I’m currently a Jr in high school, last year I had a 3.0 unweighted GPA (i took two honors classes) and this year I’m taking 4 AP classes and 1 honors class and I have 2 Cs 2 Bs and 2 As. I want to go into the medical field so I chose to take a lot of AP classes to raise my chances of getting into a good pre-med program but its backfiring. But my AP Biology grade is a 95. I was looking into Fordham university their acceptance rate says somewhere around 47% but the average GPA is a 3.65 unweighted, but they do have a relatively small amount of people who attend/ apply with pre-med intentions, their acceptance rate to medical is extremely high with 90% acceptance rate which is why I love the school so much, and it’s in NYC, I would stay at Lincon Center and commute daily to classes in the Bronx.
My SAT score is pretty high being 1400. I am also highly considering taking the exit exam and going to community college instead of doing another year in HS (it’s less embarrassing to go to a community college because I’m graduating early and not because I couldn’t get in anywhere). I’m not sure what colleges accept a B/C student with high SAT and a lot of extracurricular.
Not to mention that my parents were not born in the US, although they did both receive masters degrees from high ranking schools, they were both born in Iran and my dad went to USC for a masters in engineering not sure where my mom went but has a masters in chemistry, we are a relatively high-income family. I volunteer at a high ranking hospital, involved in student gov, help runs a club that raises money for newly immigrated families, and also am in the newspaper. I am also a swimmer, Frosh soph/ Jv freshman year, JV Jr year (I should have been on varsity but tore my ACL) and Jr year hope to make varsity. Don’t know if this counts for anything but I attended The National Forum of Medicine at UCLA and also have attended a leadership camp for Iranian American High schoolers.
I would like to go to the east coast and tuition is not a problem for me. Are there any schools that are good but will accept me?
There are a few threads here over the years that detail what schools kids with 3 - 3.4 GPAs have gotten into, attended etc.
I put a link to one below where CC parents @eandesmom has done an incredible job of listing stats of kids and the schools they got into, were waitlisted etc. The link below is to the post that lists a bunch of the acceptances/denials. There are also threads for other years 2018 and 19 are obviously for kids/parents still not sure where they were accepted.
I am not a pre-med expert but the general advice seems to be if you don’t get into a tippy-top program (Harvard, Brown,Standford etc) you are best off going where you can do well - so maybe where your SAT stats are better than the 75% score on the common data.
From all accounts, GPA and MCATs are critical. Watching my kid’s Pre-med friends go through it, many competitive schools “weed” weaker students in organic chemistry, making it big, competitive and very difficult.
My advice to you would be to look at the collection of schools that students with similar stats got into, find a few you like and look into their pre-med programs and/or med school matriculation (there’s lots of threads on that around CC as well.)
You will have a good variety of choices but they may not be the exact schools you’re hopig for… The more research you do, the better match of schools you will find.
Its fine to put in an application but Fordham is unlikely. The average GPA of accepted students is 3.7. And you cannot dorm at Lincoln Center and take all of your classes at Rose Hill.
Just want to make a general comment that people be careful with medical school acceptance rates quoted by admissions. (For the record I have no idea how Fordham calculates the 90% med school acceptance rate) It may sound obvious, but it is very important to understand exactly what goes into the numerator and denominator of the ratio as not all schools calculate med school acceptance rate in the same manner. For example:
–Some schools have more “weed out” classes than others reducing the number of students who continue on the pre-med path for four years (lowering the denominator).
–Certain colleges have committees which pre-screen and recommend med school applicants. These committees generally only recommend students who have the stats, experiences etc. to make them very strong candidates for med schools. Students who are not recommended are left out of the equation. In contrast, other colleges support all of the students who want to apply to med school. So while the schools with the pre-screening will have a higher acceptance rate (because of the lower denominator), a schools that support all students may be preferable.
–It is important to know what constitutes a med school acceptance for the med school acceptance rate. Some colleges just count US allopathic med school acceptances and other schools include acceptances to DO, overseas, podiatry etc. programs in the numerator leading to a higher med school acceptance rate.
I am thinking that you need to find a way to pull up your GPA. The students that I knew with 1400 SAT and that want to be premed all had unweighted GPAs above 3.5. Also, the high school students that I knew (past tense – they all graduated) with 4 APs put in a LOT of time studying.
Are you keeping ahead in your classes? For the classes where you are currently headed for a C, are you getting extra help after school?
How to study is itself a skill. You need to learn this skill if you want to have any chance of ever going to medical school.
I can’t comment on your chances but I think you misunderstand how Fordham works. You apply to either Lincoln Center or Rose Hill in the Bronx. You will live at the campus you are accepted to and most of your classes will be at that location. It is possible to take classes at the other location but that would be the exception rather than the rule. I think the only reason you would do it is if the specific class you are taking us not offered at your campus. You would not be living on one campus and taking your classes at the other in general.