Becoming a doctor is the only career I can see myself pursuing. I am starting to get nervous because I pulled a low gpa last semester (Fall freshman year) and calculated that with this semester I may only be able to bring my total gpa for this year to a 3.25 or 3.3. From past experiences, does a low freshman year gpa take away from your chances of getting into medical school? How badly? And is it easy to come back from this?
What classes did you take and where?
It definitely doesn’t help, but if it offers some hope S finished first year with GPA(s) below 3.2. He’s an MD. So your first year’s performance is not fatal to your MD hopes yet, but you’ve dug yourself a hole. So stopping digging and understand that every grade from now on below an A will increase the likelihood that you will need to move to your plan B career path. You also may want to wait until you graduate before applying to maximize units to raise your GPA to competitive level. Good luck.
Focus on studying for MCAT early. You are going to need a good score. Remember going to DO med school or getting a masters and becoming a PA are great options too. Good luck!
I disagree that you should study Mcat early. If anything, you might want to study Mcat after graduation and take a gap year for Mcat and more clinical ECs. Right now, you should focus on getting the GPA high. @Jugulator20’s son had graduated a few years past, perhaps 10 years ago, things are different now. 10 years ago, you might be able to go to a med school with 3.5 GPA, well the bar has been raised to 3.7 minimum for an MD school and because the combined MD & DO residency matching process, DO school will need higher GPA, perhaps 3.6. Unless you can raise your GPA to 3.5ish at the end of the 4th year, it is waste of time to prepare for Mcat, you definitely need to Ace the Mcat and the first shot is your best shot.
It is very hard to raise your gpa from 3.25 to 3.7 now a days. So assuming you have finished 30 credits in the first year with 3.25, and total 130 credits needed for graduation. If you have 4.0 for all the balance courses (100 credits) your GPA will be 3.83, an ideal number for med school. But most likely you won’t get that, based on your first year performance. You will be facing a lot of hard courses such as Org. Chem.
You definitely need a plan B and put some research in on DO schools.
Agreed with what artloversplus said, current applicants need at least 3.7 GPA to be competitive for MD (10 years ago 3.5 from a top school might still ok). Did you get any C in your 1st semester, particularly in any pre-med classes? If that’s the case, you really need to think twice. If C is non-science, you might still have chance. Download the GPA calculator excel file from studentdoctor.net and put the sGPA to be 3.7 to see how many A’s you’ll need…easy said than done for “getting all A’s from now on”.
I’m not quite sure I agree with this statement. Adcomms do look at grade trends and an otherwise reasonable applicant who has demonstrated a strong upward grade trend with superior performance in tough upper level electives isn’t going to get round filed simply because they don’t have a 3.7 GPA.
Adcomms understand that many students have a bumpy landing in college and that’s something that can be forgiven.
There are a number of [mostly state] med schools that recalculate and re-weight AMCAS GPAs to de-emphasize freshman grades.
BTW, @Andorw one of my kidlets--who definitely did not attend a top school--was accepted to more than 1 allopathic med school with a 3.4 GPA. This was definitely less than 10 years ago. (Rocky freshman year, strong upward grade trend)
~~~~
To @SFD321 Follow @Jugulator20 advice. Stop digging yourself deeper into the GPA hole. Figure out how to study effectively. Get help doing that if you need to. Focus earning better grades, especially in pre-req classes. Plan to apply to med school only after a gap year to give yourself additional time to improve your GPA. Keep an open mind about a Plan B career. (Not a knock on you personally, just that every pre-med needs a Plan B.)