So I attended a US military academy and incurred a head injury during my 2nd month of basic training. Due a training accident, I had a TBI (4th in my life) which went undetected for about a month until I was found unconscious in my room. Anyways, I missed more than 70% of my classes due to doctors appointments with specialists and symptoms from the injury. Long story short I ended up with a 1.00 gpa the first semester and February of 13 I was let disenrolled with an Honorable discharge due to my injury disqualifying me medically. Anyways, I came back home, started therapy for my head injury at the Veterans Administration and started college the Fall semester.
After 3 years my gpa is a 3.87 with straight all As and literally one B- freshman year fall semester. I have several thousands of volunteer hours at a local tutoring center for impoverished kids which I’ve been doing for several years. I have 2 years of research experience in a Neurosurgery lab at a hospital and have been interning in a Cancer Research Biology Lab for over a year. I’m also an EMT, lifeguard, tutor and in tons of honor societies. Taking my Mcats in less than a month and I have a good feeling about it based on practice tests.
My point is, will I have a shot at any of the Top 30s given the circumstances? I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses but I have over a year and halfs worth of medical records that can back it up. Since it was my fourth head injury (that was aggravated even further due to the Academy’s required boxing class…), I suffered from significant memory loss and fatigue. Ive wanted to be a doctor my entire life and I’m freaking out about how the lowered gpa will affect my chances. Can anyone offer some advice about this?
There will be a place on the secondary applications to explain your GPA. (There’s always a question along the line of “Is there anything else you want to tell us?”)
As for top 30–it’s impossible to say. Apply broadly and see what happens.