Is a post-bac my only hope?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>I have adored kids my entire life. I babysit, I volunteer at daycares and afterschool programs, I tutor, I created big sib programs at my college. All I have ever wanted to do is become a pediatrician; after shadowing a pediatrician over the past couple years, it has only solidified this desire.</p>

<p>I'm Class of 2013, so finishing up 2nd semester of junior year in college. I attend H/Y/P (for identifying purposes, won't specify which). I have done research every summer. I volunteer in a hospital. My extra-curriculars are great (I have taken on huge leadership positions in clubs that I have immensely enjoyed and really enriched me as a person).</p>

<p>So I think that if I could only make it to any interviews, I would have a good shot - I have real passion for wanting to be a pediatrician, which is not very popular (it's certainly not for the pre-meds who just want $$); I can speak very meaningfully about my EC's; and I think my personality is relatively likeable :P</p>

<p>The only problem? And it's a HUMUNGOUS problem. My science grades are deplorable. Abysmal. Embarrassing doesn't even begin to describe, they defy my understanding. I have had poor study skills/time management balancing with EC's, and my aptitude for science is not great to begin with, but my science grades at H/Y/P have been absolutely terrible.</p>

<p>In my first five semesters, I have taken a total of 11 science classes with a science GPA of 2.8. I know. This even includes last summer when I re-took orgo at a local school and got two A's. So my 9 H/Y/P science classes are even worse - average of 2.5</p>

<p>I was planning on taking my MCAT's this September. Having done practice exams, I think I could end up with a decent score (definitely 30+ though I'd be aiming for like a 35)</p>

<p>So the one true weak link is obviously my grades (My current cumulative GPA is a 3.0). I know a 3.3 in science is a minimum. How much leeway is there for this? :( I really don't want to do a post-bac, my parents have put up with my bad grades so far but have said firmly they will not support me doing a post-bac</p>

<p>I have 3 more semesters to raise things a bit, but I won't be getting a 3.3 in science GPA - it's just not mathematically possible. </p>

<p>What do you guys think? :(</p>

<p>The only thing I have considered as an alternative is academia (in my major, which is not a science - I have good major grades), but really all I've ever wanted to be was a pediatrician</p>

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<p>Post-bacc and then applying to DO programs. And maybe not even then.</p>

<p>But, truly, seriously, I have to ask if you’re so bad at science and don’t like it, have bad time management and poor study skills, why do you think you’ll be able to succeed in medical school?</p>

<p>Med school is extremely time-intensive, with a tons of stuff that has to be done all at once, with hundreds of pages of reading every night and it’s ALL SCIENCE CLASSES.</p>

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<p>I find this hard to take seriously. Time to look for an alternate way to work in the medical or health-related field, with kids. You are not describing yourself as a future physician, whose patients’ lives depend on you. You are describing a love of kids. Sorry.</p>

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<p>I guess I should clarify - I don’t dislike science and I’m not terrible at it, I just haven’t succeeded at H/Y/P. Please keep in mind I <em>am</em> at a very difficult university. Almost all the science classes curve to a C, so that means I am generally dead average. Average at H/Y/P is not the same as a C somewhere else…</p>

<p>I was valedictorian at a very competitive high school, perfect science grades back then, 5’s on all my AP’s (ok I know that doesn’t mean a lot, they are just AP’s), Intel STS Finalist, etc…I think I would have gotten far better grades at a less challenging university</p>

<p>when I say poor time management, I mean that I took on crushingly huge EC’s and due to feeling guilty about letting other people down, I would always prioritize those. Obviously a bad move, so I have dropped most of them at this point. and juggling work with EC’s obviously wouldn’t be a big issue in med school</p>

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<p>Most top colleges have brutal weeder classes for pre-meds. Most serious pre-meds go through hell to get good grades in those courses. It’s not limited to HYP. This is a case where results matter. It’s med school. The crushingly huge ECs were a choice. I can’t think of one that would overcome your situation. Many kids retake the low-grade classes, cut back on ECs. And, many are able to handle both and get good grades.</p>

<p>What’s odd is that you say you want to do peds- but you opened all about babysitting, daycare, afterschool, big sibs. Nice, but that could describe someone interested in teaching. Shadowing doesn’t need a “couple years” and you don’t describe what your hosp vol work entails (you could be the greeter) or the research.<br>
Kids in your situation do post-baccs. Or go to plan B. On another thread, you said you were interested in psych. That opens up a host of avenues for working with kids.</p>

<p>I am also surprised because nearly all colleges have a process through which they endorse kids for med school- you haven’t spoken with those at your school?</p>

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<p>thanks for the input, I do appreciate it! the pre-med advisor here did tell me not to retake any of the science classes I did poorly in, though</p>

<p>can you clarify what you meant by “shadowing doesn’t need a couple years”?
at my hospital I do two things - I make rounds to survey patients about their hospital experience, and I volunteer in the ER (mostly things like get patients food, blankets, or make doctors come over if they’re being ignored). my research varies depending on what my supervisor is doing every summer, but I work with mouse ES cells and generally study induced stemness (inducing normal cells to revert back to stem cells)
for psych I’m interested in academia, not clinical, so it wouldn’t be the same level of interaction even if I did study children</p>

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<p>Shadowing? Standing there observing? Maybe writing some notes, taking an inventory, speaking with patients? </p>

<p>Colleges advertise their high med school admit rates. When they give that number, they don’t tell how many kids who started as freshman pre-meds got weeded. The point is to get down to some small number of kids who are superbly qualified to get admitted to med school. You are not the first to endure this. The warning signs had to come early- when you took intro classes. Your advisor saying not to retake-- some would say you are being advised to rethink your path.</p>

<p>At a certain point in the college years, it’s no longer about “what I would like,” but what you are achieving, how you maturely and squarely assess. Being driven to get the grades and the experience. Being able to say no to people and projects that time rob.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, but statistically unlikely. There is no way that HYP has a mean graduating gpa of 3.5.-3.6, when it curves Frosh courses to a C. B/B-- maybe, but C’s are rare. Thus, you need to start being honest with yourself.</p>

<p>btw: allopathic med schools do not use grade replacement. All grades count in your gpa. Only osteopathic med schools will replace grades with the higher one. But taking at a local college is not a good move – you SHOULD do better there.</p>

<p>edited: based on your previous posts, the P in HYP is rather obvious. P caps A’s at ~35% per course. Now, how is it statistically possible that a course with more than a third is A’s, has a C average (when D’s and F’s are non-existent?</p>

<p>But the short answer to your question is ‘yes, rock the mcat and then attend an SMP’. A 3.3 just won’t cut it for an unhooked applicant.</p>

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<p>Psych is one of the most difficult academic slots to get admitted to – it is one of the most popular majors on campus, so there are a gazillion applicants. My guess is that you have little shot (with an obvious premed transcript), but ask your Psych advisor.</p>

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<p>No help for Psych grad school…because its not relevant.</p>

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<p>Agreed. Premed is hard but let’s not exaggerate. I did premed at Cornell (average GPA 3.4). Gen chem and intro bio were curved to B- while orgo and physics were curved to B. Most upper div science courses were curved to B+ or A-.</p>

<p>You need to do a post-bac (SMP). And, frankly, you might need to bring your grades up just to qualify for a post-bac as the best ones have GPA requirements of 3.0 or 3.2.</p>

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<p>OP. You are at least five feet down a six foot hole.

  1. Own your choices. They are your choices.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>After that, stop looking backwards. </p></li>
<li><p>Assess your present situation without emotion or excuse. Neither helps. In fact, it is counter-productive and likely to be self-defeating. </p></li>
<li><p>Improve what can be improved upon before graduation. You’ll need it anyway.</p></li>
<li><p>Rock the MCAT when you take it. No need to take it now as scores expire and it may be a while before an application is a reasonable choice. </p></li>
<li><p>You will have to do something to counter (post-grad) or dilute (still in UG) the miserable GPA. Stay a 5th year and get a double major in bio or chem thereby diluting the BMCP GPA with higher level courses? SMP or post bacc’s are the most likely “after graduation” path. There may be other options. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Great desire is not strength of purpose. Great desire is akin to a childish want, transitory and subject to distraction, while strength of purpose can move mountains. You have a mountain in front of you. And, to have a chance, you have to climb that mountain. Good luck.</p>

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<p>*You are at least five feet down a six foot hole. *</p>

<p>Leave it to Curmy to provide the appropriate visual.</p>

<p>Stay a 5th year an</p>

<p>While that would work, I doubt the parents will pay since they won’t pay for a post-bac (which would be cheaper at a non-HYP local state school).</p>

<p>OP…what state are you in? Are there any post-Bac state schools that you can commute to? </p>

<p>I know it’s upsetting that a HYP type kid is in a situation like this. Are you saying that your COLLEGE ECs were so time-demanding that they ruined your grades?</p>

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<p>I cannot but think OP may have time and priority management or immature issue when (s)he first found the total freedom away from his/her family, if she had excelled in her very competitive high school. (sane the science competition ECs achievement – as it is really not a good indicator of how competitive you will likely be in test-centric premed classes. It may take a different “personality” to be a successful student on the premed track than a successful student being on the graduate school track.)</p>

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Hopefully they did not nag you. I am aware of a case that the parents nagged their daughter just because she chose a psychology major route to be a premed. All students who know her well enough believe she had made a right choice as she was never a hard core science student, but her parents who worked in the science/engineering field were in denial (that is, they were not convinced that her daughter was unable to excel in a hardcore science major) just because she had a high 2300+ SAT, all these AP 5’s, and a very high rank when graduated from high school. Many parents are not very “well-behaved.”</p>

<p>I am also aware of a case that a Harvard Law School bound student scored a B- or even C in calculus III at a comparable school and was a captain in a math competition team while in high school and had a 2400 SATs. He did have a lot of commitments in ECs (which helped him get into HLS in the end. When you are a leader in a major club, it could overcome a slightly lower GPA as long as you score well on LSAT in that career path. The “incest” phenomenon among ivies helps also.)</p>

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<p>I really appreciate the advice. looks like I will have to think about a post-bac. 5th year is not allowed here :(</p>

<p>so you all think SMP? as opposed to a program where I take undergrad classes? another thing my pre-med advisor has mentioned is taking science classes “a la carte” from a university but not enrolling officially in any sort of postbac program</p>

<p>and yes oops I was mistaken, checked with a friend and our science classes mostly curve to a B-</p>

<p>a lot of you are right. when I first got here, I started off in intro physics for engineers (instead of easier pre-med track) due to bad advice from an advisor. after getting a C in that and intro mol bio, I started freaking out and almost self-handicapping on all subsequent science classes and immersing myself in my EC’s and telling myself I was doing something meaningful. or something. very stupid. I can’t make any good excuses</p>

<p>I’m in two science classes right now but they’re animal behavior type classes :-/ I am doing okay in them so far (better than my others)</p>

<p>and I’m from New York</p>

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<p>^^My guess is that you will have to do both, another year (or two?) of science classes earning A’s AND and SMP. The year of upper division science classes to get your s-gpa above a 3.0 (do the math) to even qualify for a good SMP, and then an SMP to demonstrate that you can handle the rigors of med school.</p>

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<p>And, an SMP is a huge time and money commitment. Don’t entertain that til you are sure you won’t get lukewarm results. One idea is to get a significant research job after graduation and apply for the post-bac a year or two later. But, I hope you are also purposefully looking into this on your own, getting energized and empowered. Not just throwing out ideas here.</p>

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<p>Encouragement:</p>

<p>OP, it appears you had a very good score in the CR section in your SAT. MCAT is more about a reading comprehension test than an achievement test as in the midterm/final in science classes. You may be ahead there unlike some premeds who have a hard time in getting a good enough MCAT score (I ould think this may be due to your above-average foundation you have laid down by your k-12 education and, to some extent, your growing-up family environment/friend circle.)</p>

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<p>You’re from New York?</p>

<p>I can’t remember what NY public it is, but I remember a friend telling me that one of them had a Post-Bac with very high success rate of MD SOM admissions. Anyone know which one that is?</p>

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<p>sorry what is SOM? T.T</p>

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<p>SOM = School of Medicine.</p>

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<p>ack sorry that was embarrassing, clearly I don’t spend much time on forums </p>

<p>the only public universities with post-bac showing up on the aamc website are cuny and stony brook (suny), stony brook’s is the career changer type so I’m guessing the cuny program? [Program</a> in Premedical Studies](<a href=“http://www2.ccny.cuny.edu/prospective/science/pps/]Program”>http://www2.ccny.cuny.edu/prospective/science/pps/)</p>