So I started my first semester of college and it did not go well, to say the least. The grades I achieved were sub-par at best. The highest grades were for foreign language and English. My gen chem grade was decent but hope to rais second semester. Lowest grade is calc getting a D at best which brings my how to around 2.3-2.5 if finals go well. I would like input from people who have made it from a rough start like this and how to make a comeback. I enjoy science courses not so much math but I can bear through it I will retake the calc to get a grade replacement.
Insight helpful
Unlike undergraduate schools, all med schools in the US are very competitive to get into. There are no indecent ones.
Even if you retake the calc class the D will still get averaged in. Applying to med school without a 3.7+ GPA is almost impossible.
You could try DO schools which GPA is a bit lower. But you will still need a 3.3-3.5 at the very least.
@sgopal2 grade replaced at my undergraduate will replace the grade and recalculated my gpa the D will show up but if I improve significantly won’t that look in favor for me seeing as I didn’t give up.
It might, but remember that you are competing against students without any Ds. It doesn’t matter what your school does, med schools will include the D. Good luck.
If OP has a significant uptrend it’s certainly possible to get in with below a 3.7. The average GPA for students entering US MD schools last year was 3.70, so it’s obvious that quite a few were below that average, though a fair number of those students would be non-traditional.
Do you know why you ran into issues? Disorganization, time management, difficulty understanding content, mental health, etc.?
@usualhopeful Yes I figured out where my issues whereand I’m figuring out how to fix them thatwht I plan on taking over calc to because I know I can do better thank you for the insight
Yes indeed if you show an upward trend it looks good. If you want to see the exact acceptance rates by GPA, MCAT and race see below:
https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html
You can see that there is a big jump in acceptance rate once you hit the 3.8 threshold.
I would just do the arithmetic.
If you get a 2.5 this semester, then to get a 3.8 GPA you would need to get a 4.0 and nothing less for the next 7 consecutive semesters. Not likely, but not impossible.
If you go the route of upward trend, then you could get in consecutive semesters:
2.5, 3, 3.5, 3.75, 4, 4, 4, and 4.
That would get you a 3.6 with an upward trend. One thing to keep in mind, is that you must apply before your college career is finished. So if you had to apply with your senior two semesters of 4.0 pending, then your gpa at time of application on the first scenario would be 3.75 and in the second scenario just 3.46.
So I would say it is too soon to throw in the towel but you will need to hunker down and devote the next 3.5 years to it. If you can’t maintain the pace of the upward trend trajectory above, then you might rethink your plans.
You absolutely do not need to apply to med school your junior year. There are 50yos in med school. The average age of MS1s is ~24.
@allyphoe that is true but most hope to complete premed in less than 25 years. Most people who are much older in medical school are people who had other careers in the meantime. In my medical school class we had two older women who were ~50 when done. Both had finished raising kids and both were wives of doctors.
In general, the longer you wait after the normal application date, the lower your odds of admittance.
Correlation isn’t causation. Someone who needs grade repair or needs multiple attempts to get a decent MCAT both takes more time and is less competitive, but it’s not the passage of time that has made them so.
@WISdad23 But the average age of people entering med school is 25, so it would certainly not be abnormal for OP to take a year off after graduation. There are lots of students who study broad, want to avoid burnout, are interested in programs like CitiYear, etc., who want a year between or need the last year to finish pre-reqs.
My point was that one year won’t make OP 50 years old. If your original application is marginal, there is only so much interest you can show to burnish the application. I think the OP was asking, is a sense: how long and under what parameters should I persist with the goal of medical school admission?
So I gave the pathway to various GPA points. Of course, the MCAT follows and then other factors follow so it is not all grades. But as others have pointed out, the acceptance curve drops dramatically once gpa drops below ~3.8.
Is that true that the average age of a person starting medical school is 25? That means that the typical freshman med student piddled around for 3 years trying to get in. I doubt that.
@WISdad23, here are the stats. https://www.aamc.org/download/321468/data/factstablea6.pdf
It’s a little higher for osteopathic students.