Getting the results....or not
So, you've sat the exam, you've chewed your nails off, you've worried yourself stupid waiting for the results, and now you hear they've been posted by the NABP, so you wait eagerly for the postman to come...
I sat the December 2nd 2006 Exam and word filtered out from the NABP that the results had been posted on the 17th January 2007. People started commenting on the net about their results around the 20th, but here in the UK I think things took till the 25th or thereabouts, and some people in India were still waiting for their results over a week later than that. But they did arrive there eventually.
The results for those that fail, or so I am led to believe, is in 2 pages. The first page says that you have failed and explains what your possible options are regarding re-sits and re-marking of the test (come on guys, its a computer sheet with pencil marks on - has ANYONE ever had a re-scored mark amended? Let me know if you have, but otherwise I'd be VERY surprised if there's any point in wasting your $50 even if you missed it by just 1 point). The second page is a report on the various categories of the test (chemistry, pharmacology, etc) with a mark out of 10 I think, for each part. You need to gain a pass in ALL sections to pass overall, so a 10/10 in four sections and a 3/10 in pharmacoeconomics would, I believe, have a sufficient drag factor to reduce the scaled score down to a fail - again email me and tell me this isn't so!
What that means is, if you were close but weak in one area, you are directed to hone your studies in the area of your proven weakness. Likewise if you were close in all subjects I imagine seeing the closeness to a pass would boost your confidence for having another attempt at the FPGEE. On the other hand, since no-ones really knows what a scaled score really means, it could be some serious statistical nonsense that increase all the failed scores to just UNDER a pass, so that all those who were miles off the mark would get the wrong impression but still spend their mighty Dollars flying to America, staying in an American hotel, eating American food, taking an American taxi, and, more importantly, paying American Dollars to the NABP for sitting the FPGEE exam again and again. Or am I being too cynical? Of course I am, they're not in it for the money are they. Are they?
Now, if you pass, you also get a two page letter. This time page one congratulates you on passing the exam, and page two gives your scaled score, presumably of 75 and above (max 150).
And thats that.
In theory.
Somehow it didn't work out like that!
On my preferred Yahoo! Group some people who had received their letters were complaining that although their page 1 letter had their name on, the second page with the pass mark had the name of the person with an EE# one less than theirs. And of course without the correct second sheet no one could be absolutely certain whether the page 1 letter was correct or not.
My letter came.
Page 1. Congratulations on passing the FPGEE....
Page 2. Dear Mr Someone-Else, you passed the FPGEE with a scaled score of...
Ho Hum. I suppose it was bound to include me in the mess up.
I went to the NABP website, and took a look at all the pages where I though they might post an apology! Nothing. I wrote an email to which they replied the next day that they would be resending the SECOND PAGE only again.
Another weeks wait. Luckily for me, one one of the Yahoo! Groups someone had received my FPGEE results sheet and were kind enough to advise me of its contents by email. And that was of course confirmed when I received the replacement sheet from the NABP the next week.
I had passed.
I scored 89 (not a terribly good score, but way over 75!)
**New info**
Now that the FPGEE® is a computer-based exam, there are quite a few changes to how the exam is taken and the results are issued. Of note, and this list may grow as people inform me of other difference, are:
1. You can go forward and back during the exam, but once you press ENTER to a question that removes it from the list.
2. You can flag questions/answers to remind yourself to go back to them.
3. You can (I think) rule out certain answers to focus on the ones that you believe are still possible correct choices.
4. The results are now available online, via the NABP® website, requiring your EE# and date of birth. The link to that area is HERE.
And I guess that SHOULD be the end of this story. But its not. Its just the beginning.
This concludes my blog on the FPGEE® and things now move over to my next blog in this series at http://h1b-lottery.blogspot.com/ which, as the name suggests, tells the highs and lows, pitfalls and blind alleyways along the tortuous path to (hopefully) obtaining an H1B visa.
But before you click the link I would just make the process of becoming a US Pharmacist a little bit clearer, in case you are as ignorant as I was!
So, for foreign pharmacy graduates, it goes like this:
1. Apply and meet all the criteria required by the ECE®.
2. Apply to the NABP® to sit the FPGEE®.
3. Apply and pass the iBT TOEFL® with sufficiently high scores in all categories*, and get them to send the result to the NABP®.
4. Receive the FPGEC® certificate.
5. If you have a green card, work permit or similar, jump to number 10!
6. Apply for an intern license in the state of your choice (if you don't have a Social Security Number they will send you a "deficiency letter" which is what the sponsors want to see) .
7. Find a sponsor who wants to offer you a job.
8. Get the sponsor to petition the US immigration for an H1B visa on your behalf.
9. Obtain visa in their annual lottery (each April), obtain the all-important Social Security Number, upgrade the deficiency letter to a full blown intern license and then, finally...
10. Start work!
Does that sound easy? Trust me, its a nightmare and a half, and I have it all recorded for your pleasure and delight at http://h1b-lottery.blogspot.com/
Farmacyst
* - there has been a huge amount of debate on the internet about the difficulty and inconsistency in passing the speaking section of the iBT TEOFL®. It is not my place to comment on the wider injustice of the system, but please note that I, born and bred in England, schooled in England, and who speaks English pretty bloody fluently therefore, I only got 29/30, so it is really a tough bugger of a test. Is it too tough? I leave that to others to debate.