<p>Ok...I was at a business meeting and overheard a conversation that fascinated me.</p>
<p>During a break, a mother at the next table was talking about how her daughter wanted to go to med school but had not had a stellar freshman year, tanking her gpa. </p>
<p>The solution? Daughter was going to change her major and make sure that she was not eligible to graduate in 4 years by not completing all of the degree requirements in a timely fashion....and in the mean time, taking as many easy credit hours as she could cram in to her schedule so as to pad her gpa and minimize the effect of the poor first year. So she would be in undergrad for 5 or 6 years before applying to med school.</p>
<p>Even assuming that the student turned on her academic jets and became a model student (and did all the other things to craft a good med school application), could this possibly work? i can't imagine that a med school admission committee wouldn't see right through this strategy, or think poorly of an appllicant that took 6 years to complete a degree.</p>
<p>Taking 6 years to finish a degree seems kinda sketchy unless there’s a legitimate excuse (double major, major+2 minors, etc.). If she finishes in 4 years and then takes 2 years off, that would be fine though. As far as taking easy credit ours, that can be detected pretty easily. Even if it can’t be detected, its pointless to take easy art/basketweaving classes since they’ll look at her science GPA as well.</p>
<p>The following link showed that 1/4 of the medical school students may fail the USMLE step 1 test on the 1st try. Is it accurate? How would the student described in OP’s post survive? </p>
<p>finishing in 4 years with a marginal GPA and then doing something meaningful for 2 years (e.g. job, master’s, etc) sounds WAY better than a person who took 6 years to get a BA while taking joke classes. How is she going to explain this when they ask why she couldn’t finish in 4?</p>
<p>I do not believe that it will work very well for several reasons, but not because of 5-7 years in UG which some people do for various reasons. I believe that if the girl is not taking higher level Bio, she is not going to do well on MCAT. Also, if she does not have passion/ionterest for any of her classes, it will be evident during interview (if she gets that far). And I also believe that adcoms will be very aware of padded schedule. This is my personal perception based on my D. experience. D was really interested in all of her classes, she was very excited talking about them at home. I have not done any internet research, as everybody can do it.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses.
It just seems to me that it would be easy for any med school admissions committee to see exactly what she was attempting to do</p>
<p>I like your title. Think about this. If she gets in, there is a 92% chance for her to pass the step 1 board examination. It does not hurt to try. Doctor’s job safety status starts in med school.;)</p>
<p>Hell, it’s better than that - once you’re in and have gotten to the point where you’re taking Step I, you have a much higher than 92% chance to eventually pass it. Over 60% of repeaters pass the exam, and you typically have 3 chances to pass the test before either getting kicked out of school or being unable to get licensed in many states. Its probably something like a 98-99% likelihood that you’ll eventually pass Step I once you’ve attempted it. However, while I’ve been here, my school has a 100% pass rate for people who have to repeat the test.</p>
<p>This can work if she can prove that the first year was just a scratch on her arm that eventually healed itself—that it does not fully represent her ability.</p>
<p>-I do not believe that person with low GPA has any chance to prove anything. Low GPA will block application from moving up to the next step. Wiil anybody read / see further with thousands applications (average is about 4500, I believe) for 170 spots? I am not big believer in miracles, and think of all others who worked their …off to get that high GPA, there are thousands of them, can you explain to them why they are less deserving?</p>