<p>All my life I've wanted to be a doctor, but right now I feel like I'm not smart enough. I'm currently a junior at a highly reputable private school in Chicago. I have ADHD and a low gpa, only 3.33. My act is 27, but I will be taking it with extra time for the first time in a couple weeks. </p>
<p>Basically what I'm asking is if I do the pre-med track, do you think I will be able to get good enough grades and score high enough on my MCAT to get into med school? And if I can't get into med school, what would I do? I hear that it's easier to get into DO school, but how different is that than MD? Will I be able to work in the same fields as MDs and receive the same pay?</p>
<p>Also, what type of school would you recommend for me? Would you recommend a big state school where the curriculum is considered easier, or a small liberal arts school where the classes may be more difficult, but I will be able to receive a more personalized experience.</p>
<p>The people on this forum are not soothsayers. We can’t foresee the future and, more importantly, we don’t know you, anything about you or what you’re potentially capable of.</p>
<p>Instead of asking random strangers on the internet for advice, you will be better off talking with people in your life who know you–your science & math teachers at your high school, your parents (really!) and your guidance counselors at your high school. If you see your PCP regularly or if you see a psychologist/psychiatrist for your ADHD, also seek advice from them.</p>
<p>As for the MD vs DO questions–Google is your friend. Use it!</p>
<p>I guess I just want to know what you think. Is there any chance a student who doesn’t have much success in high school can have success in college, enough so that he can get accepted to a med school in 2018?</p>
<p>Being an MD isn’t a high IQ thing, although it certainly doesn’t hurt. Good nerves will trump IQ. Here’s what you need. (My opinion)</p>
<p>1)Ability to work under pressure (strength)
2)Ability to recall - quickly & accurately (IQ)
2)Ability to deal with death (emotions)
3)Ability to and work long hours (endurance)</p>
<p>If you’re smart enough to repeat what you’ve learned under life or death pressure (no exaggeration) then you can be a doctor. GL</p>
<p>Do I known of kids who weren’t superstars in HS who later pulled it together and went on med school?</p>
<p>Heck, yes! In fact, most docs I know and/or work with weren’t class valedictorian. </p>
<p>High school success is not necessarily marker of future success in medical school. But having a successful high school career generally does indicate the one has the necessary academic skills, base-level smarts, determination/drive for success, and willingness to jump thru necessary hoops required to acquire the accomplishments needed to have a reasonable chance to get accepted to med school.</p>
<p>I work with lots of doctors. Are all of them the most brilliant minds in the room? Usually not, but they are all uniformly smart people who are dedicated and hard working.</p>
<p>Do you fit into the category of smart, dedicated and hard working? I haven’t a clue…</p>
<p>As ALL others you have to try and see. A rough estimate is that only about 15% of original pre-meds will ever apply to the Med. School. Only about 43% of applicants will get accepted, 57% will be rejected from all Med. Schools that they apply. I am sure it varies somewhat, but you are in the same boat with all others.</p>
<p>I agree with above, “smart” will not do as well as a hard worker with great study skills. Look back and analyze what has prevented you from getting GPA = 4.0. Do not focus on the aspects outside of your control. Focus on the thngs that you can change to achiave an A, instead of A- or B. Everybody is diffirent in this respect. For some working in groups might be very helpful, others have to take frequent breaks, third have to go to gym every day to be more efficient in their studies. Do whatever works for you, there is no general rule here.</p>
<p>Hard and very, VERY “dangerous” approach to take. The average matriculation age is somewhere around 24 (higher I think for some elite medical schools) and it’s rising because admissions committee are increasingly taking people with both exceptional grades and exceptional life experiences that usually require post-college efforts. I.e. very significant research, clinical, volunteer, shadowing experiences. Pre-med students who try to do everything (which is what you do in HS in trying to get into college) regularly get massacred in the grades column. </p>
<p>You’ll need to do a lot of soul searching to figure out how to pull out As at the sacrifice of certain things if necessary. Pre-med is a extremely long progress and there are so many hoops you have to jump through. If you try to do too much, which is the most common approach because that’s what HS students are expected to do to get into college, you can easily destroy your medical school chances by getting low grades.</p>
<p>I’d also treat pre-med as at least a “5-year” program to make it a bit more manageable. Focus on preserving as high a GPA as possible and add in ECs or take them away as required. You can always do more volunteering once you’re done with school work, but you can not undo a bad GPA. You can mitigate it to an extent, but you can not undo them for MD applications.</p>
<p>What you learn is more important than doubting yourself. Forget the word “Doctor” and prioritize. What do you need to do now that you’re in highschool?</p>
<p>-make the BEST grades you can and just enjoy it. Work hard but do realize you’ll have to learn a different way or the same material again once you get into a 4 year undergrad. No point stressing now if you’ll have to do it a completely different way when you’re in college. And med school will be COMPLETELY different from undergrad so you’ll have to learn how to cope then too.
-Pre-med is very general, there are NUMEROUS other fields besides being a medical doctor such as optometry, dental, pharmacy, sports medicine, podiatric school, osteopathic medicine, and the thing is ALL of these schools are in the health field. LOOK them up. DO your RESEARCH into different health fields.
-I’m currently a sophomore premed working my butt off. I’m not smart but I try to do the best I can. Am I worried? Heck yes. Do I doubt myself? All the time. But telling yourself to KEEP PUSHING and DOING THE BEST YOU CAN DO is what you need to focus on right now.
-When you finally get into undergrad, just focus on graduating and doing the best you can.</p>
<p>As for undergrad colleges:
-cost effective is a big reason, you’ll accumalate more loans in med school. Be realistic. I had to pass on a school in Virginia because there’s no way I can pull out 40k in loans (that was with them offering 12k in scholarships already) PER YEAR to travel all the way from TX.
-quality of the school is one thing also, smaller schools generally have a smaller ratio like all of the ones you’ve seen on brochures, but do they have a qualified science departmet that will take care of you instead of focusing on the arts? I’m at a tier 2 state school right now and lemme tell you its no easy feat. Either way you’ll have to try hard.
-THE SCHOOL CAN ONLY HELP YOU SO MUCH, FOR EVERY GRADE YOU MAKE IN COLLEGE GOOD OR BAD YOU’VE EARNED IT. A big thing about college is learning how to self-teach yourself. Professors can suck or be completely awesome but you still have to teach yourself.</p>
<p>I found a web site saying the average college graduate has an ACT of 23 and the average MD or PhD has an ACT of 27. So you seem to have a fair shot but each case is unique. Hard work helps.</p>
<p>^Checking various web sites is a waste of time.
Make sure to get college GAP=3.6+ and MCAT score around 33, plenty of Med. EC’s, enjoy your college experience and you will be all set. Smart or not is irrelevant. This list will require you to be extremely hard working person who aim at living balanced life. It is up to you to be this person.<br>
After saying that, there are predictors of the future MCAT score. Some testers are exceptions to this, but my D.'s MCAT core was fitting perfectly into this pridictors and I do not have any other experience. They are: the real MCAT score is 2 points lower your best practice test score and within 2 points of your ACT.
The rest is all up to you, nobody can tell you if you are up to certain goal or not, you are the only one who could assess your work habits.</p>
<p>^This makes sense, as D’s las few practice tests were relatively consistant, showing that she probably saturated her brain and additional study would not improve her score (which she has indicated anyway, she was anxious to take the real MCAT, complaining that she should have scheduled it about 10 days or so earlier)</p>
<p>I don’t know if you have your ADHD under control, or (if not) if there are things you can do that you aren’t currently doing to get it under control, but you’re smart enough. If you work hard in college and get good grades, you’ll (most likely) get into medical school. Of course there’s more to it, but that’s the biggest obstacle, and that’s more about determination and hard work than it is about intelligence. I’ve seen mediocre high school students pull it together and do amazing in college and get into medical school easily.</p>