An Evaluation of the Pharmacy College Admissions Test as a Tool for Pharmacy College Admissions Committees

The purpose of this study was to determine the capacity of the PCAT to predict success in pharmacy school. T-tests were used to test for differences in mean PCAT scores by gender, race and native lan-guage. Regression analysis was used to explain first-quarter pharmacy GPA utilizing pre-pharmacy GPA and PCAT scores as the independent variables. T-test results yielded statistically significant differences in mean PCAT scores between groups on all three demographic variables. The adjusted R2 values for the regression model (N=360) explaining pharmacy GPA using PCAT and pre-pharmacy GPA together (R2=0.353) were the best indicators. The analysis of average pharmacy GPA by PCAT decile showed that below a composite percentile score of 40, the average first-quarter GPA fell below 2.0. PCAT used in com-bination with pre-pharmacy GPA is meaningful in assessing applicants to pharmacy school. Applicants with PCAT composite percentile scores below 40 should be given particularly careful attention