<p>I'm a rising (pre-med) sophomore at an elite university on the east coast. </p>
<p>Due of personal/family problems and having recently been diagnosed with learning disability, my freshman year grades have suffered sufficiently (C+/C in Human Anatomy/Physiolgy, B/B GenChem, B+/B+ CalcIII&LinearAlgebra). In fact, my cumulative freshman year GPA is a pathetic 3.0</p>
<p>Sophomore year, I am taking Ochem, Physics, differential equations, and an intensive language course. If I earn an A/A- in each of these four courses, as well as in an additional semester of general biology (freshman year, I took human anatomy), will I statistically appear more viable as a med school candidate? Do med school adcoms consider improvement from freshman year, or is the picture pretty much black and white to them regardless of the undergradute term? </p>
<p>Depends on a lot of stuff. If you kill the MCAT, a little bit lower GPA might be okay.</p>
<p>Your cumulative GPA is more important than any trends in GPA- I think trends maybe come into play as a tiebreaker. So, if you can bring it up by junior year (I have a couple friends who did), you might still be fine. </p>
<p>And then you factor in EC's, healthcare exposure, etc. </p>
<p>But bottom line is to not freak out too much about stuff you can't change. You can only affect what happens from here on out. Save the panic for when you really need it.</p>
<p>Thanks SonofOpie. What would your definition of "killing the mcat" be with a end-jr-yr cumulative GPA of ~3.5?</p>
<p>Would it be wise to enroll in Ochem & Physics concurrently? It has come to my knowledge that we have the 2nd hardest Ochem course nationwide. </p>
<p>Aside from low grades, I'm doing a fair amount of research (2nd named author in a chem paper by the end of this summer), volunteering my time at a local hospital, and taking an EMT course next summer. I just want to know.....what is the best way to recuperate academically from a terrible, wasted, freshman year.</p>
<p>Kornpopz, my suggestion to you is to get a handle on your personal, family, learning problems this next year and just get the best grades you can. I would not take those very difficult courses, particularly O-chem, which gatekeeps many a premed out of med school. You should be in prime shape academically before you tackle that course. Since you have already shown that you have some issues in getting top grades, try to take courses you enjoy and can do well this next year. Many kids I know who took this approach were able to take their premed courses even AFTER their undergrad degrees and then able to focus on the courses to do well on them. Once you get the grades on your transcript, they are there forever, and med schools do look at them and count them heavily. Better to give yourself an excellent undergrad gpa, and then work on your premed courses. Or at least give yourself a year to prove you can handle and juggle college work before taking courses with a tough rep.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to attack you, and good luck with next year, but why would a diagnosis of a learning disability hinder you academically? If you've always had said learning disability and been accepted to an "elite university", it must be not affecting you too much, or you've learned to effectively manage it.</p>
<p>
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If you've always had said learning disability and been accepted to an "elite university", it must be not affecting you too much, or you've learned to effectively manage it.
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I had the same thought. By "elite" I'm assuming the OP is referring to an Ivy school. Obviously someone with learning disability would have a hard time getting accepted to an Ivy school in the first place.</p>
<p>bluedevilmike is right. I go to Georgetown (I don't know about anyone else, but I consider most Top 25 schools elite)...</p>
<p>Back to the point. I am not attributing my subpar freshman yr performance to the learning disability (which is something I think I may have learned to cope with over the years). My parents were going through a separation, in addition to a multitude of other family/personal issues.</p>
<p>If you're willing to post on this thread, please try to make it relevant to my concern. Thanks in advance! ^_^</p>
<p>One-sentence answer: It is very difficult for any one thing to completely kill one's chances at medical school; what happens is that the rest of your application is held to a progressively higher standard.</p>
<p>Do med school adcoms consider improvement from freshman year, or is the picture pretty much black and white to them regardless of the undergradute term? </p>
<p>I would say they would notice an upward trend. However, most medical schools receive many, many applications and probably will screen to a certain degree.... so, at some schools, even if you maintained a 3.7 from here on out, ending with a 3.5 cumulative (or so), you still may be screened. However, it is not too late. Try to maintain your grades from here on out, get involved in research/volunteerism/clinical experience etc., score high on the MCAT and you will have a fighting chance of getting into an allopathic medical school. Best of luck :)</p>
<p>i dont understand why people talk about improving their grades only in terms of med school....so if, for instance, you had come on this board and people had told you there was no chance for u to get into med school would u then have no incentive to work harder and improve your GPA? Is the choice really between working your ass off to get a good GPA for med school or blowing it off? No matter what career you choose to pursue, a higher GPA will help...even if it is just a line on your resume. </p>
<p>Bottom line is...I don't see how your future chances at med school should change your desire to improve your GPA.</p>
<p>Why does it seem like everyone suddenly has an onset of "personal problems" in their freshman year? I'm sure some people actually do go through some tough crap but seriously everyone has problems and always will. I just finished my freshman year and I had family problems and was prescribed antidepressants and all but I don't consider that a reason for my low GPA (~3.3). My GPA wasn't great because I didn't know how to study and I had poor school habits.
Everyone is transitioning in their first year. Don't be so quick to blame it on problems which everyone has.</p>
<p>We are all not built the same. I had the same attitude as you, it is just an "excuse". This may be the case for some, if not most, of these "first year tragedies". However, for some, having personal issues during their freshman year may have, in fact, contributed to their poor performance.</p>
<p>^
I didn't mean that EVERYone had personal problems freshman year. It just seems like there's an overwhelming number of threads that repeat the same things: "My pet died and my grandma became sick so I had a super low gpa. I know I can do better but do you think I can still go to med school?"
I am absolutely positive no one had the "perfect" freshman year. What I guess I'm trying to say is that people should take responsibility for their own position and not try to attribute poor academic performance on "personal problems."</p>
<p>One note on learning disabilities- a person can be tested and diagnosed and recieve extra time (25-50-100% extra) in timed test situations like SAT, AP, etc.</p>
<p>Once you are at university the rules change and you no longer have that extra time in testing at most publics, I don't know if privates choose to be more open to historical adjustments, but publics go by the minimum law standard which seems to only allow extra time if some one is actually physically unable to fill out the test form, not if there are reading issues etc.</p>
<p>That means you could have the knowledge but be unable to finish the tests. Timed tests are a rather artificial constraint, so if you are a slow reader, for example, and you can survive med school, you probably are not going to have problems treating patients. It is that way with many fields, the testing is timed, but in real life the issue that makes one need more time will not be a problem.</p>
<p>That is an adjustment one has to make in university, realising you will not finish all tests and determining how to most effectively approach them to get as many questions answered as possible. NO excuses, just a truth about adjustment and also true that such a person will probably lose .2-.4 GPA points compared to HS because even if they know and understand the info, they don't have time to put it all down in the test.</p>
<p>No one is going to make allowances for people who needed that extra time in HS, any more, so it is a good time to just suck it up and figure out how to do one's best</p>
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Timed tests are a rather artificial constraint, so if you are a slow reader, for example, and you can survive med school, you probably are not going to have problems treating patients.
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I'm not entirely convinced of this, actually; at least, if it carries over into writing, this could be a very big impediment indeed.</p>