Chances to UCSD, Advice for CA med school

<p>I will be a junior/11th grade in High School this year, I am a California Resident. I'm looking to find out my chances for getting into UCSD. Also, what other good medical schools are there in California? I'm looking to become a pharmacist, but I'm not quite sure where to start.
Ask if you would like me to post my specific freshman grades, which was a 3.33 GPA.</p>

<p>Sophomore Year
1st Semester
GPA (weighted) - 3.0
Honor's English: B
Algebra 2: B-
Honor's Chemistry: C+
AP European History: C+
Spanish 2: C+
Video: B+</p>

<p>2nd Semester
GPA (weighted) - 3.6
Honor's English: A-
Algebra 2: C
Honor's Chemistry: B
AP European History: B-
Athletic Tennis: A
Video: B-</p>

<p>My total GPA (weighted) is a 3.4 Unweighted- 3.04, I'm currently ranked 154 out of 588
My Current SAT score (unofficial) is 1500, but I am expecting to hit a goal of 1900 before I take it.
My next year (junior) classes are as followed:
AP Environmental Science
AP US History
AP Language and Composition
Pre-Calculus
Tennis</p>

<p>I'm planning on taking tennis for the rest of my high school, (Sophomore,Junior,Senior Year). I don't have any extra curricular's.. :\ I'm planning on participating in a few next year.
Anyways, how does my future look? Are my chances for getting into UCSD hopeless? I need some advice please..
Ask if you need me to provide with more information.</p>

<p>For pharmacy( and even Pre-Med to an extent), it doesn’t really matter where you undergraduate school. And as of now, it really doesn’t look like your portfolio is strong enough for the selective UCSD. CA med schools are as competitive as they can be, and ANYONE would be lucky just getting into a California Med school, regardless of prestige. A relative of mine choose UC Davis( still a very nice medical school, with strong undergraduate programs) instead of John Hopkins and more well known Med Schools that he was offered admissions to out of convenience. If you are determined to follow this path though, applying to out of state Med schools with a high entering freshman class would probably be most favorable, with Caribbean Med schools and International schools being the next option. All in all, it’ll be really difficult to get into a good med school in CA, especially if you can’t raise your current stats right now in order to get into a good undergraduate program and optimize your chances of Med school in CA AND in general.</p>

<p>Pharmacy is gaining exceedingly popular though, so even that would require great stats. I suggest joining/making a premed/pharm. club and volunteering in the hospital to show passion in your field.</p>

<p>Shadowing a Doctor/Pharm. would also be a good idea. Reassess your priorities as well, focus on raising your SATs ABOVE 2100. It might not be completely hopeless if you convince the admins that you’ve really gain focus in your academic career.</p>

<p>improving your GPA would be nice =]</p>

<p>Thanks Loncria, your input helps a lot. I thought that UCSD and UCSF were the only UC schools with a med program… but I guess I was mistaken.
I’m not totally 100% bent on having this Pharmacist thing work out, this has just been the only idea that I’ve had with any interest in, but I really do feel interested in it.
I am planning to stick inside California, I want to narrow my choices to a UC school, so I can now look to UC Davis as another option?
This year, I am taking a Pharmacy Assistant class. On completion, I get a certificate that qualifies me as a Pharmacy Assistant, looking to see if I can get hired at a local pharmacy. That would look good?
I’m not a fan of hospitals… not at all. lol</p>

<p>Shauniboni, I’m not quite sure how much I will be able to increase my GPA… but most likely to a 3.66</p>

<p>You’ll get into UCSD, but I’m not sure about many of the other UC schools.</p>

<p>Yes, look into UCD and maybe even UCR- with a soon to be established medical school, it’ll serve you well if you can excel academically and establish connections within the university.</p>

<p>Do your fair share of pre-pharm. activities if you want to have a nice backup in case it doesn’t work out with medicine.</p>

<p>It wouldn’t hurt to take AP Bio and/or AP Chem so you can get a feel of the workload for PrePharm/Med. Even if you do end up landing in UCSD/UCLA or another good undergraduate school, it doesn’t mean your quite done yet.</p>

<p>Oh, UCR is planning on enrolling their first medical school class in Fall 2012. What kind of advantages and disadvantages would there be in choosing UCR’s med school, a completely new program?</p>

<p>This thread is totally confused. Med schools, like the one UCR is opening, are for students who have completed 4 years of college. Pharmacists go to pharmacy school, not med school.</p>

<p>One can enroll in a pharmacy program for college, or go to any college and take pre pharm classes and apply to pharmacy school after college.</p>

<p>Redroses, that clears a lot of things up >_< . Now all my assumptions are mixed up and stuff. So NOW, talking about pharmacy school, are there any recommended colleges that I should go to for pre- pharm classes (or should I do the research myself)? UCSD and UC Davis and UCR are NOT pharmacy schools, they are med schools?</p>

<p>You tagged pre-med lol.</p>

<p>I know a much about pre-pharm as I do about Law. harhar</p>

<p>It sounds like there is a bit of confusion…</p>

<p>I’ll try to clear up some things though, which I hope will help!</p>

<p>Here is a general timeline of high education:
4 Years of High School –> 4 Years of Undergraduate Education –> Post-Graduate Education (Graduate School, Medical School, PHARMACY SCHOOL, Law School, etc)
You can do your undergraduate education at a different place you do your post-graduate education. UCSD has a undergraduate system, a graduate school, a medical school, and a pharmaceutical school. Each has a separate admissions procedure and requirements. While they are all UCSD, they are not all for you.</p>

<p>Currently you are in high school, so your next step (after you graduate from high school)is to attend a college/ university that offers undergraduate programs (4-Year Institution). </p>

<p>I suggest increasing your GPA immediately. Unfortunately, this means get all the A’s that you can. But if you do get more A’s hopefully your class ranking, unweighted GPA and weighted GPA will increase as well!!!Many schools like seeing a trend of your grades improving!!! Increase you SAT to around 1880-ish to 2000-ish to be considered competitive as well!</p>

<p>Commit to 1-2 extracurricular activities (More if you can handle it!) It is important to COMMIT not just put a half-hearted effort. Keep doing your tennis, that is definitely a +!</p>

<p>All the UCs (except UC San Francisco) and many other colleges and universities around the United States (assuming you live in the US) offer undergraduate programs. (It seems you are interested in UCSD though :slight_smile: Call some schools and ask about freshman admissions, and go online to see some of the incoming freshman statistics per school.</p>

<p>Honestly your chances of getting into UCSD as an undergraduate are not very good, but there is room for great improvement in your Junior and Senior Years of High School. If you improve your general trend of grades in your junior year and senior year, you will have a MUCH better chance of getting into UCSD.
Another option is attending a community college but you should definitely TRANSFER to a 4-Year Institution after 2 years using a transfer agreement if you decide to take this route. Call some community colleges for more information if you are interested.</p>

<p>Honestly, do not think about Pharmacy or Medical School right now. Focus on your high school grades, SAT, extracurriculars, and tennis. Then when you are in college, go crazy in finding out requirements for pharmacy school during your freshman year and what you need to do during your underagraduate years to go to pharmacy school. Your college GPA is VERY important as well, but don’t worry about when or where you do your undergraduate education at the moment. Take things as they come and you will do well, no doubt!!!</p>

<p>Another point is it is always a good indicator to see if you are actually interested in a certain subject. Take a biology and chemistry class in your junior and/ or senior year (preferably AP Biology and AP Chemistry just as Loncria said). The course load and material in AP Biology and AP Chemistry will give you a taste as to what is to come!</p>

<p>One last note (Sorry I didn’t mean for this reply to be long…), ignorance is not an excuse! Undergraduate schools, graduate schools, medical schools, pharmacy schools, and law schools want their applicants to be knowledgable about their programs. It is an applicant’s responsibility to find out as much as they can about what they are interested in and the requirements and timeline each college has. Colleges assume that when you apply you know what you are getting yourself into. Even though colleges never say that directly, THEY 100% mean it!!!</p>

<p>I think if you take some of this advice, you’ll do fine in whatever you do!!!</p>

<p>Good Luck!</p>

<p>I am a rising senior in my school. I will be applying as an international student pretty soon.
I pretty much need a full scholarship.
My SAT is currently only 1800, but I will get it up to 2000.
My GPA is 3.75.
I have not taken any other tests so far.
I’m planning on taking a few subject tests.
I am hoping on playing varsity tennis for UCSC and possibly get some tennis scholarship.
Does UCSC give full scholarships to international students?
Has anybody ever been in this same situation?</p>