<p>So I got my final grades back for this semester and I feel absolutely demoralized. I am really afraid that I will not be able to get into medical school with grades this bad. </p>
<p>I know they at first glance do not look too bad but my GPA in total is a: 3.45! I am REALLY worried, I don't know what to do I tried really hard. It is not as if I didn't study. My grade on my first bio test was a 76 and I eventually worked hard and got a 100 on the bio final but my grades are still terrible. </p>
<p>My math and science GPA is even worse: 3.38. I know this is first semester and all but I am really afraid. I have never gotten grades this low in my life and I don't know if i will be able to make it into a medical school. </p>
<p>Does anyone have suggestions on how to bring my grades up? Could you tell me what you did in college, i would really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Welcome to college and you are at Yale? As a parent I would be proud of a kid with those grades, particularly in the first semester. Just like there are colleges for students with every gpa, there are med schools for lots of students. Just do your best and you will be fine.</p>
<p>Dbate, you are now facing the perennial question of Yale students: “Wait a minute . . . if George Bush was a C student here . . .”</p>
<p>Your grades are not “terrible.” They are actually pretty good. The CC discussion of grade inflation at Yale and elsewhere might make you anticipate that high-school patterns will be followed in grading. In most high schools, a student of your caliber would have to slack off to get a 3.45. This isn’t true at the college level. </p>
<p>Since you scored 100 on the bio final, you already know how to bring your grades up! Keep in mind that many of your classmates come from prep schools. Even with a very good school system (and I assume that you did not attend a prep school), you aren’t starting out on a level footing. Keep working hard, and I think you will see a rise in your GPA in future semesters.</p>
<p>Another piece of advice: visit your professors during their office hours–not so often that they feel that you are <em>always</em> there, but a few times during the semester when something in class has particularly caught your interest, or when it doesn’t seem to fit with other things you know. Also, go and talk to your teaching fellows. You can see them a bit more often. Go to 100% of your classes. Take good notes. Review your notes at frequent intervals. Can you keep up with the reading load? Do not worry if the answer is “no.” The reading loads can be quite heavy, and intense. But read as much as you can. Get the sleep you need, on a routine basis.</p>
<p>Most of all, do not be demoralized by this semester, which has been a fine initial performance. Keep working hard, and you will get into a good medical school. </p>
<p>P.S.: Now is the time to make plans for the coming summer, if you have not done so already.</p>
<p>Dbate - welcome to college. Most kids are surprised by their first few exams. They are used to put in X effort, and get As in high school. But one thing to remember is only top 5% of kids got into your college. The good news is that you got a 100 on your bio final even though you got 76 on the first exam. It shows that you have it figured out how to do well already, and that’s great for the first semester. Most people have worst grades the first semester, at least it was the case with my daughter and her friends.</p>
<p>College is about learning, not just about grades…except when it comes to medical school (I have no kid aspiring to be a doctor) and certain jobs which require high GPA. Try to speak with other students to get feedback on a course before you sign up for it. My daughter has gotten smart about not taking math courses from non English speaking professors, or taking econ courses where professors do not test what’s taught in class, but rather implied.</p>
<p>Just a note - you may not be happy with 3.45 as your GPA, but it’s really not that bad for the first semester. I understand premeds tend to be a bit psycho about their grades.:(</p>
<p>That is the thing, I was above the mean in EVERY class. Which means that half the class has to be getting grades worse than mine. Sometimes I was more than 12 points above the average and I still got bad grades. </p>
<p>My average in the chem lab was a 94, a 94! ANYWHERE else a 94 would be an A but at Yale you need an 95 to get an A. WHERE IS THE GRADE INFLATION I WAS PROMISED. I am so sad. </p>
<p>Right now I wish I would have gone to my state school. Future CCer’s should be warned about this.</p>
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<p>That’s the scary thing I did. I went to the library and reviewed my notes for bio everyday to go from that 76 on the first test to a 100 on the final but it still wasn’t enough. I studied until 2 am during finals and I still got bad grades. I don’t know what I am doing wrong. </p>
<p>Right now I feel like switching to an easy major like political science and just going to law school. -_-</p>
<p>I realize I must sound really whiny but I really want to ball up and cry. I have never in my life seen grades this low. I didn’t even realize people got grades this low and I feel absolutely terrible. </p>
<p>Are all colleges like this or did I just get ripped off by going to Yale? They should tell people when they get accepted that things like this could happen. It would have been better if I went to an easy state school. Some of my friends at the University of Texas are skating by on easy street with 4.0s and when it comes time to apply to state schools they are going to be able to go to an Ivy where I might not be able to. This is not fair, someone who put in as much work as I did shouldn’t be getting grades this low. </p>
<p>AND WHY IN THE WORLD DO YOU HAVE TO GET A 95 TO GET AN A??? THAT IS RIDICULOUS. I hate Yale and the sciences.</p>
<p>You are suffering from the perennial problem of high-achieving students who encounter the first Bs in their lives. Those grades are NOT terrible. (hint: my S, now in a top grad school, had grades similar to yours). </p>
<p>Look at your performance in the courses. The A- in biology is solely due to averaging out a mediocre first test with a stellar final. If your had started higher, you would have gotten a solid A. In fact, lots of profs drop the worst score when calculating course grades. Did you improve over the semester in your other courses as well? If you did, chalk your Bs to unfamiliarity, know that with hard work you can achieve better grades.
Another thing that struck me: three math/science courses with, presumably, lots of psets and tests. That’s a rather heavy load!
Don’t let things like this get you down. Just resolve to “show 'em.”<br>
No, you don’t hate Yale or the sciences. You’r just feeling sorry for yourself. But you don’t need to. You did fine.</p>
<p>Say, Dbate, I think you need to adjust your expectations a little. A 3.45 is not “low.” Frankly, I suspect that you could wind up with a 3.45 overall GPA and with the MCAT scores you are likely to have plus volunteer experience at a hospital (plus perhaps work in a laboratory), you would get into a good medical school.</p>
<p>I think there may be easy routes through Yale, but pre-med is almost certainly not one.</p>
<p>By saying that you did not start out on an even footing, I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t outperform many of the prep-school students, from the outset. But you almost certainly had further to go, to perform at top levels–your experience in biology tends to show this.</p>
<p>Same advice I give to everyone: Focus on what you are learning. Pursue your dreams, with vigor. Don’t worry about anything else.</p>
<p>It’s pretty early to be panicking about this, plus those grades are good. But -</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Among my pre-med friends in college (and I was Biophysics so I had a lot), most of them saw their grades get better as they went along.</p></li>
<li><p>Contrary to popular belief you do not need a 4.0 to get into med school. From what I understand they take into account MCAT, research type stuff, interviews, and recs.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>You will probably get a bump anyway because you go to Yale, which probably counts for something.</p></li>
<li><p>Does everyone have to take that much science/math the first semester? Don’t you have gen ed requirements or did you AP out of them? Sometimes it helps to have a little gen ed (although maybe at Yale even those are hard).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’m not a doctor, but I’m sure some will weigh in to tell you this same stuff if they are reading this.</p>
<p>That is exactly what I was thinking. That and wondering how people can every say that there is grade inflation at Yale. </p>
<p>I wish people who said there is grade inflation would come to our classes. Every single test is like a AP test and half the kids are doing worse than I am. Which says alot considering that like everyone was one of the top students in their class in high school.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to Cornell and they grade on a curve. For one of her math classes she got A- on two prelims based on a curve, she thought she did pretty well on her final, but ended up with a B+ as her final grade. What happened was a lot of “idiots” dropped out after two prelims, therefore pushed up the curve and dropped her A- to B or B+. Yes, she wanted to kill herself.</p>
<p>Dbate, you might already know that Yale is the place where Maya Lin designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a national competition entry, for a class she was taking at Yale. She won the national competition–that memorial is her design–but she got a B in the class.</p>
<p>No and that is one of the reasons I am worried. For my first chem test I scored a 86 and the average was a 74. Then I got a 85 and the average was a 81 and on the final midterm I scored a 69.5 and the average was a 69. I am on a downward spiral and I don’t know what to do. I wanted to be a chem major too, but I think I might just switch to bio. </p>
<p>I would go to a tutor but I feel dumb for doing it. I went to a math tutor once and I felt like an idiot.</p>
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<p>I know and an A was a 95! I was ONE point away, I want to slap that man in the face even though I know it is my fault.</p>
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<p>If my grades are this bad next semester I am dropping sciences all together, majoring in political science, and becoming a lawyer. </p>
<p>Please tell me that all colleges are like this? If not then getting into Yale was a complete rip off. </p>
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<p>Yes I took a total of 10 tests during the semester, 2 problem sets due every week, and a quiz in chem lab every week as well. And my chemistry professor is absolutely terrible, he is a brilliant quantum chemist, but a terrible lecturer so I had to teach myself EVERYTHING.
What’s worse is I have to take Cell Biology next semester which is one of the hardest bio classes at Yale T_T</p>
<p>In addition to that I have to work during the week, although it is only 6 hours. I wish I could quit my job, but my parents don’t have money to send me for random miscellaneous things.</p>
<p>It’s a little early to be freaking out like this. First of all, your grades are not bad at all. Considering the level you are working at, those are excellent grades. You’re going to have a miserable college experience if you torture yourself for not being a straight A student, that is simply not going to happen. </p>
<p>The answer lies in your own words: you worked hard, you studied, you went to office hours. You got a 100 on your final. So don’t stress. You are doing well, working at the peak of your capacity, and hopefully you’re also having fun and learning something in these classes. Try not to focus so much on the letter grade, and focus on the practical information that will help you not only as a doctor, but also on your MCATs, which are going to be a major determinant of what medical school you get in to. Next semester, now that you know what to expect and what you need to do, you’ll probably do even better than this semester. This is just like high school: the important thing is to improve steadily over time, not to be at the top right out of the gate (though with those kinds of grades you really are at the top). </p>
<p>Be proud that you are performing so well. If you are above the mean, think of the many many kids who are not as fortunate to be as hardworking or bright or maybe lucky as yourself, rather than focusing on X number of kids who performed better than you in that class. Maybe the rest of their load was lighter, maybe they were just science geniuses. It doesn’t matter. Don’t count other people’s money, focus on the wealth that you yourself possess.</p>
<p>Thank you all it really is helping. But why does everyone keep saying my grades are good? When I went to my academic adviser freaking out she said the same thing. But a 3.45 is NOT good! You need like a 3.9 to get into Harvard Med (my goal) and with these terrible grades I won’t be there. And I remember the people in high school who were complacent and thought that first year didn’t matter, all those people ended up at state schools. </p>
<p>Even if I shift gears and decide to become a lawyer my grades this semester are going to drag me down. Even at Harvard Law the average GPA is a 3.84 or so. Did any of you improve on a bad first semester in college? I could definitely use some inspirational stories.</p>
<p>I also want to point out (a) no one is going to care about your B in calculus, and (b) by the time you apply to medical school, you will have taken a number of upper-level science courses where the grading is not necessarily as harsh as in the big introductory courses. Also, of course, you are learning stuff, which is the point of things.</p>
<p>One of the smartest students I knew at Yale – really awesome intelligence – came to college thinking she wanted to be a doctor (from Andover, no less, so no excuses there), and basically got Cs in her freshman science courses. She wound up as an English major, then Oxford on a fellowship, then Stanford Law School, and she has had a great career as a respected right-wing public intellectual. I don’t mean to suggest that you should go that route; I’m just pointing out that extremely competent people sometimes find that they are a poor mesh with pre-med training. I guarantee you this woman is smarter, and no less hard-working, than 99% of the doctors out there.</p>
<p>You need to go to counseling. Your expectations are over the top. I understand about being high-achieving and wanting to do well, but you want to switch from you dream of Harvard Med to being a lawyer because of one semester of less-than-satisfactory (to you) grades? And, again, you use HARVARD Law as the measuring stick for law schools. Sounds to me like you’ve chased/are chasing prestige and it isn’t all you thought.</p>
<p>Sorry that wasn’t an inspirational story, but what started out as sounding like genuine worry about your grades morphed into whining as the thread continued.</p>
<p>If you can’t get into Harvard Med you have to be a lawyer? And then only Harvard Law will do? Give me a break. There are lots med schools out there (my husband teaches at one). They all have the same curriculum, you come out with the same degree from all of them.</p>
Most kids are surprised by their first few exams. They are used to put in X effort, and get As in high school. But one thing to remember is only top 5% of kids got into your college. The good news is that you got a 100 on your bio final even though you got 76 on the first exam. It shows that you have it figured out how to do well already, and that’s great for the first semester. Most people have worst grades the first semester, at least it was the case with my daughter and her friends.</p>