<p>Im going to try to keep this as short as possible. </p>
<p>Ever since I was a kid, Ive always wanted to be a doctor....This interest stuck with me until my sophomore year in high school. After my sophomore year, I started to realize that I wasn't that great in math and science. Now, I am a senior and have been recently accepted to my top choice school. (Lehigh University)</p>
<p>Anyway, I am trying to figure out if pre-med is even worth it to pursue. Based on my high school performance in math and science, I dont seem like the ideal candidate to handle pre med. I do go to a very competitive high school thats in the top 10 in my state but I dont think thats a valid excuse for my poor performance.</p>
<p>Apart from medicine, I am also interested in business/finance. I guess I can do that if pre-med ultimately ends up failing. Overall, I dont really want to start and end up not getting into any medical schools at the end.</p>
<p>Past High school math/science courses:</p>
<p>9th:
Honors Biology - B+
Honors Geometry - C</p>
<p>10th:
AP Environmental Science- B
Honors Chemistry - B
Honors Physics - B+
Honors Algebra 2 - A+
Honors Pre-Calculus - B+</p>
<p>11th:
Honors Anatomy - C+
AP Calculus AB - C+</p>
<p>Based on this, it seems like it isnt even worth it to pursue a career in medicine. High school basically discouraged me and as a result I started developing new interests during my junior year. At this point, I have no idea what to do... </p>
<p>Also my standardized test scores sucked aswell.</p>
<p>27 on my ACT, 620 on US History and Math 2…</p>
<p>It seems like ive done more than I could handle in HS. Ill end up finishing with 10 AP’s and 2 college classes but most of those AP’s are humanities classes. </p>
<p>From what you’ve posted, it seems that the academics needed will be too difficult for you. What about another career related to medicine?</p>
<p>To be fair to you, your stats are much better than mine were when I graduated high school. But I had an epiphany in college and seriously went rogue with my academics. I started devoting 30+ hours per week studying and my grades reflected the standards of a top pre-med student. </p>
<p>You are starting out with a huge academic obstacle ahead of you in your aspirations to enter medical school. You have to examine your work ethics and truly define your passion for medicine. Use that passion to drive your study habits, ECs and the exam preparations to achieve your goal. To be a doctor, you have to be “all in” and the grades really need to hover around 3.7. If you can’t be “all in” find something else.</p>
<p>Don’t wait for college. Learn appropriate study skills now, cut out the distractions and get the grades up!</p>
<p>I think I would have been better off just taking the normal science/math route during high school. I started highschool sticking around with the elite students taking tons of AP classes and making straight A’s. For some reason, I felt the need to copy them. I ended up taking 3 sciences in one semester my sophomore year when the average student took 1. Then junior year, I took 5 AP classes and 3 Honors classes with 3 extra AP classes online. I ended up pretty much burning out my junior year. It just seems that I would be much less discouraged if I simply did not try as much. After my junior year, I still had not taken the SAT/ACT/SAT subject tests. I ended up studying for the ACT a month before senior year. I guess I ended up doing more than I could handle and as a result, ended up discouraged.</p>
<p>Unless you improve dramatically, does not look positive for pre-med.
However, people mature and imrprove their working habits.<br>
Medicine does not require genius, you do not need to be specifically very comfortable with math and science, not to the level of engineering. However, you ABSOLUTELY need HARD WORKING attitude. If you have had the level of hard working attitude require in pursuit of medicine, there would not be any Cs in your HS transcript. I mean, you need to learn to work extremely hard in the class that you absolutely hate with all your heart and still get an A. I am talking about this type of hard working attitude.
So, ask yourself if you are ready for something like that and go from there. As I said, you do not need to be a genius.</p>