<p>if someone has a very low gpa, 2.6, for example, and he or she is entering their junior year of college, is there any chance for them to be accepted in any med school? (considering that he/she raises it to a 3.1 or 3.2)</p>
<p>You're omitting the two most important pieces of information: race and geography.</p>
<p>white, ucla</p>
<p>unfortunately</p>
<p>im actually 99% sure there's no chance (agree?) but what are some of the choices i have? i still really want to become a doctor but if that's out of the question, what other careers can i pursue?</p>
<p>Wow. A 3.1... I mean, an upward trend in GPA is good, but that's probably...</p>
<p>I sympathize with your position - I had some school troubles early, too - and I wish I could tell you otherwise, but the truth is that a 3.1 as a Caucasian from California is going to be a tough, tough uphill battle.</p>
<p>A great MCAT score and EC's will help, but even so, being admitted to any medical school at all is going to be tough. I wish I could honestly tell you something else.</p>
<p>Oh, there's oodles of choices for premeds who fall through the cracks. Again, though, you'll have to investigate them, find one you really like, and be able to explain why you like it. But PA, RN, DO (?), maybe even NP, PT, etc. all have reasonable overlap with the coursework, and still involve dealing with sick people. Medical device techs, too, are very involved in the medical process. My guess is that DVM and DDS are probably still stretches.</p>
<p>i have to agree. any suggestions for other options/careers?</p>
<p>also, if i were to take extreme measures (start over?)...?</p>
<p>to tell you the truth, this is about my sister (i dunno why im saying "i"). im entering as a freshman in berkeley next year. for two years she's been telling us that she's had a 3.5 and yesterday i went on her transcript online to find that she's gotten straight B's, C's and two F's (which she's taken over) with a gpa of 2.2. </p>
<p>i just want to her help out by giving some options which she might not know about.</p>
<p>thankx for your input. i really appreciate it =)</p>
<p>You need to know that starting over does not erase your previous transcripts, which AMCAS will demand and take into consideration.</p>
<p>I think those are about most of the options I can think of. With that said, however, a 2.2 is very different from the 2.6 you've been telling me about, for the simple reason that improvement can no longer really bring you over a 3.0.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the 2 F's may well be erased from the college GPA - but they don't get erased from AMCAS, meaning your sister might be sitting on a 1.9 or so rather than a 2.2.</p>
<p>I think even most of those other options are now closed, but I'm not really sure. If she's really set on medical, I don't know much about nursing, but I'm fairly confident that LPN (LVN?) options should still be open. I don't know much about RN programs, and NP programs are probably not available.</p>
<p>the average entering age is mid twenties. </p>
<p>my friend who is entering med school had less than a stellar gpa (3.4 overall, and 3.2 science), with a couple of C's, including orgo. But he did some graduate work, raised his gpa significantly. he used his college EC (he's done TONS of international volunteering) and kept his 30 MCAT score from junior yr. and right now he's only 23, still very young, ready to start med school in the fall. If your sister works hard from now on, she will still have plenty of time</p>
<p>o nm, i didn't read about the 2.2 gpa thing. but it shouldn't matter, should it? There's still, junior and senior year as well as grad school</p>
<p>well, i said 2.5/2.6 becuase this past semester she had two incomplete classes which counted as F's bringing her down to a 2.2</p>
<p>I would also advice your sister to start doing some INTENSE research and volunteering, in addition to the school work. In all seriousness, it's not too late if she really takes the time to correct her mistakes</p>
<p>I mean, let's say she has that 2.2 and then gets three years of 4.0's. That's still a 3.3, even under some clearly bad assumptions. That would be okay - but anything under that and I think she's in quite serious trouble.</p>
<p>Look into post-bacc programs. You could most likely get into one of those, and lots of them will let you go to their med school if you get certain grades/ mcat scores while doing the post-bacc.</p>
<p>That is very sweet of you to want to help you sister, but I wonder why she would lie about her GPA if she really is in such trouble? Even with the best case scenario of getting straight As for the next two years and during graduate work, she would only have a fair chance at med school, as the other posters have said. Did something happen in the family or to her at school that might have affected her ability to concentrate on academics? If that's true, she may be able to use that in her essays and, with significant improvement, have a better chance at admission.</p>
<p>However, if she didn't tell you or your parents about her GPA, and she's not the one on here asking for advice, my first guess is that maybe she didn't want to go to medical school. Unless there were extenuating circumstances that you're not mentioning, I can't imagine another reason she would do so poorly and lie about it.</p>
<p>Still, it's nice to see someone so concerned about a family member. I just hope she is as concerned about her future as you are.</p>