I need some help figuring out what my best options are for my college career, thank you. I am a high school senior from Minnesota and want to go into pre-med. In my freshman, through junior years I didn’t have a goal in mind and didn’t take school seriously. After my junior year, i ended up with a 2.8 GPA and slacker me, didn’t do any preparation for the ACT and tested a 23. Now in my senior year, I’ve been taking school seriously and so far am running a 4.0 for the year with no troubles. I messed up in my earlier years as you can tell, I never studied (not even once) until senior year and skipped a quarter of the homework which gave me a whopping 2.8 GPA. My IQ tested between 130 and 140 so I have the brains to do it, as my senior grades so far indicate, I just didn’t care back then. My question is, what is my best route for college? Would it still be possible to go to a top college if I finish out my senior year with a 4.0 and go to community college for a year or two and excel there as well and prove myself, or is it too much of a long shot? As well as factoring in pre-med into the mix, would attending a community college for a year or two mess with medical school admissions, or would attending a lower class university right away be the better option? I can’t get into a dream college of mine right now (obviously) so should I settle on a lesser university, or save some money, attend a community college, prove myself, then aim at transferring to a higher level university of my liking (if possible and if it won’t affect my pre-medical career). Thank you for your time, I appreciate any input you may have. Thank you!
You don’t need to go to a top college to go to med school. You do need excellent college grades and a strong GMAT score, though. Plus, med schools expensive, so less debt for undergrad is good. I’d drop the “top college dream”. Maybe try a year at CC, and if you can ace it, possibly transfer to UMN or Wisconsin (reciprocity with MN). Look into their transfer requirements, though.
Thank you for your input! So it would be smarter to go to a CC first and then transfer to the UMN or Wisc, Rather than going straight to a college like UND, MNSU or UMD. And I think you meant MCAT instead of GMAT.
For med school it does not matter which route you pick. You will need to retake the ACT with an exceptional (33+) and ace the remainder of your senior year for a even moderate chance at UMN-TC initially . Going the community college route will work too over a directional university, but I’d check on the upgrade path with both your local CC , UW and UMN-TC. If you apply to UMN-TC, apply to the college with the lowest gpa and ACT and you can transfer later.