Echo-Targeting Advertisements

AACP is pleased to provide an online student recruiting program directed exclusively at the future students who visit the AACP and/or the PharmCAS websites. Using this program AACP member schools have run millions of online banner ads to our proprietary audience of future students which generates hundreds of thousands of responses. Each and every banner ad reaches a prospective student and every response takes the pharmacy prospect to the pharmacy degree program website of the institution featured in the banner advertisement.

If your institution faces the recruiting challenges common to many of your peers, please consider joining AACP's echo-targeting program. At our suggested monthly investment of only $250, a Pharmacy Degree Program is able to run about 40,000 banner ads to our pool of prospects which will likely generate about 35–40 visits to your degree program’s homepage from a future student. It has proved to be a very cost efficient recruiting program as it reaches prospective students in the environment in which they're most comfortable...online.

Please find below a primer on why the echo-targeting program should be a part of each school's recruiting efforts and how to get more information:

What is echo-targeting?

Echo-targeting is an affordable banner advertising tool that allows participating universities to market their Pharmacy program to prospective students.

Why is it important?

Echo-targeting is an extremely targeted and turn-key method of reaching prospects.

Participants can:

• Target banner ads to only reach prospective student pharmacists.
• Affordably reach prospective students in their preferred medium—online.
• Reach prospects on their favorite websites, such as Facebook, Yahoo, magazine sites, social media, etc.

How does it work?

Prospects that browse the Future Pharmacy Student pages on the AACP and PharmCAS websites will be targeted to receive banner ads from participating AACP member institutions while surfing the Internet.

Echo-targeting will create year-round awareness of your institution to a targeted audience of prospects. AACP has adopted this platform as an affordable tool for universities to promote their pharmacy programs. We believe that this program will become a key component of your future recruiting efforts.

Who do I contact?

AACP has aligned with Echo-Interactive to make this innovative marketing tool available to your institution. Contact Owen Landon with Echo-Interactive at 617-877-6327 or Owen@Echo-InteractiveLLC.com for the specifics of echo-targeting, as well as address any questions you may have.

Retirement of the Pharmacy College Admission Test (PCAT)

Important PCAT Announcement for Future Cycles: The Pharmacy College Admission Test (PCAT®) was retired on January 10, 2024. No PCAT testing dates will be offered during the 2024–2025 admissions cycle or beyond. All test takers may continue to request Official Transcripts and Personal Score Reports through the Pearson website until December 2024.

PCAT Resources

The current PCAT Technical Manual and PCAT Score Interpretation Quick Reference are available to AACP member institutions in the Student Services SIG community of AACP Connect.

• Current PCAT Test Blueprint (PDF)
• History of PCAT Blueprint Changes (PDF) (2004–2018)
• PCAT Requirements for Schools: Visit the PharmCAS School Directory
• Pearson Report on "Test Bias, Fairness and Standardized Admission Test" (PDF): In a current climate of declining applicant pools and increasing competition among schools for applicants, many programs in higher education generally and pharmacy schools in particular are considering holistic and test-optional admission policies. Relevant to this reality are questions sometimes raised regarding whether admission tests such as the PCAT contain structural elements that are biased against candidates from certain demographic groups and whether test scores unfairly penalize such candidates. These questions are addressed by reviewing the recent trend toward test-optional admission policies in higher education and in pharmacy schools, by describing the rigorous procedures used by Pearson to construct PCAT test forms that are valid and fair for all candidates, and by presenting evidence that score differences between demographic groups are not attributable to inherent unfairness in the test or in how the scores are reported.

PCAT Research

• Predicting Performance in the First Year of Medical School - Donald G. Meagher, EdD, Tianshu Pan, PhD, and Christina D. Perez, MS, MEd. Predicting Performance in the First-Year of Pharmacy School. Am J Pharm Educ. 2011; 75 (5) Article 81.
• A Meta-Analysis of the Validity of the Pharmacy College Admissions Test (PCAT) and Grade Predictors of Pharmacy Student Performance (PDF)- Kuncel NR, Credé M, Thomas LL, Klieger DM, Seiler SN, Woo SE. A Meta-Analysis of the Validity of the Pharmacy College Admission Test (PCAT) and Grade Predictors of Pharmacy Student Performance. Am J Pharm Educ. 2005; 69(3):article 51.
• PCAT Predictive Validity Study (PDF)- D. Meagher, A. Lin, C. Stellato; Harcourt Assessment. (September 2005) Members-only access.
• Preadmission Predictors of PharmD Graduates' Performance on the NAPLEX- KL McCall, EJ MacLaughlin, DS Fike, B Ruiz. AJPE 2007; 71 (1) Article 05.
• Understanding and Interpreting Pharmacy College Admission Test Scores - Meagher D. Understanding and Interpreting Pharmacy College Admission Test Scores. Am J of Pharm Educ. 2017; 81 (5): article 17.

PCAT Overview for Students

View general information about the PCAT test format, PCAT code for PharmCAS, Kaplan PCAT Test Prep, and PCAT requirements by school geared for current and prospective students.

Diversity and Inclusion Resources

• You Belong Here: Diverse Student Recruitment Guide - Key strategies outlined in the guide include uncovering the hidden curriculum, building relationships and an inclusive environment, using inclusive language, normalizing difficulties, highlighting support resources, and sending an authentic message about the institutions’ culture, policies, and practices.
• AACP Committee on Affirmative Action and Diversity Report 
• AAMC Assessing Medical School Admissions Policies: Implications of the U.S. Supreme Court Decision - Free AAMC publication offers a framework for using the diversity rationale in building race-conscious/ethnicity-conscious admissions policies.
• Diversity and Access Resources - Background resources from the College Board's Access and Diversity Collaborative. Launched in 2004, the project aims to continue discussions about access and diversity policies following the June 2003 Supreme Court decisions in the University of Michigan cases.
• Affirmative Action in 25 Years: Will We Need It? - Presentation made by Kati Haycock of the Education Trust 
• Amicus Brief II on Fisher v. University of Texas filed by AAMC on behalf of AACP
• Developing Student-Institutional Policies without Legal Headaches - Materials provided by Vicki Gotkin, counsel at The University of Arizona, for 2002 AACP Interim Meeting. Topics include ADA, Buckley Amendment and standardized tests policies.
• In the Nation's Compelling Interest: Ensuring Diversity in the Health Care Workforce - February 2004 IOM Report.
• Missing Persons: Minorities in the Health Professions - A Report of the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce
• We Are Healers - A digital media initiative featuring stories of American Indian health professionals

Federal Funding

Centers of Excellence (COE)

COE grants assist health professions schools to support programs of excellence in health professions education for minority individuals in health profession programs, including pharmacy COE strengthens the national capacity to train students from minority groups that are under-represented in these health professions and build a more diverse healthcare workforce.

Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP)

HCOP grants increase the number of individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds in the health and allied health professions, including pharmacy. HCOP enhances the academic skills of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and supports them in successfully competing, entering and graduating from health professions training programs. 

I cannot emphasize enough the importance all the relationships and connections I’ve made due to my involvement within AACP. I count so many people as not just acquaintances, but as colleagues, friends, mentors, and mentees that will stay with me for the rest of my career.

Cultural Competence Resources

AAMC Health Equity Research and Policy

AACP Health Disparities and Cultural Competence SIG Webinar: Exemplars in Interprofessional Cultural Competency Training

Access to Health Care: Influential Factors and Cultural Competence

AJPE Search for Cultural Competence

ASHP Ad Hoc Committee on Ethnic Diversity and Cultural Competence Report - by Hannah K. Vanderpool for the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacists 2005;62 1924-1930.

Center for Healthy Families and Cultural Diversity - Compendium of cultural competence/health disparities.

Cross Cultural Healthcare Program - Books, resources, training programs, research projects and video.

Cultural Competency - Selected resources for instruction.

Ethnogeriactrics - Stanford University - A center for multidisciplinary ethnogeriatric education, focusing on faculty development, training for healthcare providers, research and policy analysis.

EthnoMed - Contains information about cultural beliefs, medical issues and other related issues pertinent to the health care of recent immigrants to Seattle or the U.S.

Family Physician’s Practical Guide to Culturally Competent Care - This continuing medical education activity is jointly sponsored by Ciné-Med Inc. and Astute Technology, and supported through the Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion - 2004 IOM report.

National Center for Cultural Competence (NCCC)

Nine Constructs of Cultural Competence for Curriculum Development - AJPE 2010; 74 (10) Article 181

Think Cultural Health - U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services: Cultural competence continuing education resources.

Tool for Assessing Cultural Competence Training (TACCT) - TACCT is a self-administered assessment tool developed by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) that can be used by medical schools to identify areas in the curriculum where specific aspects of culturally competent care are currently taught, including previously unrecognized educational elements. The TACCT permits gaps to be identified, as well as planned and unplanned redundancies. It may be used for both traditional and problem-based learning curricula.

Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care - IOM report assesses the extent of racial and ethnic differences in healthcare that are not otherwise attributable to known factors such as access to care (2003)