<p>I have a 3.25 gpa and 24 ACT and people keep telling they are skeptical that I will ever become a doctor. I have been working with some physicians and I am sure that is what i want to do with my life but these people are starting to get to me. I go to a tough private school though. I am prepared for the work and will do whatever it takes. Any comments will be appreciated.</p>
<p>It really doesn't matter what anyone thinks, ESPECIALLY in high school. The question is, will you be able to excel in college? No matter where you end up going for school, you will need to do much better than 3.25.</p>
<p>The issue is that high school performance generally predicts college performance. I don't buy the "tough private school" excuse - college is not easy, either. If you perform at the same level in college that you did in high school, forget about getting admission to MD schools. You might still be good for DO schools, though.</p>
<p>Of course there is hope for you as a premed. You should never let the negative opinions of influence your hopes or aspirations. Once you are admitted to college, high school doesn't matter anymore. If you find a college environment where you feel comfortable and genuinely work towards your goal of becoming a physician, you will be fine. Most schools have academic support services to assist with adapting to college life and studying for exams. PM if you have any specific questions.</p>
<p>I'm in the same boat. 3.55 with a 29 on ACT. but I never study .I think if I had really worked there would only been one or two classes I couldn't get an A in due to teachers grading policies and ACT could of been better if I prepped. but there always students who do better in college than than do in college so always a chance</p>
<p>Think of high school as double-A baseball (minor leagues). You've just managed to bat .220 in double-A. Your team is pretty desperate, so they promoted you to triple-A, just to see what you can do. Are you going to hit .300 and get called up to the majors? Unlikely. The odds are very slim -- but they're not zero. So just take the best swings you can once you get up there, and see what happens.</p>
<p>Wow...that's overly bleak BDM. Bad fireworks show or something last night?</p>
<p>1) I'd put it closer to .260 in AA ball. Sufficient, but not getting anyone excited. Those who hit .220 don't get promoted and end up in the Independent leagues (community college).
2) There are a LOT of kids who don't hit their stride academically (or socially, or with EC's or volunteering) until college. I can't tell you how many guys my fraternity has taken in who we considered academic risks who ended up with great college GPA's - even in tough fields like engineering. To keep the baseball analogy going, they tinker with their swing a little, get a few pointers from some guys who've been around awhile, get a different hitting coach or sometimes everything comes together and just clicks for no apparent reason.</p>
<p>1.) I picked .220 because I meant to convey the idea that continuing his current performance won't be acceptable. Somebody hitting .260 in AAA might well get called up if he's good at everything else. (A .260 hitter in the majors is perfectly serviceable.) If he gets a 3.2 GPA in college and the equivalent of an ACT 24, he's not getting into medical school. I could probably have gone with .240 or something, although I suppose squabbling over 2% in a batting average analogy's a little odd. (24 ACT is 75th percentile; that's a 29 on the MCAT. Of course, the MCAT is a tougher pool.)</p>
<p>2.) The chances are definitely not zero. Definitely not. There are plenty of people who turn things around. But there's a lot more who don't. In fact, there's a lot more who go the other direction. As we said, we know that general chemistry weeds out a lot of kids. We know that organic chemistry and intro biology and physics weed out a lot of kids. We know that of the kids who make it through that, the prospect of the MCAT weeds out a lot of students. We know that of the kids who manage to take the MCAT, about half of them aren't ever going to apply to medical school. Of those that apply, we know that about 60% of them aren't going to get in anywhere. Most HS3.7/ACT32 kids aren't capable of running this gauntlet. So yes, the OP might well make enough changes to work things out. The chances are definitely not zero. But if you wanted to give me an even-odds bet, I'd take it in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>Yeah, the GPA at least could be misleading due to stringent grading at a particular high school. However the ACT is much more of a concern. There has been quite a bit of work on prediction of MCAT scores by SAT, none that I know of for ACT. However, SAT scores predict MCAT's quite well and SAT and ACT are highly correlated. In other words, if you are not a high scorer on these high school tests, the odds are against scoring high on the tests one takes for medical school.</p>
<p>Doctors are pulled from a population of people who are not only extremely good at conventional academics through college (ie high grades), but who are off the scale in focus and work ethic. If this does not describe you, then the premed, medical school, and medical training experience, tough for anyone, could be truly miserable.</p>
<p>There are lots of other health care careers that have a less intensive focus on academics.</p>
<p>Re: #8</p>
<p>Okay, I see what you're getting at...the explanation offers a lot more to the OP than your previous post. I think I knew you were getting at the fact that's it's hard to get in med school anyway, but your initial post didn't put that into perspective.</p>
<p>What about SAT's correlation with MCATs? How to compare?</p>
<p>When I worked at Kaplan, we frequently said "if you're good at one standardized test, you're good at them all". While there's no guaranteed certainty and certainly nothing you can use to make a predictive statement about future MCAT score, you will see that those people with higher SAT scores will have higher MCAT scores, that's merely correlation from being a good test taker, and not any sort of causative effect. </p>
<p>I did have someone tell me once that a great majority of people score with +/- 2 points of their ACT score on the MCAT, but then again, I could probably randomly pick 5 point ranges for everyone and still be pretty accurate. The similarity of the numerical scale makes that correlation seem much more predictive than it actually is.</p>