<p>So here's the deal, I'm not a very good student, but I began making changes in highschool too late. I did terrible freshman year and 1st semester of sophomore year, but picked it up after that. I have a couple of APs, mostly honors/duals, and very few regs. My gpa is a 3.0 UW (yes bad, i know). I managed all As after that 1st semester of sophomore year and really got involved in multipled clubs and organizations.
My ACT is a 36, but my GPA is literally haunting me. What should I do? I'm from Illinois and I want to stay relatively close, my dream is medicine. I want to go to a well-respected college that can give me a good pre-med education. Do I have a chance at Loyola Honors or U of I??
One more thing, I plan to do a pre-med course load and major in Psychology with a minor in Healthcare Administration. If I don't get accepted into medical school due to poor performance, what can I do with my degree? My entire family consists of doctors so I literally have no idea of what to do if I don't make it with dreams of medicine...</p>
<p>Take summer classes or dual enroll in a local community college to boost that GPA. Work harder, get all A’s junior year and somewhat less importantly, senior year. Make sure you show a strong upward trend (preferable to a downward trend). Also look into direct-med programs. I don’t have much experience with the field of medicine so I won’t be able to help you there.</p>
<p>I’ve been told that colleges really like when a student goes from bad grades to good grades. As long as you keep going up and get all As I think you have a shot.</p>
<p>Just like ANRE4742 said colleges look for that upward trend. They understand that some students start of badly. I think the aspect that you should focus on to “save” you would be your essays to the schools that you are applying to. Obviously from your perfect ACT score, its clear that you are smart and academically competent. If you have great essays along with such an awesome standardized test score and positive improvements in your grades with a good rec or 2… you should have a pretty good chance at a state college or maybe even an out of state college… once again that 36 is a big plus point. I think another factor that would make things clearer would be your class rank. Does your school have a ranking system. If you are in the top 20% and you have all the things that I mentioned above you should be able to get into U of I. I’m not sure about honors because rank/gpa is a significant factor in that decision but ya…</p>
<p>well hope this helped…</p>
<p>could you chance me ? just click on my member name and read my chance posts…</p>
<p>You’re fine with a 36 ACT and a 3.4 GPA in my opinion. Getting any honors programs will be hard, but getting into a decent school with a good essay, that score, and improved grades won’t be too difficult (I don’t mean a Dartmouth or a Harvard, those are not happening). Remember, what any of us say is just speculation, it doesn’t mean anything related to the actual result.</p>
<p>Miami of Ohio (Oxford), Illinois, Ohio State, Indiana University at Bloomington, Carnegie Mellon or Notre Dame as reaches, Pittsburgh (kinda reachish), Penn State, and Missouri (Columbia). Not sure if any are good for Medicine, though, because I’m from the South.</p>