Please Please Help Me FAST! I want to become a doctor, but don't know how to do that.

Pre-Med & Medical School High School Student Topics
1

<p>Hi,
I am currently a high school senior and i would love to become a doctor. These are my past three years of high school final grades: </p>

<p>2004-2005
Course # Title Final Grade Credits
3120 BIOLOGY/LAB B 5.00
7410 CAD I B+ 2.50
0120 ENG 1 B 5.00
7010 ENGIN TECH B+ 2.50
2220 GEOMETRY C 5.00
8810 HEALTH 1 A- 1.25
8210 PE 9 A- 1.25
8220 PE 9 B 1.25
8230 PE 9 A 1.25
1110 SPANISH II A- 5.00
4020 WLD HIST/CUL A- 5.00 </p>

<p>2005-2006
Course # Title Final Grade Credits
2320 ALGEBRA II B 5.00
3420 CHEMISTRYI/L B- 5.00
5750 CONS FINANCE A 2.50
0220 ENG II C+ 5.00
8820 HEALTH 2 A 1.25
8340 PE A 1.25
8310 PE 10/11/12 A 1.25
8320 PE 10/11/12 B+ 1.25
2810 PSAT/SATMATH A- 2.50
1130 SPANISH III B+ 5.00
4120 US HIST I B+ 5.00 </p>

<p>2006-2007
Course # Title Final Grade Credits
3210 ANATO/PHYSIO B+ 0.00
4350 ECONOMICS B 2.50
0320 ENG III B+ 0.00
8830 HEALTH 3 A 1.25
2420 MATH ANALYS C+ 0.00
8330 PE A 0.00
8340 PE A 0.00
8320 PE 10/11/12 A 1.25
8610 PSYCHOLOGY A- 0.00
1150 SPANISH IV B 0.00
4220 US HIST II A- 0.00 </p>

<p>My problem is right now i really want to become a doctor, and i dont know how to. This is due to the fact that i have no help at all from my parents because my parents are egyptian and didnt go to schhol here. I have lived in the U.S.A all my life and i love it, however my parents cant help me with any school work since i was a child. This was good because it helped me become self dependant but now i dont have any idea if my grades can make me become a doctor. This year i went to Egypt for vacation and i completed 164 hours of volunteer service at a doctors office and i am currently doing volunteer work at a nearby nursing home..so far i have about 20 hrs. My main problem is i am doing really bad on mY SATS and i dont know why. i took them twice and got 1380/2400 on both times. I must admit i havent been adequately studing for them, because i really dont know how. I really need everyone to help me because i will take the SATS in october and i really reaaly need advice. This year my courses are Forensic CHem, Physics, Nutrition, English, Gym, Calculus, and Public Speaking. As you can see by the amount of scinces i am taking i really want to be a doctor, however i dont know if i can since i got some C's which were due to the fact that i had the worst teachers possible, and im not exxagerating. I need people to comment about my grades and my Sats scores and tell me how to improve. THis year i plan to get all A's or high B's. I just need help with SAT stuff....so please please please if you can help me tell me all you can. PLEASE!!!! i hope you can all understand my situation. Thank You ALL! </p>

<p>P.S. my freahmen and sophomore GPA was like 3.2. I think it will go up when my school puts in my Junior GRades. PLus hopefully my senior grades after the 1st semester. Please if you have any advice tell me..also i need college advice. I live in NJ and want to go to a college in NJ...but dont know how to get started on my college stuff.....Please help me fast i need to apply for early admission. Thanks allot!</p>

2

<p>The College Board has materials for sale to help you prepare for SATs, such as copies of old exams. They also have info about what the SATs are like and the testing process, timing etc.</p>

<p>You can take a prep course from Kaplan but it costs money. Sometimes local high schools and colleges offer SAT prep courses for less money.</p>

3

<p>To become a doctor, you will need to go to college for 4 years and then medical school for 4 years and then, depending upon which field of medicine interest you, a 1 year internship, a 2-6 (or so) years of residency, and then, perhaps a fellowship. It's a very long road but very worthwhile.</p>

<p>At this point, you need to get yourself into college. You do not need to go to a top 10 school to later get into med school. But, you do want to go someplace that has a good program for preparing students for med school and a good track record of their students getting into med school. ANd you need to do very well in college. It varies from med school to med school, but a GPA of 3.5 would be the minimum for being competitive to get accepted. (Some will be far higher.) </p>

<p>You should re-take your SATs and perhaps, the ACT (some students do better on one or the other.) Do prepare for the tests (there are study guides available from SAT or ACT as well as commecial vendors such as Peterson's Guide, in addition to the prep courses like Kaplan or Princeton Review.</p>

<p>Your college does not have to have a medical school although some people think it's an advantage. I would recommend doing research as an undergrad (it does not have to be at med school; there are lots of departments at universities that do medically related research and you often get better experience than if you do research at a med school as an undergrad.) </p>

<p>You can major in anything. Many pre-meds major in biology or biochemstry but you can major in English, or history, or anything else. It's important to love what you're studying and many med schools are eager to have students that major in something other than Bio/Biochem. Just be sure to take the courses med schools require. The pre-med advisor at your college can help you with that.</p>

<p>In fact, as you're looking at colleges try to talk with the pre-med advisor when you make your college visits. And once you're in college, get to know your pre-med advisor as soon as you arrive. He or she can be a very valuable ally, especially for someone like you whose family can't be as helpful as some other families are.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

4

<p>You know, lots of people are children of immigrants like yourself (I'm one) and figured these things out. Without the WWW, I might add. did you ask your HS GC for advice? Did you visit the website of med schools for admissions reqs? You are in NJ; NJ has 3 state medical schools, you are bound to live near one of them. There is so much info available to you if only you look.</p>

5

<p>As you probably know, your statistics are very important for med school admission. You will need excellent college grades and MCAT scores. Your high school grades/SAT scores will not matter at all, but they are concerning since they seem to indicate that you will not be able to achieve a good enough college record to satisfy med schools. Of course, if you were not a serious student in high school, you could work harder in college and study a lot, but there is no easy way to do it. Good luck!</p>

6

<p>Seeing how all of your science grades are Bs, I really consider not deciding to be a physician (at this very moment at least)... Being a physician requires a lot more than just studies too (endurance, tolerate unsightly images and blood, etc, willingness to help others_</p>

7

<p>Read the first post on this thread. It gives excellent advice about what you need to do as an undergraduate to prepare for med school. </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=9848%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=9848&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>As far as preping for the SAT, on the SAT forum go to the Xiggi's method thread stickied to the top of the page. Don't read the whole thread, rather go to the second or third page from the end and look for my posts of Xiggi's summary of his methods, and for a mini guide to the SAT essay. </p>

<p>Right now you should be applying to one of your state universities and try to save as much as you can on your undergrad degree as you have a long road ahead of you to become a doctor. Good luck.</p>

8

<p>I would get the Princeton Review/Kaplan/whatever SAT or ACT book, read it cover to cover, time yourself taking practice tests, and get your scores up. A 1380/2400 is not a good indicator of success, especially if you plan on taking typical pre-med courses (o chem, biochem) in college.</p>

<p>*also (I know its a depressing thought) having an early backup plan doesn't hurt</p>

9

<p>Meh, I got Bs and Cs all throughout high school, got a 1280 on my SATs. I've gotten straight As in sciences in college (although I'm only a sophomore, so I shouldn't speak so soon), and because of it am able to apply to an early acceptance program at Tufts med school. </p>

<p>Just because you don't ace the SATs or get great grades in high school does NOT mean you can't do well in college and get into medical school. A little hard work goes a long way. Although if you're not a superstar student, it's certainly in your advantage to pick a college where you wont be weeded out of a 300 person chem lecture and eaten alive on every exam.</p>

10

<p>All of the above reasonably sound advice. Step #1 is to get into A college or university. You may even want to consider a community college for the first year or so. I dropped out of high school in the 10th grade, later was admitted to a community college and then transferred to a major university for my last 2 1/2 years. Got accepted to med schools in TX, MD, and St. Louis. Ended up staying in TX. I don't think that your grades in specific courses are always an indicator of future success. I made a D in anatomy (boring!) as an undergrad and I have been a board-certified pathologist for almost 15 years. My final suggestion for you is to work in a hospital during a summer. Talk to physicians. Find a doctor that has been on-call in the hospital for 24 hours and ask how he/she likes his or her job. Ask yourself if this is something you really want and are willing to go through 11 to 15years of education to attain (4 UG + 4 med school + 3 to 7 residency).</p>

11

<p>
[quote]
does NOT mean you can't

[/quote]
Of course it doesn't mean you can't. But probability-wise, I'm willing to bet that at the same school, kids with lower HS grades on average do well less often. As a probability.</p>

12

<p>To be a doctor you need to be focused in school. From the looks of it you don't really have the stats that most doctors had when they were in high school. And to not know how to become a doctor is really surprising. To be a doctor you need to be independent, and to not know how to study for the SATs or how to apply to college is really shocking. Maybe medicine isn't for you. Your personality - as you described in your post - seems like you expect things to happen for you with little effort.</p>

13

<p>I think the first step for you would be to work on getting into schools. Although your grades aren't stellar, they are fairly solid. </p>

<p>Think about how you're going to pay for said school, though. NJ has a bunch of programs to help out kids; check out <a href="http://www.hesaa.org/students/index.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.hesaa.org/students/index.asp&lt;/a> and see if there's anythign there to help you out.</p>

<p>Especially since you want to go to medical school, I woudl recommend a state school. NJ schools are fantastic, and saving money now is always a good idea- med school is VERY expensive. Don't worry about finding a school with a medical school attached.. just look for a school where the sciences are strong, so that you can make sure you get a solid background before heading off to med school.</p>

<p>About the SAT's, I agree with some of the other posters that you should take an ACT prep book out of the library and try it. You didn't tell us how that 1380 broke down, so I'm going to assume is was a fairly even split ( and that you're getting around 500 on each section). </p>

<p>One really easy tip for the SATs is to try to figure out the answer without seeing the choices. Then, if what you thought the answer was is a choice-- then you are proably right. For example, say the question is 7x-4= 10... then without LOOKING at the choices think to yourself " well, 7x is equal to 14, and 14 divided by 7 is 2, so x has to equal two." Then, look at the answers and see a) 3 b)14 c)2 d)1
YOU'd know that the answer is c.</p>

<p>This also works in the reading section and the writing section. </p>

<p>ALso, when you're given a passage to read, underline the key sentance in each paragraph.. or just any sentance that strikes you as important. This way, when you are asked questions about the story, you won't have to reread the whole story. Plus, the questions go in order of the story so you don't have to glance through the whole thing.</p>

<p>In terms of writing the essay , you should use three examples to prove your point; one in each paragraph like a regular essau. Howver, if you can make one of those examples an historical event, one of them a literary example and one of those a personal experience, your essay may be given an extra boost. As an example, if the essay is about oh, i don't know, " Is it good when dreams come true", you could talk about whether the americans were happy getting independance from the Brits, whether Cinderella's life was enriched by her fairy god mother's help and how happy you were to get the polka-dotted bike that you ogled in the store window for Christmas. DO NOT forget that you are under NO requirement to agree with what you write, you just have to argue it convincingly.</p>

<p>lastly, and most importantly, make sure that if you skip a question the first time you see it, that the corresponding bubble is ALSO skipped on your answer sheet. Circle the number in your booklet so that you can find it easily to go back to if there is time, but you do NOT want to see that you already filled the space in without realizeing it, becasue then all the following answers will be wrong.</p>

<p>GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>

14

<p>I kind of have to agree with some of the people above. If you've lived here all your life, you should be able to do figure this out yourself. It doesn't matter if your parents can't guide you...I never needed mine to. I think medicine will be an uphill battle if you don't even know a lick about it in terms of education. Your grades and SAT score suggest you don't have the aptitude for medicine. I would try for something else.</p>

15

<p>I won't tell you that you can't. However, wanting something and doing something about it are two different things. I don't think your grades are all that bad but in the very competitive world of people wanting to enter med school, you are behind. How do you intend to catch up and more importantly pass the others? </p>

<p>I would say concentrating on the sciences would be the most helpful if you want to get there for a couple of reasons. 1st, they tie in very well and secondly and probably most important doing well in sciences usually means you are committing a great deal of time to studies. In other words you are creating the habits for success. </p>

<p>Mine is a 1st year med student and even with excellent grades coming in, he is still putting around 6-8 hours in study after 6-7 hours of class. the average is about a 12 hour day five days a week. Then on weekends he attends study sessions sat morning for a couple hours to review. While this seems like a lot, it's the average commitment. There are people doing more. </p>

<p>So what you have to ask yourself is does your committment match your desire?</p>

16

<p>Your high school stuff won't matter much (although the volunteering is a good start).</p>

<p>As it has already been said: </p>

<p>You can major in any subject you want, however you must take some courses which are required for medical school admission. These are:
one year of biology with lab
two years of chemistry with lab
one year of physics with lab
one year of English
at least one semester of calculus recommended
also some colleges recommend biochem, genetics
statistics wouldn't hurt either and the ability to communicate in a foreign language is also a plus.
All sciences courses must be science courses intended for science majors.
These courses should be taken by end of junior year because you have to take the MCAT and a lot of that material will be covered in the above courses. </p>

<p>Things that will decide whether or not you will be admitted to medical school will be MCAT score and GPA (these are number one).</p>

<p>Then they will look at:
1. Have you had clinical experience? (exposure to a hospital setting, clinic setting, working with patients, working in the medical field, etc...?) You can get this by working part time at a hospital or job shadowing a physician.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Have you had volunteer experience in an area working with the public? - they want to know if you have had extensive interaction with the general public. </p></li>
<li><p>Have you had research experience? Doesn't have to be medical research - but it needs to be something that will give you experience with the research process. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>They might also look to see if you have demonstrated an interest in becoming a doctor. Clubs you are in? Leadership positions? Don't be afraid to show interests in other activities besides those having to do with medicine (this means you are well rounded)</p>

<p>I would get in a support group right away to improve your test taking skills. Most will tell you to study for the MCAT a few months prior, but I think you should get a study book and become familar with it early on and use it while you are taking your undergrad courses in science. It might help you get a higher score. Your current SAT scores are low and that could indicate that you won't do well on the MCAT. You need to work to improve that. And, I think, it can be done but you will have to prep yourself (a little at a time). </p>

<p>The undergrad school you go to won't matter that much, but your science courses should be taken at a four year college (not community college) AND AP scores do NOT satisfy the core requirments for medical school admission. You must take the actual college courses. </p>

<p>Get premed advisement at your school early. Get to know your professors and stay on their good side (think recommendations). </p>

<p>And keep in mind that if all this doesn't lead to medical school it is not the end of the world - there are many other options in the medical field that your undergrad training will prepare you for.</p>

17

<p>Thank you all for your help...btw to all the people who are saying that i cant make it..well let me explain somthign to you...last year i wanted to make the JV soccer team, well you can say i was so bad i probably couldnt even pass the ball correctly, i was cut, and instead of giving up i tryed harder, this year i tried out for varsity as a senior and i START. so you if ur gonna be rude and not willing to give helpful support then dont give it, however i thank all who are trying to help me, because i KNOW I CAN MAKE IT....and i dont care what anyone else thinks.</p>

18

<p>I admire your determination for a career in medicine, however, it's going to be very tough looking at your stats (relax, high school records will not be a factor in medical school admissions if you're doing premed)</p>

<p>One way to get into medical school: there are programs you can apply as a high school senior that guarantees a place in medical school. This is much much easier than doing premed in college because competition is very high. BUT to be frank, I wouldn't bother applying to those with the high school record you have.</p>

<p>The second way is the above mentioned premed in college, and mentioned in previous posts. You must work very very hard to achieve top notch grades, have many hours of clinical experience, research projects, extracurricular activities all at the same time.</p>

<p>I suggest that you start boosting your reading and writing skills. They are critical in understanding what is going on in every other subject - science, math</p>

19

<p>I have no idea about abroad, But here (<---location) college is free, and your grades would most probably get you in. So if you ever thought of going to medical school here, it won't be that difficult.</p>

<p>I realize that this post is completely useless :( , but I just thought I'd say it anyway...</p>

20

<p>What are the three medical school?? I live in NJ too and the only one I know is UMDNJ...</p>