<p>I'm a junior in highschool
public highschool, Illinois suburbs, middleclass, brown/asian
rank: 93/470
GPA unweighted: 3.2 (yeah i know, i'm working on it)
GPA weighted: 5.12
ACT: 30</p>
<p>VERY rigourous course schedule, all honors/AP</p>
<p>AP scores:
AP euro: 3</p>
<p>my predictions:
AP US HISTORY: 3/4
AP CHEM: 4 or 5
AP LANG AND COMP: 5
AP FRENCH IV: 5</p>
<p>extra curriculars:</p>
<p>Key club: 3 years
Peer Leadership: 2 years
French Club: 2 years
Model UN: 1 year
Habitat for Humanity: 1 year
Teen Advisory Board at public library: 1 year</p>
<p>volunteer at library: 150+ hours
volunteer at hospital: about 80 for now
attended center for talent development at Northwestern, took neuroscience honors and got an A</p>
<p>Employment:
pharmacy technician at walgreens: 1 summer, doing it again next summer too</p>
<p>basically i'm very confused on which college i could even get in to with my bad GPA, my plans were to go in to medicine but i'm changing my mind pretty fast, any advice?</p>
<p>yeah if you're a junior then bringing up a 3.2 will be hard, considering that if you got a 4.0 for fall semester and spring semester of this year, you will only have a 3.4 when you apply for colleges. your ACT is good, i would say shoot for U of I, because its a good public and you might be able to get in even though you arent top 20%.</p>
<p>well you arent applying for med school now, so why does it matter. I'm not exactly familiar with Illinois pre-med, do they have a premed program?</p>
<p>In my opinion, don't worry about proffesional studies now (law, med, etc.). I attend a health sciences academy, and aldready have my mind set on being a surgeon. Although, I bet you my grades would be much more imperative when I am an undergraduate student in college rather than now. In conclusion, you can get into med school from any decent university. 3.2 is on the lower end, but a 3.4 would put you a little more towards the middle. </p>
<p>So, i'm pretty much saying that you shouldn't worry too much about grades in HS if you are planning on going to a professional school. You would still have much time to compensate for lower grades in a much more important setting (college).</p>
<p>I would look at schools like Purdue and Indiana. They have programs/ advising set up for students to help them get into med school. There is also Kettering which has an actual pre med major I believe. All 3 would be good choices.</p>
<p>alright that helps a lot, thanks. i still have chances to bring my act up, but i dont know if i want to focus on that because i actually have a shot, unlike my gpa which will go up to maybe a 3.3 if i do well next semester.</p>
<p>"So, i'm pretty much saying that you shouldn't worry too much about grades in HS if you are planning on going to a professional school. You would still have much time to compensate for lower grades in a much more important setting (college)."</p>
<p>I agree with prattennis. You could:
Apply to a safety school that you like (as well as reaches and high matches - you never know), and if the safety school is the only place you get accepted, going there will not hurt your changes for med school.<br>
Go to your safey school and major in something you love (with your AP chem and neuroscience classes, it sounds like there would be a biology or chemistry type major for you) and work hard and get mostly A's and do well on your MCAT and no one will ever know or care that you didn't get mostly A's in high school.
It is way too early to give up on med school.</p>
<p>On the other hand, think about your interests and your general level of studiousness. Are you likely to be "weeded out" of pre-med in college, perhaps by an organic chemistry class that requires hours of hard work? Knowing that before you start college will prevent you from wasting time / taking classes you are only taking for med school admission.
There is a forum called studentdoctor that is like college confidential but for kids thinking of med school that you might find useful. This links to the pre med forums there Premedical</a> Forums - Student Doctor Network Forums</p>
<p>i'm seeing myself as a bio major, and i've looked up things on there being a neuroscience major as well. and as you can tell by my gpa, i'm not much of a hard worker unless I have something to motivate me, so an organic chemistry class can go both ways for me. </p>
<p>I don't get the safety schools thing, do you all mean schools like Loyola? or am i completely confused?</p>
<p>Your gpa isn't bad. You can probably get into most colleges in the country that are below the top 100 colleges according to the U.S. News college guide that you can buy in the store or access on-line for $15 until next Aug. With on-line access you can even see what percentage of students are accepted who have your kind of SAT scores and grades. Colleges ranked #25 -100 would be in the reach category for you. You may be able to do a bit better, however with LACs if you're male because LACs have a hard time attracting males.</p>
<p>The majority of colleges in this country accept the majority of their applicants. You don't need an "A" average to go to a decent college.</p>