Pharmacy College Admission Test
PCAT
The Pharmacy College Admissions Test (PCAT) is currently accepted by some U.S. colleges and schools of pharmacy and was retired in January 2024.
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.
About the PCAT
The PCAT is a specialized, standardized test that helps identify qualified applicants to pharmacy colleges and schools. It measures general academic ability and scientific knowledge necessary for the commencement of pharmaceutical education. The PCAT is constructed specifically for colleges of pharmacy and is divided into separate sections, or subtests, each of which is timed separately. During the time allowed for each subtest, you will be permitted to work only on that section. You will not be allowed to go back to earlier subtests or on to later ones. As you work on each section, you may find it useful to first answer the questions that are easy for you, skipping over those questions to which you will need to return for further thought.
Subtests
There are five separate subtests on the PCAT:
- Writing: Subtest includes a prompt involves a health issue, a science issue, or a social, cultural or political issue. Examinees are asked to present a solution to the problem in their original essay and are scored on how well they write an essay that is a sufficient length to adequately explain a solution to the problem.
- Biological Processes: Items are presented either in a set accompanying a short passage or as stand-alone items that can be answered independently.
- Chemical Processes: Items are presented in the same way as the Biological subtest.
- Critical Reading: All items are in sets that accompany reading passages.
- Quantitative Reasoning: Subtest consists entirely of standalone items with many of the items presented in a word-problem or problem-solving scenario.
Experimental Items
The form of the PCAT that you take may contain experimental multiple-choice items that are embedded within the subtests, or it may have a separate section with experimental items. The experimental items are being tested for future use on PCAT test forms and will not affect your score. You will not know which items are experimental and which count toward your score, so it is very important that you do your best on all the items and sections of the test.
PCAT Code for PharmCAS: 104
If you apply to a PharmCAS school that requires the PCAT, arrange for Pearson, Inc. to release your PCAT scores directly to PharmCAS CODE 104. PCAT will send PharmCAS your most recent set of scores along with test results from up to four other previous attempts over a five-year period. During the Academic Update, enter any new PCAT test dates taken or planned since you first submitted your application to PharmCAS. You must report your PCAT CID on your PharmCAS application. Applicants who have PCAT scores and do not report a PCAT CID must contact PharmCAS at 617-612-2050. If you are applying to a pharmacy school that does not participate in PharmCAS, arrange for your PCAT test scores to be sent directly to the institution.
Is the PCAT Required?
To determine whether a college or school of pharmacy requires the PCAT for admission, click on the Required Tests tab or individual school pages.
Echo-Targeting Advertisements
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.
PCAT Resources
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.
