Getting a low grade and pre-med

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>So I received a D in a class that is relevant to my science major and I will retake the class over the summer however, I am pre-med and my regular and science GPA was decent thus far. The D pretty much killed it. </p>

<p>Will this look awful on my transcript and application to med school? I heard one C is okay (not really) but a D is definitely not acceptable in my book. I was too late to withdraw the class since that was not my intention at all. I also heard that withdrawing is looked down upon but regardless I was not thinking about withdrawing. </p>

<p>From what I know, retaking the class will allow the new grade to be calculated into my GPA but the D will still remain on my records when applying to med school. Is it true that most health profession schools will still calculate the D into my GPA even though UofR's policy is to leave it out of the GPA (but on the transcript)?</p>

<p>Sorry for all the questions but I would really appreciate any advice! Thank you.</p>

<p>Is there any PreMed advisor at UR? The advisor should provide you some guidance. I do not know the answer to your question. My understanding is that three hard-components are very critical for the Medical school application including GPA (3.7), GMAT, extensive exposure to Medical field. The soft-components includes volunteer work (research), essay, recommendation, leadership etc.</p>

<p>Could any current UR students with PreMed track kindly provide more insider information concenrning the UR PreMed program? My D is attending UR with PreMed track in 2013.</p>

<p>A D is never a good thing to have on your application to medical school. It raises your a red flag about your ability to be successful during the academic challenges of medical school. </p>

<p>Any D must be retaken. Medical schools will not consider any grade below a C as acceptable for admission consideration. (That means a C- in a pre-req must be retaken.)</p>

<p>AMCAS policy for allopathic medical schools (MD) requires that ALL grades–including the original grade for any re-taken class-- be reported and included in your GPA/sGPA calculations. Even if your transcript does not show the original grade. Failure to do so is considered academic fraud and will get your application cancelled and blacklisted.</p>

<p>Osteopathic medical schools (DO) do allow grade replacement. AACOM policies for DO schools permit only the replacement grade to be reported.</p>

<p>Ws are also not looked favorably on by med schools. One or 2 over the course of 4 years is acceptable. More than that are not. (It looks like you cannot handle a full challenging academic courseload or it suggests you’re playing ‘protect my GPA’ games—both of which are red flags to admission committees.) Taking a W and dropping below 4 courses/semester is another thing that med schools don’t look kindly on for the same reasons.</p>

<p>BTW, a WF (withdraw, failing) is treated exactly the same as F for GPA purposes by both AMCAS and AACOM. A W or WP (withdraw, passing) have no effect on your GPA.</p>

<p>~~~~</p>

<p>Some unsolicted advice from the mother of 1 med student and UR grad applying to medical school this year:</p>

<p>You need to consider why you got such a poor grade in a co-requisite for your major and take steps to prevent a repeat of this. Find a study group. Go to office hours. Seek tutoring. (It free at CAS!) Talk to your SI/TA. Go to class faithfully --no skipping! Go to recitation faithfully. And above all else do your homework! In fact, do extra homework sets–as many as possible until you are confident of your mastery of the material.</p>

<p>You’ve put yourself into a deep hole w/r/t your sGPA (science GPA). It is going to take time and effort (and lots of As) on your part to get yourself out.</p>

<p>But it is possible to recover and still get accepted into med school.</p>

<p>~~~</p>

<p>@CK-- Was the course OChem by any chance? It’s a killer class… and one of the principal ‘weeder’ classes for pre-meds everywhere.</p>

<p>@ URparent 2017–</p>

<p>GMAT is for business school admission. MCAT is the exam for medical school (osteopathic and allopathic) admissions.</p>

<p>@ URparent2017–</p>

<p>MCAT + GPA are what are used to make the first round of cuts for medical school admission. Once past that hurdle, then soft factors (LORs, ECs, research, volunteering, shadowing) all come into play. However, the biggest factor in getting accepted into medical school may actually be one’s state of legal residency. (i.e. Texas–good place to live; California–bad place to live w/r/t med school admission. CA is the largest net exporter of med school applicants in the US.)</p>

<p>AAMC conducted a survery of 108 US medical school admission directors and published a brief report of how medical school view/rank various factors when considering an applicant for an interview invitation and for acceptance</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/261106/data/aibvol11_no6.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/261106/data/aibvol11_no6.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>~~~~</p>

<p>P.S. the pre med advising at UR is very good and UR does not withhold committee letters from students unless they have sub 3.0 cGPA.</p>

<p>@WayOutwestMom,
Insightful information. Thanks.
Other than SI/TA for course guidance, is there any full-time PreMed professional advisors @ UR?</p>

<p>@WayOutwestMom
Thanks Again!</p>

<p>There are (I think) 3 full time pre-health profession advisors in the career services office. They can provide general assistance and information for students pursuing medical, dental, vet, PA, PsyD, PT, OT and SLP programs.</p>

<p>The health profession advisors do not do academic counseling or provide assistance with registration, homework skills, or course selection to meet departmental requirements, etc. </p>

<p>For help with academic issues, student should go to the Center for Academic Support (CAS). CAS provides free study skills classes and tutoring in most of the freshman-sophomore level classes. There is also a writing skills walk-in clinic.</p>

<p>For help with major course requirements, student should consult with their departmental advisor. (Freshmen are assigned one before freshman registration, but once they declare a major during their sophomore year, they are allowed to select their own departmental advisor.)</p>

<p>TA (teaching asst) and SI (supplemental instructors) and workshop leader are all pretty much the same thing. (UR keeps changing the titles! D2 did this and was called by all titles although the job was pretty much identical.) TA/SI/WL are either graduate or undergrad students who lead weekly recitation/review sessions/workshops for the science and math classes. They really aren’t resources for anything except class help.</p>

<p>~~~~</p>

<p>During freshman orientation week, any interested students will be able to attend a information session about the pre-med process at UR. It’s quite informative and your D should consider attending.</p>

<p>It was not Ochem, I actually did well in that class. I will most certainly retake the class I did poorly in over the summer but my main concern is that the D will get calculated into my GPA. I am fine with it showing up on my transcript (I was going through a rough time before one of the exams and it cost me the grade) but I am a good student otherwise. This really blows for me and I still am premed but I just need to know if the grade gets calculated or not. </p>

<p>Thank you for all the replies. I truly appreciate them.</p>

<p>Also, what is a committee letter??</p>

<p>UR (and many other universities) use a committee letter for health profession students. It’s the school’s endorsement of your application for medical school and replaces the specific LOR requirements for med school admissions. Since UR offers a committee letter, you will be expected to have one and not having one will raise a major red flag on your application. (Seriously, not having one can completely tank your application.)</p>

<p>Alumni applicants are also expected to submit a committee letter to med schools if their undergrad offers one.</p>

<p>Basically, in the early spring of your junior year (or the spring when you plan to apply), you will apply to the health professions advising office for committee letter. You will provide at least 3 LORs (2 from BCPM profs and 1 from a humanities or social science prof) plus any other LORs you might want considered. Some medical schools require a LOR from every PI you ever worked for. If you plan to apply any of these schools, you will need to submit PI letters to the committee.</p>

<p>You will also need to submit a Health Professions Questionnaire, a CV, your MCAT score(s), your personal statement, your transcript and have an 30-60 minute interview with committee. </p>

<p>In mid-August, the Health Professions Committee will send a recommendation packet directly to AMCAS or AACOM. In turn AMCA or AACOM will send that packet to those schools you’ve applied to.</p>

<p>Information about committee letter process here:</p>

<p>[Health</a> Professions : College Center for Advising Services : University of Rochester](<a href=“Applying to Health Professions Programs : University of Rochester”>Applying to Health Professions Programs : University of Rochester) </p>

<p>You will not be able to see/review the committee letter before it’s sent. Like all LORs for medical school it’s confidential.</p>

<p>UR requires anyone requesting a committee letter to have a minimum cGPA/sGPA of 3.0. Applicants who don’t meet this minimum will be asked to defer their application until their GPA improves or until they have completed a grade-repairing grad program.</p>

<p>~~~~</p>

<p>RE: GPA calculations. The D will be counted for all MD programs. The D will not be counted if you do better on a retake for DO programs.</p>

<p>Thank you so much WayOutWesMom. You have been a huge help.
The D was not in a pre-req course but it is a pre-req for my major (however it is a science class so it will affect my science GPA).
Do you know if med schools only look at the pre-req courses and base the science GPA off of that or if all science courses are included? I was under the impression that the latter was true.</p>

<p>Your sGPA will be computed using every BCPM (biology, chemistry, math and physics) class you’ve ever taken at the college level*, including any co-enrollment credits from high school.</p>

<p>Medical schools do their initial screening by looking at your GPA, sGPA and MCAT score. Your pre-reqs will not be broken out and looked out separately. Only those main numbers. </p>

<p>If you get to the interview stage, then your year-by-year grades are broken out and scrutinized.</p>

<ul>
<li> Some classes (i.e. statistics) will be included in your sGPA no matter what course designator they have. (IOW, stats will be counted as a math class by AMCAS and AACOM even if it’s listed under PSYCH or ECON on your transcript.)</li>
</ul>

<p>Thank you so much! Are there any other classes that will be counted into my sGPA other than statistics that would not normally be listed as a BCPM class?</p>

<p>None that I know of.</p>

<p>Here’s AMCAS’s official course classification guidelines:</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/students/download/181694/data/amcas_course_classification_guide.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/students/download/181694/data/amcas_course_classification_guide.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I wish there was a way WOWM’s detailed, accurate information could be compiled. That is the kind of thing a site really needs. In the consulting business, we talked a lot about “knowledge management”, meaning - to continue the hideous jargon - you build a “learning organization” through retention and availability of information. The current bbs systems can only archive a thread or let you search posts my member. Too bad. And a real mark against the kind of “all in one database” idea that some have for the ultimate system. You couldn’t google this information; you have to see the questions and answers in context to see how they apply to you. This is why the case system was developed in law and then medicine.</p>

<p>Actually there is a whole forum here on CC devoted to just to pre-med topics:</p>

<p>[Pre-Med</a> & Medical School - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-medical-school/]Pre-Med”>Pre-Med & Medical School - College Confidential Forums)</p>

<p>There are a host of knowledgable people there, including not only parents of pre meds and med students, but current medical students and med school graduates (now well into their residencies).</p>

<p>And thanks for the compliment!</p>

<p>That cleared things up, thank you again. You have been a great help!</p>