Reviewed by:
Former Chief Resident in Anesthesiology, Weill Cornell Medicine, & Admissions Officer, Columbia University
Reviewed: 05/05/23
Seeing sample pharmacy school CVs, and learning how to format them, can help you approach your own with ease!
You’ve likely written at least one or two resumes if you’re a college student hoping to apply to pharmacy school. Whether it was for your part-time job at Target in high school, or to land an internship as a lab assistant your sophomore year of college, you’re familiar with what a resume is and its purpose—to share your qualifications and skills.
Your pharmacy school CV has a similar purpose, except there’s more on the line! Instead of applying to a job, you’ll be using it to apply to pharmacy schools! A good CV can help you get into your top choices, but a bad CV can weaken your entire application.
To make sure you submit a stellar pharmacy school CV, this guide will go over everything you need to know about this application material!
There isn’t a particular format that you have to follow for your CV, unless your school says otherwise.
Most pharmacy schools will ask that your CV is two to five pages long. Unless you have significant experiences to share, you should aim for your CV to be two to three pages long. To ensure readability, it’s recommended you use the following formatting techniques:
Keep your CV concise and avoid large blocks of writing. It should act as a summary of your skills and experiences, not a novel!
As an additional formatting suggestion, try to fit your CV on complete pages, rather than quarter or half pages, so that it looks more professional.
Typically, pharmacy school CVs include the following:
Even if you do not have significant experience in pharmacy, you can share activities you participated in that helped you develop skills that will aid you in pharmacy school and your career.
For instance, you should mention any community service experience you pursued in college, even if it isn’t related to medicine. Pharmacy schools appreciate when students show a commitment to community, regardless of the type of organization.
With that being said, however, you should have some clinical or pharmaceutical experience on your CV to demonstrate your commitment to the field. You should also have at least one research project listed, as having this experience is considered critical to succeed in the medical field.
Knowing what to add to your pharmacy school CV and how to format it is a great start, but you still might be unsure of what your CV should look like. To offer you a visual aid, here is a pharmacy CV example that you can draw inspiration from:
Jane Doe
123 Paper Street | Chicago, IL | 773-906-8585 | jdoe45@gmail.com
EDUCTION
University of California, Davis September 2019 - April 2022
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
UC Davis, Lab Assistant December 2021 - Present
Davis, CA
CVS Retail Pharmacy, Intern January 2021 - December 2021
Carlsbad, CA
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
UC Davis, Helping Hands Volunteer April 2018 - April 2022
Davis, CA
IVHQ, Healthcare Outreach Volunteer May 2021 - May 2021
Accra, Ghana
UC Davis, Zero Waste Volunteer May 2019 - May 2019
Davis, CA
UC Davis, Volunteer Proctor March 2018 - September 2018
Davis, CA
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
UC Davis, Research Assistant October 2020 - April 2021
Davis, CA
Preceptor: Gene Locke, PhD., MD
Project: The Use of Metals as Anti-Cancer Compounds
PUBLICATIONS
Locke G,, Abbani F, Lamendola C, McVean T, Doe, J. The Use of Metals as Anti-Cancer Compounds: A Clinical Study. Submitted to ACS (2021).
CERTIFICATIONS
HONORS AND AWARDS
INTERESTS
Skiing, gymnastics, music
Remember, every pharmacy school CV will be different! Use this example for inspiration, not comparison.
Now that you’ve had a chance to look over a sample pharmacy school CV, you should have a better idea of what to include on your own and how to format it. For further guidance, consider implementing these tips in your CV:
As you likely noticed in the above example, each experience has concise descriptions. Each bullet point focuses on a key duty the student was responsible for and there are four bullets per experience.
Keep your lists consistent. Do not write seven points for one experience and only two for another, this will make it seem as though you only made meaningful contributions to some, not all, of your pursuits.
You aren’t applying to a graphic design program, so there’s no need to show off your artistic skills with your CV. A simple black and white CV like the one above will suffice. Using too many bright colors and adding visuals can make it look less professional!
Organize your CV using headings so that your reader knows what kind of activities and experiences you pursued.
It’s expected that you’ll exaggerate the roles you played within the organizations you worked or volunteered. However, ensure your exaggerations are realistic.
For instance, if you were a lab assistant who mainly did coffee runs and cleaned beakers, you can say you assisted with administrative duties and maintained the laboratory facilities and equipment. What you shouldn’t say is that you spearheaded the research project and interpreted data analysis from the experiments.
Remain within the same ball-park with any exaggerations you make.
You can add some personality to your CV by including some of your interests at the bottom. These interests should be unrelated to medicine so that the admissions committee can learn who you are outside of your pharmacy school application.
Adding just a few interests will help differentiate your CV and make it more memorable!
Before submitting your CV, ensure you go over it a few times! You’d be surprised how many typos and spelling errors students make in these documents!
If you’re still unsure if your CV has what it takes to impress the admissions committees, consider having it reviewed by one of your expert admissions counselors! They can offer you suggestions to improve your CV and tell you exactly what your programs are looking for!
In this guide, we’ve gone over how to write a CV for pharmacy school and provided you with a sample to help get you started. For any remaining questions about this application material, read on!
Students should add the following on their pharmacy school CVs:
Having a separate section for extracurriculars can complicate things because these activities often involve volunteer or research experience.To avoid these complications, students typically include their extracurriculars under their education and expand on them in the sections they overlap into.
You may not need a CV for pharmacy school; it depends on the programs you’re applying to. Look into your top choices’ application requirements to see if you need to create a CV.
CVs and resumes serve the same function and are often used interchangeably. However, the main differences between these application documents are their length and use. CVs generally do not have page restrictions and may be as long as ten pages. On the other hand, most resumes are only one to two pages long.
Additionally, resumes are used more frequently for job applications, whereas CVs are typically used to apply to academic positions, fellowships, or programs.
Use one professional font throughout your CV. Times New Roman, Arial, and Calibri are all safe options.
You’ve worked hard to build the best pharmacy application possible; you volunteered on the weekends, worked overtime, and juggled multiple commitments at once. Be proud of all you’ve accomplished and use your CV to show the committee how hard you’ve worked to get into pharmacy school!
Follow the suggestions and tips shared in this guide to ensure your CV captures your most meaningful academic and professional experiences and helps you stand out as an applicant!
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