@Reddyparent3 Yes it is the end. Medicine is science. If he can’t do well in science as an undergrad he will ne be admitted to medical school and if somehow he were admitted he would flunk out.
Next time you are sick make an appointment with a Ph.D. in English and see how you make out.
And no, each medical school does not view pass/fail differently.
The most heavily weighted academic factor used by med school admissions committees is the science GPA (sGPA). So, no,having a weak/poor science GPA will keep one out of med school, no matter how good all one’s other grades are.
Don’t believe me? See this report that compiles the responses of med school admissions committees: https://www.aamc.org/download/462316/data/mcatguide.pdf
And there isn’t a single allopathic or osteopathic medical school in the US that will accept P/F grades as fulfilling the pre-reqs. Consult the MSAR and CIB, if you don’t believe me.
Med school applicants are required to report every single class they have ever taken at the college level–even if there is no grade or credit awarded, even if the coursework was taken during high school or at foreign schools, even if the original grade for a repeated course no longer appears on one’s transcript. Failure to report it is considered making a fraudulent application. A fraudulent application means the application will be revoked by AMCAS/AACOMAS, any acceptances will be revoked, and the student will be permanently barred from ever applying to med school. A fraudulent application can result in a medical school diploma being revoked even years or decades after the student has graduated from medical school. (And for the record, this has happened in not too distant past.)
Adcomms will see that a course has been repeated and that will (negatively) influence how they view an applicant’s academic strength.
Admission to medical school is extremely competitive with schools receiving up to 15,000 applications for 150-175 seats in the first year class. It’s a negative process. Adcomms are looking for reasons to eliminate applicants from consideration. A poor sGPA, repeated classes, P/F pre-req grades are easy reasons to reject an applicant.
@Reddyparent3 I’ve read the speed and quantity of science beginning in the first two years of med school is akin to hooking a student’s mouth to a fire hose and turning it on full blast. I’ve seen the COAs at some med schools is 80/90k per year. Most students finance this by loans which have to be repaid. Although they may be wrong, initially med schools look for and can easily find among the thousands of applicants each school annually receives, many, many students whose academic record indicates an applicant can handle the academic tsunami coming at them. Med schools want the students they accept to succeed, not drop out due to academics and be burdened with crazy debt. Although an applicant may excel elsewhere, a student with mediocre GPAs (or the vagueness of pass/fail), especially in science courses, is just too risky and it will be the end of him/her to be a doctor at least in the cycle he/she is applying. At some schools, this rejection will occur before any human eyes ever look at the rest of their application that may show the applicant has excelled elsewhere.
@Jugulator20 how do you know that pass/fail will hurt your application? From what I’ve heard, it’s not viewed the same as a drop.
A drop (as in a dropped class during the drop-add period) is not the same thing as W (withdrawal). The former is never reported; the latter always is.
Both W and P/F grades in science and pre-req coursework require explanations. It’s something that will be asked about should the applicants be fortunate enough to get an medical school interview.
A good explanation can mitigate the negative perception of a W. (And by good explanation I mean something like, a member of my immediate family died and I was so distraught that I knew I couldn’t do my best. Or I experienced a significant illness and missed too much classwork to make up. Or I realized that enrolling in 22 credits with 3 lab classes while working 20 hours/week to pay my tuition was a mistake and I couldn’t dedicate adequate time to all my coursework to be successful.)
Taking a class P/F, then taking it again for a grade will require an equally good explanation to mitigate the negative perception that act generates. Saying I took the class P/F to see how hard it is or to see if I could do well before taking it for a grade isn’t going get any sympathy from adcomms. About the only explanation I could see an adcomm having any sympathy with would be: I was history major fulfilling a graduation distribution requirement and never thought I’d be applying to med school so I took the class P/F, but now 10 years later I changed my mind and realized I needed to have a grade for bio/chem/physics/math to apply to med school so I needed to retake the class.
Like @Jugulator20 said, medical school is expensive (both for the student and for the school). They want to enroll students who will be successful, students who have proven they can master large quantities of difficult science material quickly during a single exposure to the material.
@reddyparent3 Contrary to your screen name you appear to be a high school student based on your posting history. You are stubbornly clinging to your opinion in the face of many experienced posters telling you otherwise. Believe what you want but the information that others have posted here is valid and will not mislead present and future premeds.
If you are in fact premed then by all means take your science courses pass/fail. Let us know how your medical school apps turn out.
@Reddyparent3 my bad if I wasn’t clear, I was specifically referring to premed reqs. As to other courses taken P/F, some schools may not care if there some. But which schools care, do not care? How many P/Fs are too many for any one school, for any one adcom to question as to whether an applicant can handle the academics? I don’t know, you don’t know and it’s not published info. At least academically, grades (specifically an A) tend to offer a clearer picture of an applicant’s ability than the vagueness of P/Fs. You may disagree and that’s okay.
Wow thanks for the reality check everyone. I’m at that stage where I’m scrambling to figure out what career I want to pursue and it changes ny the day haha.
Fyi: i’m a college junior, I just haven’t changed my profile.
Most schools publish their accepted science and overall GPAs. Admitted students dont get those GPAs by taking pass/fail classes. If the minimum required (1 year of physics, biology, 2 years of chemistry) are not graded classes, I dont see medical schools looking sideways to admit anyone, especially when they receive 50-100 apps for each seat available.
@TomSrOfBoston Most admissions committees that I have spoken have something differently than what you all have said. I bet you that most respondents here have not taken or known someone who has taken pass fail and can actually attest to the results. And if you look at what I said concerning pass fail, I mentioned taking that course later for the grade.
@TomSrOfBoston look at @Jugulator20’s post. That’s more or less the overall view. Some care some don’t; it’s kind of gray. I’m not trying to argue that they won’t take note, but there is some ambiguity.
@Reddyparent3 For the benefit of all could you list the med schools that care and the ones that do not care, based on your experience?
@WayOutWestMom First of all I would you like to a bit easy about the fraud thing. I personally think you went a bit too far on that. Just to inform you, my schools keeps p/f on record and does not count it as W. This means it shows up twice. Like I said before P/F is not viewed the same as a W. P/F does not average into gpa for my school unless you receive an F. I understand P/F may not necessarily be positive but not necessarily negative on my app. They care about the grade more than they do P/F.
Is there any med school adcomm here who could clarify things better?
Johns Hopkins says…
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/som/admissions/md/application_process/prerequisites_requirements.html
@Reddyparent3 to my knowledge, nobody posting on this topic here is an adcom, but with 140+ US med schools, how would one adcom clarify, except if he/she was willing to talk specifics about their school’s practices?
Could you clarify post #25, are you a HS junior?
College junior
@bodangles like I’ve said before I will still be taking them for a grade
Later on
RE: I’m just stating what’s in the AMCAS Instructional Manual for Applicants.
https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school/article/amcas-application-policies/
And it doesn’t matter how your college computes your GPA or views a P/F course. AMCAS and AACOMAS both recompute your GPA using their own methodology.
AMCAS Instructions for Applicants
https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/33/f0/33f0bd3f-9721-43cb-82a2-99332bbda78e/2018_amcas_applicant_guide_web-tags.pdf