<p>Okay the title is just to gather attention and I don't actually have straight F's. I just don't want to bore you with a topic that is being asked by everybody else.</p>
<p>Simple cliffsnotes version:
Personal problems>bad grades>academic probation>dropout>work for tuition</p>
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<p>saved up money, fixed personal problems and ready to start over.</p>
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<p>I want to sacrifice the 2 years worth of credits I earned in my university and start afresh in a community college. This has been asked by others a million times and answered effectively. But my problem is that not only do I want to start over, I want to go to medical school in the future. From what I read, even if I don't transfer the grades over and only the credits, it still counts into my cumulative gpa when I apply to med school. If I don't transfer completely, then it is academic dishonesty and I get kicked out immediately. So what is my best option if I really believe I have what it takes to for med school? (the 2 years worth of grades were occasional A's and B's but mostly C's and D's and too many F's and W's, so I can't just pretend I had a bad start. Chances are the cumulative gpa will not even qualify me for a human review of my application and I will just get filtered out)</p>
<p>Were your poor grades in the sciences or other classes? Regardless, it will still count for your medical school application. Thus, you will have to do much more damage control on your GPA to get it around ~3.4 to give you a decent shot at being competitive (along with high MCATs, of course). Someone very close to me was in a similar situation as you (though his cumulative was around 2.9 for three years and I imagine yours is much lower), and he currently has many acceptances to MD schools. He basically started over, as you are about to do, and took ~4 years of classes where he rarely got below an A. Thus, his science GPA was a 3.9 and overall was around a ~3.6 or something similar. </p>
<p>I think you will need time to fix the GPA and show that what happened earlier was not indicative of your abilities. You need sustained As and the profile to show you have matured and have real dedication for school and the field. This is all for MD schools, which will take a lot of work and time on your part to be competitive for. </p>
<p>I believe DO schools, on the other hand, replace grades instead of averaging repeats like MD schools. So your GPA would be considerably higher if you retook relevant courses and applied to DO schools. You still need to do exceptionally well in your classes, obviously.</p>
<p>Changing the name of your topic doesn’t change the fact that yes, your topic has been asked by multiple people here before.</p>
<p>You can’t “sacrifice” earned university credits. It doesn’t matter what you want to do in the future - whether you just want to transfer, of whether you want to go to med school. You also don’t make a choice about whether you want to transfer your grades over. Although your new university may not count your university grades in your cumulative GPA there, your medical schools will want to see transcripts from ALL universities attended.</p>
<p>Basically the only thing you can do is try again. There’s no way to erase the past. But what you need to do is make your next shot extremely competitive - competitive enough for them to overlook the false start of 2 years. I think that your GPA needs to be higher than 3.4 - you need to get it to a 3.6+, especially in your math and science courses. Do very, very well on your MCAT. And you need to do the kinds of experiences that make medical school students more attractive - a summer medical research experience, shadowing a physician, putting in volunteer hours at a hospital, etc. Some combination of the above.</p>
<p>The AAMC site has a handy chart that lists a wide range of GPAs and MCAT scores, with the percentage of students accepted that have each possibility. That might give you some indication of how competitive your stats needs to be.</p>
<p>That is amazing that somebody got into med school with below a 1.99 GPA and 24-26 on the MCAT’s. I wonder what their deal was? I’d love to hear that story.</p>
<p>How the hell did they even graduate with a Bachelors with under a 1.99?!?!?!</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for your advice. So right now assuming I’ve genuinely matured, I should just go with community college then transfer to university then med school application?</p>
<p>Maybe the person was very well connected? (e.g. his father is the biggest donor or is the owner of the med school?)</p>
<p>Or maybe he has super power that can heal people! Who needs good grades if you can do something like that?</p>
<p>OT:
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<p>Do it! In grad school and med school they love upward trend, say you had 1.9 GPA for the past 2 years, but then you redo it for 4 years and get straight A (4.0), get 4 years experience shadowing doctors in hospitals (relevant to your interest if possible, this is the most important), kill the MCAT, apply widely 30+ schools, I’m sure a good med school will accept you.</p>
<p>I would avoid the community college route, unless you’re in one of the rare counties that offers a 4 year bachelor’s degree. Med schools will want to see you get As in a traditional university/college environment since you must excel at their even more rigorous curriculum. Go to a new 4 year college and get top grades. And make sure you are heavily invested in healthcare-related community service. Also, for medical school, extracurriculars count, and they expect their applicants to get As while doing other activities.</p>
<p>I second MaceVindaloo’s suggestion of looking at DO schools. I know someone who had a low GPA for med school (3.4), but who had a strong MCAT and demanding extracurriculars. He was advised to go the DO route and received an acceptance to his top choice.</p>
<p>The community college route is 2 years then transfer to a 4 year university. you’re saying I should just apply to another university from the start? I have no idea how that works, do I send in my transcript from my previous university?</p>