Hi,
New to this forum, but I figured it’ll help me gage how I need to do in the next 2 years to realistically get into medical school. NOT A D.O. school. I mean M.D.
I’ve messed up quite a bit this year. I go to UCI and the quarter system really messed me up my sophomore year since I dove into pre-med courses without properly preparing myself mentally for it. I ended up getting around 4-5 Cs. I put too much on my plate in Fall Quarter as in I decided to take Bio, Chem, AND Stats at the same time (horrible idea but I didn’t know 
I’m a psych major so I never went to bio orientation so I didn’t know not to do something stupid as that)
Not only was I not prepared, I’m actually struggling with a physical disability at the moment (bulging discs with pinched nerve) that’s been taking up a lot of my time since I constantly was going to hospitals for treatments after classes. During finals week Winter quarter, my back started spasming so badly, I had to go to the ER because I couldn’t walk and was in excruciating pain. For the next week, I was on oxicodone(?), a type of super strong narcotic pain killers to ease the pain and walked with a limp. The medication triggered massive panic attacks so I had to stop taking them prematurely and I really struggled. I fell into deeper depression. I couldn’t understand why I had to suffer at such a young age as I’ve been dealing with this pain for almost 2 years now since I was only 18 years old when it all started (I’m turning 20 soon).
Now, this Spring quarter, I have a devil professor who got super condescending with me for asking her questions and she also told me that I’m bullshitting her when I said I was sick and missed a discussion class (I asked if I can attend a different class to make it up. Her answer was “I know you’re bullshitting me and if you were sick you should have woken up earlier and taken medication.”) I’m allowed to take exams in the disability center for anxiety, but I chose not to and called ahead of time to tell them I’ll be taking my exam in the classroom, AND SHE TOOK POINTS OFF MY EXAM BECAUSE I CHANGED MY MIND.
Now, I’m here. Contemplating if I can really make it to med school because like many others, I have a dream of becoming a doctor. It’s been my dream since I was 9 and I need some really good advice on how to pick myself up and fix my mistakes so I have a running chance against all these super genius applicants I’ll be competing against my senior year. I’m planning to take a year off after I graduate in 2018. What should I do?
Not enough information.
What is your current GPA/sGPA?
If your current GPA is <3.0, I don’t think there is any plan that will put you into a position to apply to med school in 2 years time. That may require a post-bacc program or additional year --or several-- of undergrad coursework to raise your GPA above 3.5.
If med school is truly your dream, you will be willing to invest the additional time needed to achieve it.
Med school admission is a marathon, not a sprint.
Your priorities should be:
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get your mental health stabilized. Seek counseling to help with that.
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get your physical health stabilized
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improve your academics
Med school applicants are not “super-geniuses” (As the parent of a physician and a med student, I wish I could claim my kids are super geniuses, but the reality is that they’re not. They are smarter than average and hard workers who have some overcome pretty serious obstacles in their lives to get where they want.)
Agree wholeheartedly with WayOutWestMom. Not only do you have a short term GPA concern, but Med School can be a mental and physical grind for those not prepared. Maybe take a year off now to get 1) and 2) straight, buckle in for the long haul and come back at it with A’s (or near) in all classes?
Thank you for the honest replies.
My GPA right now is 3.2. It went from a 3.5 and dropped to a 3.2 because of all the Cs.
UCI doesn’t let you retake a class unless its a C- or lower and all my Cs are C+
I messed up a lot in the BCMP courses, which is the main reason why I am concerned.
I’m planning to take classes that are similar to the courses I messed up in BUT in higher level.
I have passion and I am hardworking, so don’t get me wrong on that. I handle my pain well. I just had some bad flare ups unfortunately in the wrong moments. I have a regular psychiatrist and therapist I go to every week to cope with the depression and anxiety. Also, bulging discs you cannot fix nor stabilize to be honest. Many of the doctors I’ve been to already have given up on me. Unless I undergo surgery that can cripple me for life or degenerate my spine quicker as a I get older, I cannot stabilize my health.
I’m not going take “you should give up” for an answer because I refuse to give up on my dreams. I’ve always been a fighter and I will not let my health condition deter me from achieving my dreams.
I’m planning to come back stronger next year after this summer though.
I’m thinking about retaking some of my Cs in a highly recognized Korean University called Yonsei University (higher ranked worldwide than many UC schools). I’m not sure though because I feel like I need time to recover, so maybe I’ll do it next summer or the summer after that.
I’m also doing my best to study for the MCAT and start doing volunteer work at a children’s hospital. Hopefully, by my senior year, I can work as a medical scribe.
Given that you said you aren’t considering DO, this point doesn’t really matter. If you were considering DO, then I see how this could be an issue.
This sounds like a waste of time for 2 reasons:
- I don’t know if AMCAS will recognize these courses.
- No one will be impressed by an A in a course you already took (exception, see above). Take higher level (or simply other) BCPM courses at your UC and gets As.
And just to be clear because the Korean U idea kind of comes out of left field: you are an American citizen or permanent resident, correct? If not, the bar is even higher for you and your odds even lower.
Even though the MCAT scores are important, with your 3.2gpa, the chances for you to get into even DO school are very slim. You should really consider a SMP program now, if you are still interested to become a doctor.
Besides, what is wrong with a DO program, the important thing is do well in the program and get a high Step 1, once you are in the residence, DO or MD has no bearing on your success.
Since all the people replying to me are really critical of me not wanting to go D.O. I guess I’ll apply to some as well when the time comes for applications. I still would rather go to a M.D. school over a D.O. school. It is just a preference and it’s kind of mean to criticize me over it. I’m only a sophomore, and I JUST started my premed courses this year. In other words, I messed up a bit in the beginning not halfway in. I’m not a biology or chemistry major either. I am a psychology major, so I have to handle two majors worth of work right now. Technically, I don’t have to take any BCMP classes in UCI. Even the biology counselor I met with told me I don’t have to and I can take it at other universities without penalty. She just advised that I should do super well if I’m going to take it somewhere else.
I would really like to retake my classes but right now it isn’t an option because of the rules. I’m genuinely curious but why is it bad to take classes at a Korean University? They teach in English and I am both fluent in Korean and English so it wouldn’t matter. The summer program at that university is actually VERY popular among Korean American students who go to school in America and want to take courses in the summer. It also says in their website that the courses are transferable to most American Universities. I know many people who have taken the university’s summer program and were successfully able to transfer credits. I am a dual citizen right now, but at the moment I only hold an U.S. passport since I consider myself Korean American. I am not a permanent resident in California nor mainland America. I pay international price to go to school in UCI.
I just want to take classes in Korea so that I can send both transcripts to the med schools I choose to apply to. They average out anyways, so I figured the more I dilute my GPA with good grades, the higher it will be. Either way I will be taking higher level classes in UCI so that’s nothing to worry about. I’m confident I can bring my grades up, I just had a bad year. I just wanted some advice on what I should do next. I wasn’t expecting a hoard of criticism over why I don’t want to go D.O. Yes, constructive criticism is nice, but I would really appreciate it if they were phrased a bit more nicely.
The point is that AMCAS (clearinghouse for allopathic med schools applications) will not accept transcripts from foreign universities. (The only exception is if your foreign coursework was done through an authorized study abroad program through your undergrad university.)
See the AMCAS Instructional Manual 2017:
https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/9d/e2/9de2a276-39a6-4cc9-a71f-82be40aaa1b0/2017_amcas_instruction_manual-edited-final.pdf
AACOMAS (clearinghouse for osteopathic medical schools applications) likewise will not accept transcripts from foreign colleges.
See: http://help.unicas.com:8888/aacomasHelpPages/instructions/how-to-send-transcripts/foreign-and-french-canadian-transcripts/index.html
It doesn’t matter if the credits are transferrable to a US college or not-- neither AMCAS nor AACOMAS will accept a transcript from the original institution for verification and thus the credits are useless for applying to med school.
Some osteopathic medical schools will consider foreign credits & transcripts on an individual case-by-case basis provided the transcript is verified by one of the major transcript translation services.
Well, thanks for clearing that up I guess.
People on this forum are a lot meaner than I anticipated, but thanks for the feed back anyways.
Maybe I should just give up being a doctor. It feels like it’s a hopeless dream now that I’m getting people’s advice on the matter.
Who said anything mean to you? WayOutWestMom gave her usual very helpful advice, chargerparent agreed, IWBB raised concerns about the workability of your plan, artloversplus only gave the opinion you asked for, and WayOutWestMom AGAIN gave you very very useful information that I’d think you’d like to know.
So what you really want is just for people to agree with you? There was a WEALTH of information given here, including some troubling info in post #7 that will DEFINITELY AFFECT your plan going forward. I don’t understand why you’re dismissing all of it as being mean. What haters! Spending their free time to tell you, “What you have in mind isn’t possible, but here’s what you could do instead.”
lolz yeah i guess you can be like oh “what haters” or whatever. I took the advices to heart and will do my best to move forward. IN MY OPINION, some just came off a little bit rude, but thanks for calling me out bodangles. Who said I didn’t appreciate all the info given to me? You are just assuming things even when I said thanks for the feed back to these people.
It’s the stupid internet for goodness sakes. People can seem a lot colder online than in person. I’m sure it may have been different if these individuals were to tell me this info in person, but they can’t do that can they?
I can feel a certain way about how things are phrased as you can feel a certain way of how things are phrased to you.
I’m so sorry I’m such a whiny lil ---- for getting a quite disheartened over a forum.
I’m looking into a plethora of different courses at UCI now after they gave me all this info, but I still feel very discouraged and you can’t change how I feel about that.
People here are not being mean. This isn’t nursery school and we’re not your teacher, Miss Susan. If you think this is mean, you need to evaluate whether you have thick-enough skin for professional school and a healthcare career.
Folks here are telling you what you need to know in order to get you what you want.
BTW…the word is gauge…not gage.
Strategy
Work on your health, even if you need to take a leave of absence.
Contact your disability office. There may be rules that preclude that prof from removing points for exercising your classroom option (either way).
Do not close the door on DO. DO schools let you retake courses for a better GPA. You could retake some courses at some point at a CC or CSU or ?? (but only in this country).
Are you sure that you have what it takes to be premed? You have an “easier” major (psych) and taking Bio, Chem and stats is not an outrageous combo. Many are taking Bio, Chem and Calc.
Yes, it may be easier than some science courses, but I was taking Bio, Chem, Stats, and 2 upper division psychology courses. It was a lot of work. Why do you have to question my abilities for medical school when I didn’t put up all the classes I took that specific quarter? It is a lot of work to take 5 classes in a quarter system FYI. You have 10 weeks to cram as much information as you can and you have midterms every 2-3 weeks. Its an upwards battle.
The biology department counselor told me that it is a terrible idea to take bio, chem, calc/stats together. She said that during orientation, they strongly advise AGAINST doing that because of the workload. As a psychology major, I didn’t go to the biology orientation so I did not know not to take them together. I already finished my calc classes my Freshman year so that is why I took Stats instead of Calc.
Also, I’m sorry for my spelling error but why do you feel the need to correct that?.. I could’ve just spell checked it if I felt the need to correct it myself.
I never asked for people to baby me either. I just asked for people to give me constructive criticism but be a little bit nice about it rather than bombard me. Is that too much to ask for?
I have contacted disability services. They told me to email my professor and I am working on the email and if she doesn’t change my grade then the disability services will intervene on my behalf.
I once again said, I will apply for D.O. schools since people here are telling me I should. I also said that I PREFER M.D. over D.O. and that is MY OWN opinion and preferences.
Just nevermind. Thank you all for your taking your time to reply to me and dealing with my butthurt-ness.
No one (especially not me) bombarded you. I simply gave you the facts (with citations!!! And original sources in case you want to read the information first hand instead of taking my word for it) that you need to move forward with your planning.
Stop being so defensive–we’re trying to help you. We’re especially trying to help to avoid expensive mistakes–like paying for useless coursework.
FYI, You're not the only student to have a tough schedule in college. Most pre-meds will have several semester/quarters of science-heavy workloads. In fact, med schools want to see applicants who have had tough schedules because the workload in med school is brutal & unrelenting. Med school admissions intentionally selects for students who have demonstrated they can succeed under heavy academic pressure.
That sort of schedule you mentioned having is just small taste for what you'll get hit with in med school where you'll be taking the equivalent of 24-40 credits of nothing but upper level sciences every trimester/semester.
I am not trying to be mean, but this is what “weeding out” looks like.
That does not mean you should bail if med school is really what you want. But realize that the difficulty curve increases exponentially so you might not be able to improve your stats. But all you can do is your best effort, realize that it might take more than college (e.g. grad school before med school), DO school, etc.
You can do the arithmetic to calculate your maximal potential GPA if you get a 4.0 for the rest of your undergraduate course realizing that you are likely to be somewhat short of that. Depending on that projection, you can make some decisions. A GPA below 3.8 makes it rough. If you do very well on MCAT’s then maybe you can salvage it. If you persist through MCAT’s but conclude your GPA won’t improve enough, and that your MCAT scores are not sufficiently compensatory, then you can change course.
Hate to be mean again but since you’ve now brought up the point multiple times I have to say something. Here’s the first time you mentioned that you simply preferred MD to DO.
Just for the record, you should take a look again at what you wrote. It would be ludicrous to criticize someone for “I would prefer MD over DO,” and rightfully so no one did that here because what you actually said is:
If you are referring to my post. There was no criticism about your choice. My point was simply that if one is applying to DO schools, then whether or not one can retake classes at their home institution is a real issue to worry about because there is a huge advantage to retaking classes with Cs. If you’re applying to MD only, there is no advantage at best to retaking classes and there is potential for much further damage, and thus your school’s retake policy is completely irrelevant to your path forward.
Yes many people on CC are unnecessarily blunt and rude. There are always multiple ways of imparting the same information, but for some reason the dominant accepted tone on CC is “toughlove.”
When college courses can cost hundreds of dollars per unit; when the pathway to med school is littered with students who have spent semesters, years of time on this pathway and suddenly find themselves onto Plan B, C etc; when OPs don’t provide facts that would be helpful to offer more accurate advice or don’t have critical facts (eg MCAT score); when OPs are clueless as to what hurdles they have to get over; even if an OP provides info that makes one conclude they have a shot, last cycle 60% failed to get in; IMO I think one is doing a greater service to any premed by being blunt in answering questions especially as to one’s chance at med school.
Another hurdle you have to think of is that in California acceptance to Med school is a bloodbath - too many talented students It’s high GPAs and MCATs not enough space. So, you’ll need to apply oos, probably after a glide year or a supplementary 'master 's ’ year. That gives you 2-3years to bring that GPA up. Understand that your current GPA doesn’t make you competitive for Med school, regardless of Mcat score and even outside California. So you need to take a lot of classes to dilute these grades and do everything you can to get an A.
Hopefully Disability I’ll deal with the professor as her treatment of you was uncalled for, but that doesn’t change your grades in other classes. All students have a major plus premed requirements. Getting a B or less in your first level Biology and Chemistry serves as a warning. You basically have one semester to be top 10% in every class you take.
If that doesn’t work, there’s DO, PA, NP…
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When college courses can cost hundreds of dollars per unit; when the pathway to med school is littered with students who have spent semesters, years of time on this pathway and suddenly find themselves onto Plan B, C etc; when OPs don’t provide facts that would be helpful to offer more accurate advice or don’t have critical facts (eg MCAT score); when OPs are clueless as to what hurdles they have to get over; even if an OP provides info that makes one conclude they have a shot, last cycle 60% failed to get in; IMO I think one is doing a greater service to any premed by being blunt in answering questions especially as to one’s chance at med school.
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Exactly!
Yes, some info could be soft-pedaled, but then the greater risk is that the student “hears what he wants to hear.” If the subject at hand was a minor one, then minimal harm if the student stumbles due to that.
BUT…this is college, which is both costly and time-consuming. No one wants someone spending $80k-$100k on misdirected path, only have to change gears and spend a whole bunch more. Many of us do not subscribe to the “tell them what they want to hear,” method. We will help them get the goal they want if there is a reasonable path, but we’re not going to give wishy-washy responses that leave the student believing that their path is ok.
Sometimes our words have to be the ice-cold water to the face.