C in Chem I & II, and about to get C in Orgo?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>Ok guys, I am working hard, but it seems just not enough...and its too late for me it seems these are my grades so far:</p>

<p>C-Chem 1&2
C-orgo 1
A-Physics 1&2 + labs
AP credits in Bio
A-Calc</p>

<p>3.3 GPA overall currently</p>

<p>I am in my first semester of sophmore year, and Im looking at this as like Cs in Orgo and Chem.....damn...im working hard, but it seems its not enough...so im asking anyone out here this question:</p>

<p>How will medschool look at my chem grades.....will I get rejected for this...considering my overall gpa turns out to be a 3.4 overall and thats as far as I got...</p>

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<p>Even one C in a med school prerequisite is bad. Three Cs in prereqs? That’s a big red flag. It’s better to have an overall GPA of 3.4 with Cs in nonprereqs. Med schools rarely reject you just because of some bad grades, but they take into account all the other things and try to see you as a person. You should make the remaining aspects of your application extremely strong.</p>

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<p>That’s a little extreme. BDM had at least one C on his transcript, and he didn’t turn out “bad”.</p>

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<p>It’s not the big red flag that a criminal conviction or a cheating incident noted on the transcript would be, but it’s not puppies and flowers, either. With 3 C’s, you’ll have to work harder to make up for this in some way, whether it’s better science grades down the line, kickass ECs, or a high MCAT score.</p>

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<p>^ Where do you go to school? If you went to MIT or Caltech, schools that are notorious for putting their kids through ****, you might be okay, if your Mcat score is high. But at most other schools, its going to be tougher, ask your pre-med advisior. I freaked out at the possibility of me making a B- in general chem , but that is ONLY IF I MAKE LOWER THAN A 83 on MY FINAL. I am ocd about my grades.</p>

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<p>Good luck in dental school.</p>

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<p>As had been said, Cs in 3 prereqs is a pretty big red flag. It’s also noteworthy that you have gotten Cs throughout your entire chem sequence, which makes it quite likely you’ll be getting another C in ochem 2 and possibly a 5th C in Biochem if you intend to apply to any schools requiring or preferring it… While this alone might not sink you, you should really be asking yourself why a medical school would choose you over other applicants?! Why would a medical school want you over the guy with straight As in his prereqs (and there are plenty of those). I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it is improbable. You need to have something (or, more likely, some things) that that guy doesn’t have!</p>

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<p>well, I go to Rutgers…and its hard…im currently a cell biology and neuroscience major but will soon switch to an engineering major/program as a back up just in case. As per med school ecs, I have done research and have a publication…i have great compunity service hrs at a near by hospital…im an RA at the university…how do my outlooks look now? I feel I have things to give as far as Ecs are concerned, but I will have to work for a good MCAT score</p>

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<p>If you are floundering in a cell bio major, the engineering major is going to be a bullet in the head. Only switch if engineering is what you want to do, not to hold it as a backup. Getting a competitive GPA (by pre-med standards) in engineering is a lot harder than most other majors.</p>

<p>Your ECs (minus the research pub) are average at best. No worries though, you have a full year and a half or more to keep buffing them up. Don’t panic. There’s nothing wrong with what you are doing, its just that I don’t want you to think that your ECs are going to save your application if you aren’t competitive elsewhere as well.</p>

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I know BDM had at least one C (especially in a crucial prereq like orgo). Just because he didn’t turn out bad doesn’t mean those C’s were not bad for him. He could get in because he had other things that were very outstanding, making up for a weakness like a few C’s. Also, his overall GPA might’ve been quite high, so some C’s wouldn’t have been very problematic.</p>

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<p>Depends on where your strengths are. A’s in math and physics suggest you may be better at the logical reasoning of those fields than the memorization that is such a large feature of introductory and organic chemistry. Someone like this might well end up doing better in engineering than cell biology. However, med schools know that the science part of a medical education is very heavy on biology and organic chemistry type of memorization, and pretty light on math and physics reasoning. </p>

<p>It is simple. The grades you got are water under the bridge. Nothing you can do to change them. If you want to be a doctor, work on getting the highest overall gpa you can. Study hard for the MCATs. Consider taking a year off after college so you can devote more time to studying before you take the MCAT. Practice tests will tell you where you stand on this.</p>

<p>If you would rather be an engineer, then by all means switch to engineering. If you can keep on track start the engineering course work and see how you do. If you get good grades, then you might end up with a competitive gpa, plus a marketable degree.</p>

<p>Your Cs do not rule out medical school, but they certainly make it harder.</p>

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<p>“Depends on where your strengths are. A’s in math and physics suggest you may be better at the logical reasoning of those fields than the memorization that is such a large feature of introductory and organic chemistry” ( sorry, I don’t know how to use the quote function )</p>

<p>I respectfully disagree. I took orgo under the guy who the Corey-Posner-House reaction was named after. Chemistry, inorganic and organic, is considered to be one of the hardest courses to take , because there is no set way to approach and answer a question, such as might be the case in math or physics… This point is made in the great book, " How to Solve it" by G. Polya ( which , btw, I recommend for all premeds )</p>

<p>It’s true that you have to memorize a lot of pathways for synthesis in orgo and biochem, but you can’t memorize it if you don’t understand the basic mechanisms, such as why the the SN1/ sn2 attack results in certain isomers in the Krebs cycle.There is no rote memorization in orgo, such as you would certainly have to do for gross anatomy , or histology. </p>

<p>I would submit that the first two years of medical school are easier than the premed required courses, in that rote memory, and not basic understanding and problem solving, are required. Although they do have biochem in med school, often times the first two years of med school are is a letdown from the intellect required at least, at my undergrad, because you have multiple-multiple choice questions in med school , rather than essay q’s, and one can certainly fudge multiple-multiple q’s. Can’t fudge an essay, and get an A, that’s for sure. Could get really picked apart by the PhD’s grading the question. I really didn’t like the folks in med school who had a holier-than-thou attitude when it came to getting A’s in anatomy/histo. I think this is an important issue, actually.</p>

<p>Just my two cents, and with all due respect to the other posters.</p>

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<p>Honestly, I’ve spoken to someone that works on medical school admissions and they won’t even open your file if your MCAT/GPA are lacking. If they do decide to open it and see C’s in your chemistry courses, just how would they choose you over someone with majority with A’s and B’s in those pre-req courses? Let’s get real, people. If you were the admissions officer, you know you can only admit 5% of the applicants…</p>

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<p>I see you listed orgo 1 , is that 1st semester, or is that for the whole year, and if so, how 'd you don in orgo 2 ? It’s still possible …can you get an A in orgo2… it’s a matter of mindset, strategy, not letting the past results make you give up, knowing the right people to help incr. your performance ( tutors, in-the-know folks) you can get an A+, but how much is it worth to you? I really don’t think anyone can say what the C’s will do to you, despite all these negative comments… the app is a complex process…but the most accurate statements would be those that deal with how to improve your chances, not what these C’s might have done to you.</p>

<p>oh, and correction: I misstated my book reference… it’s actually “The Emperor’s New Mind” by Roger Penrose, when he talks about how algorithms can’t be applied to chemistry.</p>

<p>And about the publication, are you first author, is it original research or a review article, is it basic science, and what journal was it in?</p>

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<p>I don’t want to waste time arguing which is harder- chemistry, physics, or biology. Different people have different strengths. For this individual chemistry appears to be a problem. The best strategy is to use what choices are available to take the kinds of courses in whicy the OP will do well. These appear to be along the math and physics spectrum. One can pursue these within engineering, and end up with a degree that leads to a career. </p>

<p>Chasing cell biology, if this is not where the OP’s talents lie, seems like a bad bet.</p>

<p>I completely agree that publications count for a lot, particularly if it appears that the med school applicant had a lot of responsibility for the scientific thinking and preparing the manuscript. If that is the case, then med schools just want to be assured that the applicant is going to make it through the coursework successfully.</p>

<p>Med school is a TON of rote memorization. One of the reasons the schools care so much about GPA and MCAT is to make sure that the applicants can and will absorb the huge amount of boring, largely useless and frequently mindless stuff med students are forced to inhale. People who make it through their undergrad courses with high grades usually do their work regularly, always get papers in on time, always come to class prepared… These are invaluable traits for med students and for doctors. There are plenty of brilliant scientists who would go crazy in medical school. They are way past the intellectual demands, but “sit down, memorize this, then repeat it word-for-word on the test next week” is not how they think. </p>

<p>So can you get in medical school with several Cs in required science courses? Sure. Is it much tougher? Absolutely. Hence my suggestion to play to your strengths in your course selection and have a backup plan.</p>

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<p>Is it really that “bad”? I do not know what it is like to study biology/medicine. I heard that in one of the biology class, cell biology, the students are asked to memorize tons of stuff.</p>

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<p>I think “boring”, “useless"and"mindless” pretty much sums it up. SOME of it eventually turns out to be useful, but for those things you need to learn much more about them than is covered in medical school. For the rest, you will marvel at why you ever had to learn it. </p>

<p>Then you remember the answer:</p>

<p>You have to do it to become a doctor, so everyone does what they are told.</p>

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<p>afan, I wasn’t arguing about which was harder, physics or chemistry, I was responding to a statement of yours that seemed to imply that chemistry involved a lot of memorization, and my conjecture was that it didn’t , to any extent greater than physics or math.</p>

<p>To understand the nature of your subject is to be able to ace it.</p>

<p>I agree about your other point, however about rote memory and med school, and how much useless information that we as medical students had to ingest …not only do I detest that part of medical education, I detest the way in which it is taught by professors ( at the med school, I attended,anyway ) who seemed to take a superior attitude to us lowly medical students, and belittled ( perhaps unknowingly ) their subject materiel, and the students by those actions. By doing so , they lowered the way basic sciences are taught in med school in my esteem. They made most students think that ALL the subject was rote memory, when there was and is an elegant history to the sciences of molecular cell biology and biochemistry.</p>

<p>My old undergrad roomie, who had gotten a Masters simultaneously with his BA , had gone to the Harvard MD.PhD. and was disappointed at the level of teaching, even at that top school, finding it, as did I at another institution, to be completely inferior to his UG coursework. He walked out of his med school biochem class,when the lecturer ,an MD, introduced albumin as , “the dumptruck of the human body” …this shows little understanding of albumin, which my roomie contrastingly describes as “a 65 kilodalton multimeric molecule whose genomic code has been highly conserved through many generations of all eucaryotic species”…compare and contrast, UG premed vs big med school professor.</p>

<p>Completely agree, afan.</p>

<p>This made us wonder why med schools required such high acheivement to get in, when we didn’t need it.</p>

<p>As a caveat, I did finally find a course which was on a par with the UG courses, and it was my medical subinternship, and infectious diseases elective, but these were in the THIRD year of slogging it.</p>

<p>Although the premed life /coursework was hard, it was intellectually challenging, and rewarding, whereas the first 2 years of med school was hard, AND an academic letdown.</p>

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<p>The thing is, the scientists at medical schools generally resent having to teach the medical students. They know that they are not supposed to teach the science as they think about it, or as they hope their graduate students and post docs will think about it. They have to teach “the following questions will be asked on the test. Here are the answers. Memorize them.” If you think it was deadly sitting through those lectures, imagine having to give them, year after year, to people who were interested in medicine, but resented being taught that way. </p>

<p>It is not, directly, the fault of the faculty. There is a national standard medical curriculum, imposed by the USMLE, and it is heavy on this sort of fact memorization, and weak on any understanding of science. This is even more painful for people who were science majors in college, because they understand what real science education is like, and how it differs from what they get in med school.</p>

<p>I was a biochem major, and my perception was that organic had a lot of memorization. Physical chemistry and physical biochem, and many of the advanced biochem and molecular biology courses were interesting and thought filled, but not so much introductory organic chem.</p>

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<p>This reminds me of one remark my child made when he took orgo. He said the professor often said that this could be explained by some advanced (quantum?) chemistry theory but he really could not go into gory details on that in this class. The professor made a lot of remarks like this. Then the students in the class think they only learn a simplified version of what is really going on. But it is likely that almost no premeds take more organic chemistry beyond the first two semesters of organic chemistry (unless they are chemistry majors. But the chemistry department, unlike the biochemistry department, seems to produce very few premeds.)</p>

<p>The professor may rush through the last 6 or 7 chapters during the last week before final. Then the memorization contest among students started…Often times, even if my child won this contest (he did), he thinks he just gets lucky because there is so much covered and there are so few problems in the test. In his year, his professor who taught that class is famous for giving a grand total of 3 problems (for a midterm), and the problems are designed in such a way that there is hardly any chance to receive a partial credit. So either you do very well or very poorly. Miss one question and say bye-bye to that precious A, as all grades come from one (or two? I forgot) mid-term and the final. Some students decided to postpone taking the orgo, hoping that a different professor will teach the same class next year/semester.</p>

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<p>@ afan, most interesting, what you say, I understand, and feel badly for both the educators and students… Regarding undergrad orgo. I think it is dependent on the institution, and how it is taught. I know what you mean about memorization, but in order to do well on the tests, this was a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite. If you memorized the Friedl-crafts alkylation reaction, you had to know why the electrons were where they were, because they would definitely throw you a curve with some halogen substituted molecule, or a different metal catalyst, and you could only answer it by knowing the theory. It was tough, but Posner was fascinating ( He’s now emeritus, but never got the recognition he deserved when EJ Corey got the Nobel with that methodology.) We had to memorize the following, but that was nowhere near enough…have a look, I think the following illustrates my point about memorization:</p>

<p>[Corey-House-Posner-Whitesides</a> reaction](<a href=“Page Not Found”>Corey-House-Posner-Whitesides reaction - AbsoluteAstronomy.com)</p>

<p>mcat2, did you take orgo too, or just your son? If our prof had said that he could not go into the details, then you could imply that you would have to independently find out those gory details. That’s why orgo is so hard, and my hard fought A’s took hours and hours. Did every question , and I mean every one,in Morrison and Boyd, then old exams. You really have to practically become an organic chemist, live and breathe it to do well. But I believe I was lucky to have had such a fantastic ( but challenging ) prof. That’s why I understand if people got C’s , but it’s a nonlinear investment of time and effort to get 2 grades higher.</p>