<p>ima junior in highschool with a high gpa and good test scores (31 on ACT)
im in many APs and honors classes and majority of the time i get A's but every now and then i will get a B or two. does this mean i can't be a surgeon. is it really that strictly based on your grades?
thanks</p>
<p>Becoming a surgeon does not strongly correlate with your high school resume. While you will need to get into college which your high school grades do determine, becoming a surgeon has to do with whether you get into medical school and how well you do in there, which comes after your 4 years of undergraduate school. Based on your achievements now, you seem intelligent and on the right track since you’re challenging yourself and taking AP courses and such! Just work super hard in college and be well rounded so that you can get into med school. Best of luck!!</p>
<p>Peaceberry is right. High school grades have nothing to do with your ability to become a surgeon.</p>
<p>Getting accepted into a general surgery residency is dependent on your med school performance. (Grades, USMLE scores, whether or not you honor your surgery rotation during your clinical training, doing surgery research in med school, having great LORs from your surgical preceptors)</p>
<p>General surgery is a medium to high competitive specialty and typically requires being in the top 15% of your med school class.</p>
<p><a href=“http://residency.wustl.edu/Choosing/SpecDesc/Pages/GeneralSurgery.aspx”>http://residency.wustl.edu/Choosing/SpecDesc/Pages/GeneralSurgery.aspx</a></p>
<p>Your first step to becoming a surgeon is getting accepted into college and doing well enough in college that you can gain an acceptance to medical school.</p>
<p>WOWM,</p>
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<p>Does that mean that a student aiming for specialties should go to a school where he/she is more competitive in that medical school class? </p>
<p>Med school is hard anywhere you go. You can’t say that it would be harder at Harvard than Texas Southwest. It can be the reverse, who knows. Pick a school that YOU are comfortable with so that YOU maximize your potential. </p>
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<p>Frugaldoctor is right. Go to where you have the best fit. There are no idiots in med school; everyone is competitive. And being in the top 15% of your class means zip if your USMLE is only 189 or your surgical attendings thought you were a clumsy fool.</p>
<p>For surgery, you need to have the full package and there’s still a chance you won’t match.</p>
<p>Also, clinical grades are so subjective and variable (e.g. they can depend on when in the year you do the rotation, what other students are on the rotation with you, what attending you get, what mood the attending is in when you interact with him/her, what other students are assigned to that attending and what mood he/she is in when they interact with them, which residents under that attending you work with, what mood they are in, etc.) that it would be impossible to predict how you would perform when choosing medical schools.</p>
<p>Additionally, the residents and attendings who are at the med school’s training hospitals when you enroll may not still be there when you move into clinical training. (In fact, the senior residents will have graduated and moved on in the 2 years between your matriculation and your clinical rotations and a number of the juniors will have moved up and moved on too.)</p>
<p>IWBB= pm me…for some reason I can’t pm on tis new and improved CC. Btw andrew is going to be onw of her roommates starting June I can reply to a pm I think.</p>
<p>Anybdoy could be anybody. They have to have a goal, choose option to achieving it, plan accordingly and evaluate their situation at every step. It is way too early for you to evaluate if you could be a surgeon. Can a 7 y o gymnast in her first gymnastics class evaluate if she can be at Olympics? This is a valid comparison, that is where you are now. You have a goal. Next step is to choose the option to achieve it, then set up a plan. </p>