Screwed Up Big Time For First Two Years of College

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>Others have addressed your chances, so this is about whether medicine is the right field for you. Of course I don’t know you at all, so these are general observations, not specific to your situation.</p>

<p>Medical school is hard. Residency training is harder. Being a doctor is very hard, if you are any good at it. You have to continue studying for the rest of your life. If you do not, you quickly become a terrible doctor. There is a huge amount of work, it never ends, and you are largely on your own to do it. If you have that much trouble getting yourself to do the work in college, medicine could be a nightmare. The reason med schools look so hard at grades is that they need people who will show up everyday, ready, having done their homework, with their assignments complete… It can be tedious, and you really don’t get to relax and take it easy.</p>

<p>People who make it through medical school and training tend to be comfortable with this. Starting a paper now, when it is due in a month, is natural for them. Skipping the party and studying Saturday night if needed seems like the obvious solution to them. If this is that hard for you to act this way, the entire medical field is going to be painful.</p>

<p>Most doctors are very focussed on their work, they work hard regularly, and they pay careful attention to their grades. The stereotypical premed obsession with grades, performance, and getting the work done carries through to medical school and practice. The profession is filled with people like this, so they largely define the expectations for newcomers.</p>

<p>I am not saying this to discourage you. I am saying that it does not sound like you have the commitment and engagement with you schoolwork to fit in. If you suddenly change your goals, work very hard, and consistently, you may be able to put together a record that could get you in. I doubt you could do this and go to medical school direclty from college. You will almost certainly have to work in a related field for a while, continue to take classes and do very well, and demonstrate that you have the responsibility and focus for medicine. </p>

<p>But medicine is not for everyone, and it is more important to find a line of work that suits your interests and work style. That might be medicine, but it seems that you probably would be happier doing something else.</p>

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<p>Nicely put afan. i would also recommend taking a month or two to really think about the long process ahead. talk to someone who has gone through medical school/ residency and figure out if it’s worth it.</p>

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<p>OP, if you are really serious, there are GPA booster programs you can apply to post-graduation, just type in post-baccalaureate pre-medical programs and you should find websites that will be very helpful. </p>

<p>I don’t want to be mean but there is almost no way you even get an interview right now. I don’t see a way for you to raise your GPA high enough but I guess it is possible. Good luck to you.</p>

<p>Also I’d consider applying for an masters in public health or health administration, or maybe even applying for some masters/md programs. Also try to find some research in biology or medical research if possible. Applying with a mph or mah and having done research at a medical school will definitely give you a big boost, especially if you can get your GPA to above a 3.0 and get a good MCAT score. Good luck.</p>

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<p>I dont think you should be discourage if you want to be a doctor then do what you need to do to be a doctor! I spoke with a Dean of Admissions at UAB medical school and he said that they look for people who want to be doctors and who will prove that certain obstacles wont sway them. Your gpa is definitely an obstacle! He also told me if you do well in harder science classes then that kind of shows that you can rise to the occasion. But you have to do extremely well and also have a pretty good MCAT (above a 30). Your only option is to evaluate yourself and how you can improve your study habits so that you can make the grades you really want… Its doable I mean he told me himself ppl with 2.8 can get into medical school. I know you can pull your gpa up to that! Dont be discourage try if being a doctor is what you truly want to be!</p>

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<p>From 2005 to 2007, about 1350 kids made it into medical school with less than a 3.0. Out of 115,000. That’s about 1% of the accepted students. 11,000 students with less than a 3.0 applied to medical school in those years, so thats 12% about.</p>

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<p>I would be willing to bet that the great majority of those 1350 were URMs or special circumstances admits.</p>

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<p>To be admitted to a top-20 school (e.g., UTSW), what are the median MCAT scores needed for an non-URM student? The MSAR showed that, for the 2006 year, they are 11 V, 11 PS and 12 BS. But these numbers may include the numbers for URM also. So I would guess the numbers for non-URM would likely be higher. Am I right? Also, the numbers seem to inch higher in the last two years.</p>

<p>Is there some difference between the scores for the admitted students and those for the matriculants? For example, the MCAT scores for the admitted studenst for many top medical schools (Columbia, NYU, Mt Sinai) are about the same (if not exactly the same), like all of them seem to be 11, 12, 12. The wustl is quite different from most others though.</p>

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<p>MSAR’s medians probably aren’t too URM-affected. Means would be. The problem with the MSAR is (at least back in the day) they used numbers for admitted students, not eventual matriculants. This dramatically inflates the numbers.</p>

<p>For this reason, even though USN’s means are URM-affected, those are the numbers I prefer.</p>

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<p>Yeah, you have to understand that URM applicants are only a small fraction of accepted. Also, there are many URM candidates that are above the median/average as well as below. I’ve broken down data in terms of MCAT for white applicants only at a couple schools, the averages are pretty much the same. </p>

<p>More importantly, the fact that the MSAR includes the MCAT scores of every student accepted (meaning a kid with a 41 gets to be included in ALL of the schools that accepted him) more than compensates for any URM effect. The MSAR says that NYU has a median of 35, but the average matriculant MCAT score is a 35. A lot of schools have medians of 37, but averages for everyone besides Harvard (36) and WashU (37.5) are below a 36.</p>

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<p>to the OP. I was not interested in Med School but did get into very good grad schools after a VERY poor start … my 8 terms went something like this … 2.5, 2.7, 2.4, 2.1 for my two years and at this point I had a D-, D, D+, C-, C, and C+ on my transcript. My last 2 years went something like 3.3, 3.7, 3.8, 3.8 … and things ended up turning out ok.</p>

<p>I’ve been in your shoes … you can not go back and undo the old grades … but you can learn from the last couple years and move forward. From here be more disciplined and do your best … that is all you can do. That may get you into Med School … it may not … but all you have control over is what YOU do over the next 2 years! Good luck turning it around! (PS - even if you do not get into Med School now your new found maturity and discpline will only help moving forward!)</p>

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<p>DO schools replace grades that you retake. If you are willing to do a fifth year, you can undo most of the damage.</p>

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<p>3togo: grad schools often are much more interested in research potential, and research accomplishments as an undergrad, and care less about grades. So often even at the same university the grad school and med school may have quite different criteria for who to admit.</p>

<p>Med schools, obviously, care a lot about grades. I am not saying they should, but they do.</p>

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<p>Hey guys,
I know this was posted a really long time ago, but I’m praying that by some miracle the OP will respond to this. I am, quite frankly, in the same boat as he was. My GPA is slightly higher at a 2.4, but that’s no where near good enough. I am currently in the summer between my sophomore and junior year. I just wanted to know what happened? Did you make it to Med School? What did you do? Thanks!</p>

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<p>Nope. The OP took a different route. </p>

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<p>Please use old threads for information only. Check the posting history to see what the OP is doing now, and if they’re still on CC, you can PM them.</p>

<p>If you have a question, please use the New Thread button and ask for input.</p>

<p>Closing old thread.</p>