<p>How do adcoms look at students who graduate early?</p>
<p>I came into college with a lot of credits. I am currently just finishing my first year and I would be graduating in the Winter of 2013. I am a Biology and Chemistry double major with a possible minor in Religion. I can't take much more. The pre-health advisor at my college said that the don't like young applicants. Is she right?</p>
<p>I had an internship this year, which I will have again next year. I volunteered 100+ hours this year. I also have multiple leadership positions and a "big girl" job this summer at a law firm. I am going to shadow three doctors next year.</p>
<p>I can't just add another major. What should I do?</p>
<p>Your advisor is correct. </p>
<p>For younger than typical graduates (under 21-22), the onus on you to prove to the adcomms that you have the necessary maturity, wisdom and ability to develop a rapport with your patients (who typically will be much older than you). There is anecedotal evidence from SDN and other places that younger than typical applicants fared less well than their stats might suggest in the application lottery. (Fewer interviews; fewer acceptances.)</p>
<p>If you want out of school, consider getting a job, work for a year or two while maintaining your volunteer activities. You might try finding a research lab position.</p>
<p>EDIT: based on your other post–younger than typical plus low GPA/sGPA— please don’t apply next year. You will have 2 strikes against you from the get-go. And reapplicants have a tougher time getting accepting on subsequent rounds.</p>
<p>if you’d rather not venture out into the real world, stay at school, take relatively easy classes and beef up on ECs like research maybe?</p>
<p>EDIT: should have looked at your other post given WOWMom’s comment and 100% agree. You definitely don’t want to graduate with those numbers unless you want to do some sort of post-bacc or masters thing.</p>
<p>Thank you guys so much!</p>
<p>Would it be better to graduate in Winter of 2013 and do research for a semester with a semi good GPA or graduate in Spring of 2014 with 10k more debt, and fluff classes to bump up my GPA? First scenario would have me at 3.5-3.6 Second would be 3.6-3.7.</p>
<p>I am applying to 2 med schools one DO and one MD if that helps. The MD is the state school.</p>
<p>The GPA is a bit complicated. As of right now, all my hardest (in my mind) classes are behind me, except for maybe 3 or 4 (Physical Chem 1, Biochem, and Micro.). I am retaking, for sure, at least 3 classes in order to get it up (Calc (B-) , Bio 2 (C+), Chem 2 (B-) Physics 1 (B)). By next spring I should have a 3.55 to 3.7.</p>
<p>1) You will certainly need to apply to more than 2 schools if you are serious about going to medical school. This is for a variety of reasons including the facts that more than half of all students who apply to medical school are rejected from every single one they apply to and that as it stands now, you do not have an impressive application that is a “sure bet” to any school. In fact many would argue that there’s no such thing as a sure bet in medical school.</p>
<p>2) FYI, AMCAS (MD app) does not allow you to replace grades like AACOMAS (DO app) does. If you retake a class, both classes and both scores will show up on your AMCAS app and both will be calculated into your AMCAS GPA (which is the only GPA that matters to med schools). Thus, if you only plan to apply to MD schools, retaking classes is typically not a good idea. (NB: if you get C- or less, you must retake.) However, there is grade replacement for AACOMAS (DO) and there they only show the newest grade–regardless of whether it is better. You might consider these things before you decide to retake!</p>
<p>And if you have pchem, biochem, and microbio in front of you…what are you considering to be the toughest ones behind you?</p>
<p>Hi Kristin. Thank you. The two schools I am looking at are both in state. If I were to go out of state I would wait a gap year. </p>
<p>That is great to know. 
I will definitely look into my different GPAs after retakes.</p>
<p>I have had, what I think are harder type classes, Ochem 1 and 2, Quantitative Analysis, Physics, Calc, and Stats. I also have the other bio and chem classes. :)</p>
<p>Many people post that they have a low GPA and will smarten up and get all As to raise it in the future, this rarely happens. I will give you hope, though, DD took all her MD pre-reqs and then her senior year she took all science upper division course, she loved them and got all As, it did bring up her GPA. It can happen, but it had nothing to do with studying or not, it had to do with higher level classes having less of a weeder style and also the upper division classes were much more interesting. That’s also how she got her strong LORs.</p>
<p>What the prior posters said is accurate, the adcoms want to see you take full advantage of your university educational opportunities. That does not mean you cannot finish early, but if so, plan to work in a medically related field- a research lab would be great- and apply that year or the year after so you can show four years of activities, not necessarily four years of classes.</p>
<p>Thank you Somemom. I do see what you are saying with the raising of the GPA. I should have mentioned this at the start. My grades have been dramatically improving except for Bio 2. I got a B+ in Chem, B- in Chem 2, B+ in Ochem 1, A- in Ochem 2. It is about like that for all my other classes. </p>
<p>Would getting EMT or CNA certified be of help to my application or would it be better to shadow a lot of doctors/surgeons? I already have three jobs lined up for next fall. (Writing Fellow for my Ochem prof. which is revising and editing student’s papers, my internship and a work study) I am also taking 22 credits (Writing fellow is 3 credits) and Volunteering 10 hours a week. Is that going to look good? I know people say that non-medical jobs don’t look as good.</p>
<p>If you stay on campus, don’t take fluff classes, take math/science classes which you think you will enjoy and get As.</p>
<p>As to your choices, come up with a three adjective phrase which an adcom might use to describe you and make sure all your decisions hang together with that story.</p>
<p>Maybe you are rural-hispanic-goat farmer, maybe you are sporty-volunteer-bilingual, etc. Look over your story and find the theme that runs through it.</p>
<p>If the job that is just a job is some low income kid who is helping support their family, I have heard that being appreciated by the adcoms. If you are supporting yourself, any way you can, that’s great, just be sure to have the medically related involvement. They want to assure themselves that you have a pretty good idea what you are getting yourself into.</p>
<p>Neither CNA or a EMT would be any value in your application UNLESS you actually worked in a job using that training. So unless you’re planning on working as EMT or a CNA, don’t bother with getting your certification.</p>
<p>I would add more shadowing. </p>
<p>And you haven’t mentioned if you’ve done any research. Have you?</p>
<p>While the TAing (writing fellow) is a good activity to have on your resume, research is also important to have for a well rounded med school application. That’s an area where you could strengthen your profile.</p>