Help! What do I do and What are my chances for medical school?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>Hello I have never posted on this website before but I am in need of some advice. So I am in the fall semester of my 2nd year at UC Berkeley intended MCB major and I guess I am a URM which helps to get into medical school i heard? Well anyway, i am a mexican-american born here from immigrant parents and 1st generation to go to college. I have always been a good student throughout high school and did pretty well and passed all 8 of AP tests i took without to much effort in high school and weighted gpa was a 4.44. I chose Berkeley because of the prestige and because i wanted to challenge myself and get the best education possible out of the schools i applied to. I came to Berkeley and it was much more difficult than i thought it would be. It was a really weird transition, thought, and getting used to the fact that i was basically like the only hispanic kid in all my science classes filled with asians and whites, kinda felt like i didnt belong. I didnt have friends who came to this school so i decided to rush a fraternity and pledged a fraternity in my first semester and so I have partied quite a bit instead of taking school seriously. But i have matured now, though, and i am going to cut out much of the partying to focus on academics. So my overall gpa is a 2.874 mostly because i screwed up in calculus and never went to class or did hw or take quizzes and got a D even though my average on the midterms were B's. But my grades are as follows:
Fall 2012:
chem 1A- B
Chem 1AL- B
psych 2- A
polisci 1- P
English R1A- P</p>

<p>Spring 2013:
college writing 25AC- A
chem 3A- B
English R1A- B (retook R1A cuz didnt know you couldnt P/NP the class)
Math 1A- D</p>

<p>Summer 2013:
Chem 3AL- A-
Physics 8A- C+</p>

<p>GPA- 2.874
So that is what I have so far and im in finals week for this semester and this is where i think i am in my classes...
Fall 2013:
Bio 1B- either A or A-
English R1B- B or B+
Chem 3BL- A-
Chem 3B- C range</p>

<p>Next semester im planning on retaking the Math 1A class i messed up on and this is my schedule:
Spring 2014:
Bio 1A
Bio 1AL
Math 1A
Music 29
maybe chem 3b agian?
I am going to try much harder from now on but i was wondering whether or not to retake chem 3B in this spring semester since im probably gonna get around a C? and what would medical schools think of me retaking 2 classes that are prerequisites? Im pretty sure i could get A's on both of them or close to it... Also how much does being a URM help me? and does going to a top school like berkeley make a differnce or help me since its way more competitive than other schools? How am I doing so far as a premed? And some extracurriculars i have...
-psych research assistant
-Hospital volunteer during semester(started this summer)
-Berkeley Mens Club Soccer Team
-Planning to coach kids soccer team
-planning on expanding onto more research
Any advice? Thanks, i dont know what im doing or how i am doing! Please help me out! I'm stressing!</p>

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<p>You have really tanked your GPA there, and for more than a single semester. </p>

<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/321520/data/2012factstable25-5.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/321520/data/2012factstable25-5.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Here are the relevant stats for URM acceptances by MCAT score and GPA. As you can see, your current GPA is quite low and acceptance rates for a person with your GPA hover around 30%. Fortunately for you, you have several semesters to pull your GPA up, but this should be your main concern, not your extracurriculars. Focus your time and energy in one place until you are sure you can handle a college courseload–because your grades are going to make or break you. Furthermore, do not pin your hopes on a high MCAT–GPA and MCAT scores are often correlated and achieving a high score if you cannot do well in pre-reqs is unlikely.</p>

<p>I would go ahead and focus on your next semester and get back here for advice after a couple of semesters of good grades. The only thing I might recommend is applying for a (paid) summer research position if you aren’t busy taking classes.</p>

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<p>ok thanks cadriethiel! yeah i know i messed up but im gonna try to do better, i think that if i retake chem 3B next semester and take everything seriously then I could possibly rise my overall gpa to a 3.2ish which i feel is a good start. And then i hope to rise my gpa over my next few semesters. But does coming to Berkeley help me out at all? Because my friend is also premed at a state school and also a URM with like a 3.7 gpa or so but he says that classes there are a joke since he is competing with kids who were like B students in high school and that classes there are easier than the high school classes we took together, so i feel like its a bit unfair if the school you go to isnt taken into account…And also I am applying to an internship for next summer at UCSF that is for URM students to do research in a paid summer internship. So hopefully i could get that. Oh and look what i found when i was researching…
<a href=“Publications | Center for Studies in Higher Education”>Publications | Center for Studies in Higher Education;
It basically says that berkley kids that are URM are more than twice as likely to drop out of premed because of the difficulty here compared to non URM…and in another aamc report i saw that berkeley has only like 24 mexican american students that apply to med school per year compared to the hundreds of asians and whites and i saw a thing for bsp at berkeley that said that 95% of the URM students in their program got into medical schools but only about 65% graduated with a gpa over 3.0. So med shools do take it into account? i get mixed opinions on that, thanks!</p>

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<p>Let me rephrase that for you: BSP at Berkeley said that 95% of the URM students in their program **that they let apply to medical school because of high MCAT scores or other noteworthy things on their application, some of whom may have taken multiple years off between college and applying ** got into medical schools but only about 65% graduated with a GPA over 3.0. </p>

<p>Was that 65% people with a GPA above 3.5? Above 3.7? Above 3.9? Who knows, they didn’t specify. The 35% with a GPA below 3.0, how many sub 3s didn’t get in? How many took extra years to do a masters or had really high MCAT scores are part of the group?</p>

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<p>Well nevertheless it looks like a good program i might want to get into so i’ll probably apply next semester. But anyway, it doesnt matter what school you go to? med schools dont care? oh and another question, does psychology count toward science gpa? because apparently they are changing the mcat to include psychology so if they are doing that wouldnt they have to consider it as part of the science gpa?</p>

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<p>If you were my kid, I would tell you to come up with a plan to get pretty much straight As from now until graduation. That both raises your GPA numerically and shows that something wasn’t right and you fixed it.</p>

<p>This means judicious class scheduling, do not overload yourself with too many rough classes at one time, do not take too many classes. I would even consider taking the lowest number of units you can, while remaining full time, 13? Focus, focus. It’s too bad about the calculus, but there is nothing you can do now.</p>

<p>I don’t know anything about BSP, but I can tell you my DDs pre-med advising at UCB was not helpful. Professors who were assigned as advisors, different each term, gave conflicting advice, the staff gave cookie cutter advice that was not tailored to DDs situation. We found the information we needed to craft the strongest possible application on CC & SDN.</p>

<p>Yes, DD has found the Berkeley name does carry some weight. But, in CA you have a rough application standard, averages for GPA & MCAT are quite high.</p>

<p>Yes, it seems in my limited experience, that being an URM makes the process a bit more forgiving, your pool is a bit less competitive. I have a friend with a URM kid whose application profile was quite similar to my kid. The difference in the URM v. not mean that her kid got some interviews at places that turned my kid down. Her kid still had to do a fantastic interview to get in, it’s certainly not a free pass, it just means that you may get the opportunity to show you can do it even with the weak start.</p>

<p>But you’d better find out how to study better (for you), how to get better marks, how to get a strong MCAT score, etc. And don’t plan to apply to med school until you graduate, you need the As in those senior classes to raise your overall GPA.</p>

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<p>Yeah im planning to apply after senior year. I messed up till now but I think im going to go ahead and try to just work hard for the rest of my college career. It is difficult but I agree that i can do better with a change of attitude and take my academics more seriously and have it at the top of my priority list. Thank you. Hopefully ill come back on here in a year or so with a much better standing.</p>

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<p>We look forward to seeing you again, work hard, keep your goals in mind when deciding how to spend your time, and good luck :)</p>