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Dispenses and advises on medicines, in hospitals, pharmacies or industry.
After the degree there’s a required one-year community service placement (like doctors) before the SA Pharmacy Council will register you to practise fully.
Selection programmes like this often close months before the standard application deadline, and marks alone don’t guarantee a place. See the Dates page for the exact closing dates.
Dispenses medicines and advises patients and doctors on how to use them safely – in a community pharmacy, a hospital, or in the pharmaceutical industry doing research, regulatory work or sales. A one-year community service year (like doctors) is required after the degree before full registration with the SA Pharmacy Council.
This is our general description of the role and related jobs, not from an official source – it’s here to give you a fuller picture, not as a careers-counselling guarantee.
Most pharmacists practise generally (community or hospital pharmacy) without a further formal qualification. The SA Pharmacy Council (SAPC) also maintains a separate specialist pharmacist register for a small number of pharmacists with further postgraduate study and relevant experience, entered as a Specialist Pharmacist Student/Resident before full specialist registration.
General overview, not from one single official source: these five categories are drawn from SAPC board notices on specialist pharmacist registration (2023-2025) - "community" and "hospital" pharmacy, despite being the most common practice settings, are not themselves part of this formal specialist register. Confirm current requirements directly with the SAPC before relying on this.
This is our general guidance about which school subjects suit this career. It is not an admission requirement and not from an official source – the real requirements are on the degrees below.
Counted from the requirements below (an “or” alternative counts for each subject named). Each programme links to the page it came from.
9 programmes at 9 universities. More are added as we verify them.
NMU Applicant Score (AS) 410 out of 600
Raw-read 2026-10-04 from the user-supplied NMU "Undergraduate Programmes 2027" Z-Card (A-Z table of Applicant Scores and subject percentages). Online applications close 30 June. Language of instruction at 50%. Admission is subject to departmental selection.
Source: View the official page (mandela.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
NWU APS 32 points out of 48
A “fast-track” stream exists at APS 40+ with Mathematics and Physical Sciences each at 75%+. Selection also uses a weighted score (40% Mathematics, 40% Physical Sciences, 20% APS) rather than the APS alone. Applications close 31 July. Raw-confirmed against the user-supplied NWU 2026 Faculty Yearbook. NWU adds your six best subjects (excluding Life Orientation) on an 8-point scale, for a total out of 48 - read from NWU’s own APS calculator. The requirement shown is what NWU publishes.
Source: View the official page (health-sciences.nwu.ac.za) (opens the official page)
Rhodes points 45 points
Rhodes points of 40-44 are considered at the Dean’s discretion; 45 or more receives a provisional offer. We show 45 as the qualifying number so that "you qualify" means exactly that - but you are still worth an application from 40. Rhodes has no Engineering and no MBChB. The NBT is recommended, not required. At 40-44 points the subject levels required drop to level 5. Life Orientation is not scored, but you need at least 50% in it.
Source: View the official page (ru.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
SMU APS 32
Raw-confirmed 2026-10-04 against SMU’s own admission-requirements page for this school (points and subject minimums match). Closes 31 July 2026 for undergraduate programmes (applications open 1 April 2026) - notably earlier than most universities in this batch.
Source: View the official page (smu.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
TUT APS 24 points
New row, from the user-supplied Science Faculty Prospectus (qualification code BPPH26, the current one - an older BPPH01 code is being phased out, last intake 2025). Highly competitive selection beyond the minimum APS; applicants with APS 32+ are given preference. From TUT’s 2027 First-Year Course Information and General Information PDFs. Applications opened 1 April 2026 (fee R240).
Source: View the official page (tut.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
UKZN APS 33 points out of 48
The published APS range is 48-33. This comes from the Study@UKZN 2026 brochure, the most recent official source we could find. UKZN had not published a 2027 table when we checked, so treat these as 2026 figures pending a 2027 update. Applications go through the CAO.
Source: View the official page (studyatukzn.ukzn.ac.za) (opens the official page)
UL APS 27 points
Raw-confirmed 2026-10-04 against UL’s 2027 prospectus Health Sciences table (APS and levels match). From UL’s 2027 Undergraduate Prospectus. UL states that meeting the minimum APS does not guarantee admission. No official 2027 closing date was found in the sections we read.
Source: View the official page (ul.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
UWC weighted points 38 points out of 65
Raw-read 2026-10-04 from UWC’s own 2026 programme rules (the "Program Overview" PDF on the programme page, Calendar 2026). UWC points are its own weighted score (see the calculator note).
Source: View the official page (uwc.ac.za) (opens the official page)
No points cut-off published for this one – see the note below.
CONFIRMED 2026-10-02 by a direct fetch of the live course-finder page (both figures and the Life Sciences AND/OR Physical Sciences alternative, previously shown as Physical Sciences only): Wits Health Sciences uses a Composite Index (75% school average across 5 subjects, 25% NBT), not APS, and does not publish the cut-off scores - the NBT must be written in person by 17 August.
Source: View the official page (wits.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
Put your subjects in once and we’ll check them against every programme above – scored each university’s own way.