Bring up my GPA for any chance to make it into medical school

Hello all,

I am a second year pre med at UCI and I’m in a very bad situation. I have a 2.7 overall gpa and I’m very scared that I won’t ever live my dream of becoming a doctor. I’ve always been a good student, I study for everything but when it comes to taking midterms and final exams I completely freak out and I can’t show on paper all the knowledge I have. This has hurt my academic standing for the past 5 quarters at UCI and I’m scared that I won’t ever make my dream of a career in the medical field a reality. This makes me extremely upset because it not only is all I want to do but also all that my family expects from me. Please any advice on how to raise my GPA to anything above a 3.0 would be greatly appreciated; please I am losing all hope and I don’t know who else to go to!

  1. Go to your college’s counseling center and ask for help in dealing with test anxiety. Medicine is a test intensive profession. If you can’t perform well in intense, high pressure testing situations, your dream is DOA.

  2. Go to your college’s academic support center for help learning learn new and more effective study skills. College is a different beast than high school and what worked in high school doesn’t always work in college.

For now, it may be the wiser course to set aside your med school ambitions and learn how to succeed academically in college. Once you’ve managed that, then go back and start taking your pre-reqs. Osteopathic medical schools have a policy of allowing grade replacement. Retake all pre-reqs/coursework where you earned a C/D/F.

The path to medical school is a marathon, not a sprint.