keep us updated....

By the way what other unis have you applied to ???

I've applied to:

Kings (KCL)
London School of Pharmacy
Portsmouth
Nottingham
Bath
Aston

awesome, have you had any feedback from anyone yet?

Hey guys, i have had interviews at Bath and Manchester so thought that it would be beneficial to share my experiences with you. Heres some background information, i got CCCC in my AS-results and got predicted BBB.
Doing Chemistry, Spanish and Biology.

09th November. Bath was awesome, they were extremely friendly, you got a free lunch which tasted awesome and the campus is magical, along with the city.
The actual interview was equally pleasant, the interviewee asked me the following questions:
Why Pharmacy?
What other health-care professions had i considered studying/entering?
Did i enjoy my work-experience and what did i learn from it?
Talk to me about a drug that is/has been in the news recently?

And then time to ask him questions.
He was so nice and walked me to the bus stop as i was the last person to be interviewed and he was telling me all about his research topic.

It was informal, but i would advise dressing smart.

They also give you a free wallet/folder for books and stuff and a pen! Not bad, really! I really wasnt interested in Bath and it was more or less to fill the 6 choices up but im really considering it now.

They gave me an offer off ABB a few days later.

Now Manchester 16th November, it is my first choice, but after being at Baths interview got a false sense of security so i didnt do much preparartion at all - slightly foolish!

From the word go i didnt like the atmosphere at Manchster, it was intimidating with the admissions people asking us questions in the welcome lecture about acid reflux and cytotoxic drugs!
Then we were shown around the university campus and the medical building where most of our time is spent.

We are then taken to the pharmacy common room where you can get free mars bars etc! You then have to write two mini essays!
One about a part of your scientific course that you have enjoyed studying, suggestions include a practical in chesmistry or drawing a cell and explaining its function. How i wish i had paid more attention in lessons! I ended up writing about the Islets of Langerhans and the insulin and glucagon release.
Secondly you have to write about health/science/medical related news.
I wrote about the controversy over Herceptin, the breast cancer drug, Cannabis now said to triple the chances of developing Schizophrenia and aspirin is now being used to treat Alzheimers.

Apparently, this exercise was just to see how effectively we can communicate and present ideas, so make sure its neat!

Then interview time, there was the interviewer and there was also another person sitting in on the interview writting notes about my performance. The interview started late and so he basically said that we werent going to beat around the bush and he would ask me straight out about pharmacy.
First question, tell me about all the different ways drugs can be administered?
I foolishly said patches as well as all the other usual suspects, this then led on to him asking me insistently
how patches work!
I havent the foggiest! He then asked
why patches are used?
when are patches used?

Then he asked when you would choose to inject a drug and when you would choose to give drugs as a pill?

He then asked how topical solutions work?

He then asked me to tell him about 5 prescribed drugs?
which i struggled to answer
I said methadone as one of my answers and he then asked me
how methadone works ?
Once again i had no idea.

Then he asked me where drugs come from?

Why is pharmacy considered as a profession?

It finished after that. It was so intimidating and very unfriendly, it left me questioning why on earth i chose pharmacy! I was rather anoyed as Manchester was my first choice.

I have yet to hear from Manchester, i just hope its good news.

I have an interview at Nottingham this Wednesday 23rd November 2005.

Hope it wasnt too long and boring!
I hope it helps in your quest to be a pharmacist.

awesome, have you had any feedback from anyone yet?

Kings (KCL) - nothing
London School of Pharmacy - nothing
Portsmouth - interview
Nottingham - interview
Bath - interview
Aston - offer of ABB

by the way how long was your interview at Bath?, what questions did you ask them, when they say if you have any questions to ask?


Also How did you answer this question??
'What other health-care professions had i considered studying/entering?'

Was the interviewer pushy, like trying to get the answer out of you?
If you couldnt answer the questions do you think they mind?

It would be a great help if you answer these questions, thank you

your in exactly the same position as my sister..she went to both the bath and manchester open days on the 9th and the 16th!..i went with her to the bath one so i probably saw you somewhere..we both hated bath though, she said the manchester interview was really tough, but liked the university..they asked her what the added value of pharmacy is to the healthcare profession and she had no idea what to say! good luck with the rest of your choices

I may well have seen you aswell! Glad to hear someone else struggled at Manchester. Thanks alot for the good luck and i hope everything goes ok for you and your sister.
Why did you hate Bath? I was really impressed.

i just didn't like the overall feel of the university, i don't think its my kind of place..i can see myself getting really homesick there..i did like the city though, but i regret having applied there myself now

i didn't apply to Manchester..my sister's the one doing pharmacy, I just went with her to keep her company , but no she hasn't heard from manchester she thinks she did terribly at the interview . I'm doing Maths n Stats applied to imperial, kcl, ucl, lse, bath and warwick and i've heard absolutely nothing!

Wow! four london uni's! Thats insane. London seems really scary for university but its easily one of the best cities in the world so i can understand why you have applied to so many, plus they're all amazing universities!! Alot of my friends havent heard anything at all so dont worry. I hope it goes well. Good Luck!