<p><a href=“http://www.washington.edu/uaa/gateway/advising/downloads/gpamcat.pdf[/url]”>http://www.washington.edu/uaa/gateway/advising/downloads/gpamcat.pdf</a></p>
<p>Stats on students accepted at US medical schools are listed here. You can see they don’t all have 4.0’s.</p>
<p>Thanks Atomom for the list! Very good info…</p>
<p>Now I just have to learn what those MCAT scores mean and those alphas next to the numbers! LOL</p>
<p>BTW…how many med schools should a student apply to? My son is pre-med, and I’m just trying to get my “feet wet” with all this stuff. We don’t have any doctors in the family to ask…just a million engineers… LOL</p>
<p>thank you all and especially for the list</p>
<p>Another piece of advice- audit Ochem before you take it for a grade.</p>
<p>Here’s another link with tons of stats on med school admissions</p>
<p>[FACTS:</a> Applicants, Matriculants, Graduates, and Residency Applicants - AAMC](<a href=“http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/start.htm]FACTS:”>http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/start.htm)</p>
<p>Physician here. The strong desire to be a physician from an early age has nothing to do with the ability to be a physician, your point about that is irrelevant. The ability to handle chemistry is relevant, the problem solving skills matter. One or two C’s won’t matter, but when there are so many much stronger candidates the competition is fierce and average science grades won’t get you in. Your health history doesn’t need to matter. Your inability to handle test taking and freezing under pressure is of serious concern. It would be to your advantage to consult the people at your school’s counseling center. They can help you in two areas. First, for whatever you do in life, they can help with your test anxieties and other such problems. Secondly, they are a source of figuring out your interests and aptitudes, ie career planning. </p>
<p>College is a time of discovering who you are and what you want to do with your life. You need to examine the childhood dreams, the realities and possibilites that fit the person you are as an adult. A good approach would be to visit the student counseling/advising/career center (whatever the place is called at your school) with your future as a blank slate and let the testing results influence your path. You may discover careers you are suited for that never occurred to you, medicine may also be one of them. You may also find yourself more able to perform if the stress of needing to do well to enter medical school is removed.</p>
<p>At this point you seem too stressed to do well as a premed student. Let go of that dream and see where life takes you, with knowledge gained from career planning as above. It may be that you later choose to become a physician, if so it will be a mature desire and you will have a good chance of success. Take away the premed pressure and let your natural abilites flourish. Remove the excessive pressures you have placed on yourself by your intense fixation on medical school- that could help you do better in your classes.</p>
<p>PS- I know I have been repeating myself above- trying different ways of getting my message through.</p>
<p>How many med schools should a pre-med student apply to? Is there an average? We have no idea what is “normal” or if there is a “normal.”</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>There are times when one has to take a deep, miserable breath and drop a course. The world keeps turning, I promise. Some majors combine courses in a brutal fashion – there will be a fall of killer courses all stacked together, making it a horrible experience all around. </p>
<p>There are many ways to skin the chemistry cat. You may be able to take the whole course next summer at a community college nearby. (Check to make sure credits transfer). You may find chemistry nine months from now when you only have the one topic may be a completely different affair. </p>
<p>Year ago my cousin got hung up on a math course for his engineering degree. He failed it twice and was filled with despair. Then he finds out that there is a dynamite prof teaching that topic up the road at Tiny Community College. He takes the math one summer, does great, finishes the rest of the degree and never looks back. </p>
<p>So, consider the relief you might feel if you chucked chemistry (for now). You could concentrate on the other courses (strong grades!) and on the medical issues - and tackle chem later. </p>
<p>Your mom may be trying to tell you that she loves you no matter what. She may be afraid for you – afraid that you will push yourself so hard that you make yourself sicker. And she doesn’t want to loose you. Maybe you can come to some middle ground – as in a)finish bachelors degree, then b) work in job with degree and then c) apply to medical school. Many medical schools LIKE applicants who have some more maturity. They actually can be wary of the kids that push through college, never have fun, never have a life and then march into med school. </p>
<p>It sounds like time to talk to a college counselor/dean. They will have knowledge of what most students are doing PLUS knowledge of other ways students have dealt with these challenges. </p>
<p>Keep in mind the truth of the girl at the dance: if she looks desperate and willing to do anything, no one respects her. If she looks pleasant, confident, and clear about her boundaries (“I like line dancing and samba but I don’t do grinds”) then there are those who think she’s fun – and she’s soon off dancing in a way that works for HER. </p>
<p>Your path to an MD is YOUR path. It’s not like anyone else’s. So, please don’t do what the thundering herd is doing. How can you get there? Good luck!</p>
<p>seriously some of you people on CC are nuts first off I have one life and so im not gonna settle for anything less second one of you is talking about maturity. Do you know what it is like to live with lupus and hemophilia, look them up. Im managing two serious medical conditions and pulling and have straight As except for chem.Third how are you able to tell I don’t have a life? Fourth don’t ever tell a person to walk away from their dreams or goals, thats horrible advice. Id prefer to spend it obtaining my dream and taking advantage of any doors that open along the way. You people need to seriously get a dose of reality here and get off your ****ing high horse</p>
<p>Youi asked for advice, you got some very good advice above (wife of physician who saw him go through the whole process - I echo what everyone has said, esp wis75), you bumped several times because you wanted to hear what we had to say - and then you use obscenities? Your biggest problem isn’t really your chemistry grade. Take a breath, stop obsessing about medical school, take care of your health first and foremost.</p>
<p>John, chill. The world is filled with people (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical researchers, biostatisticians to name just one handful of professions) who are working hard every day to cure the sick and keep people healthy. There is more than one path for you so relax.</p>
<p>It seems to me you need to make a very short list of your near term priorities right now in order to achieve your long term goals. You are a wonderfully ambitious and hard-working person- don’t let the near term trip you up. My list for you based on what you’ve posted would be:
1- Ensuring your physical and mental health
2- getting through the semester as best you can given number 1
3-developing some coping skills so you can achieve numbers 1 and 2</p>
<p>I don’t think any of these three goals have anything to do with med school admissions. You need some pragmatic tactics right now. This doesn’t mean giving up on your dreams or putting anything on hold- it means that you are on an accelerated course of burn out of some kind (mental or physical- doesn’t matter which since the end result is the same.)</p>
<p>Please- keep with the counseling. If you become a doctor at age 31 instead of age 29 it’s really not going to matter in the grand scheme of things. So seek out the help that’s available to preserve your health which is what really matters. All of these career paths and options will be open to you if you can get sleep, deal with your anxiety, keep yourself healthy.</p>
<p>There are successful physicians practicing medicine all over the world right now who didn’t have 4.o GPA’s in college. So relax.</p>
<p>Great advice blossom. It is clear the OP is very driven toward his goal and that is a good thing as drive, desire and passion are a huge part of achieving one’s goals, but the advice to take care of himself and his health along the way to that goal is an important imperative.</p>
<p>Would-be physician – heal thyself. Don’t stress med school now.</p>
<p>john6391, I have a long-time friend with lupus. In fact she became so sick several years ago I thought she was going to die. Luckily she’s healthier than she’s been in 10 years now. One of the things I became aware of early on in our relationship is that she’s very high achieving and also along with that in a constant state of high stress. She finally had to back away from activities that produced the stressful situations. If you feel you can’t do that because you have goals in mind that are tough, then you need to figure out how you can handle the accompanying stress. I absolutely don’t recommend taking any pharmaceuticals. This is what my friend did, and it did not solve the problem. Although I don’t practice it myself, I have heard that things like yoga and meditation are very effective in battling our body’s natural reactions to stress. Both take time and patience, but the reaction to stress is a big part of the disease. I wish you the very best. You’ve gotten some great advice from the previous posters. Your reaction to that advice is not surprising because it’s definitely not what you wanted to hear. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>How interesting. You ask for advice. I respond (with my time and my sincere thinking cap on) and then you blast me. I am a paraplegic. Dear Sir, I DO know how hard it is to have physical challenges and a dream. I don’t expect any of my dreams to come true with no bumps in the road. You sound like you are throwing a tantrum anytime someone tells you something you don’t want to hear. That’s not a doctor I want to have . . .
Good luck on your challenges (truly). Perhaps more time studying and less time ranting on internet forums might be the next step.</p>
<p>even if you dont get into medical schools in the US, you can always go to the Caribbean or the tropics. I know a few people who, failing to get into American institutes, trained there and are now practicing doctors. If you work hard it shouldn’t be too bad</p>