<p>No you are mistaken. The reason I shifted to law is that I have always had an interest in politics and policy from being a debater in high school. That is why I took a class on international relations to test the waters of the poli sci department.</p>
<p>The reason I mention Harvard is because when I was in middle school there was a poster on the wall of a teacher’s class that said “Shoot for the moon, that way even if you miss you will still reach a star.”</p>
<p>I have taken that message to heart and have carried it with me to everything that I have done in life. When I first stepped foot into high school I said I am going to get all As and be valedictorian. Did that happen? Nope, I ended up only being number 10 in my class but number 10 was still pretty darn good. </p>
<p>So yes I set my standards very high for myself (as all people should) because if I aim for Harvard and miss I could still end up at UPenn or Chicago or even Georgetown for law school. But if I set my sights lower for an instant then I limit myself and that is not something I will ever do.</p>
<p>So sure to you this may sound like whining, but for me this is failure. If I allow myself to become acquainted with lower standards then next time I might be okay with a B, then maybe a C or who knows. There is a slippery slope when one accepts lower standards and I sure as heck do not intend to get on it.</p>
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<li><p>You may want to research what the GPAs of Yale students accepted at Harvard Medical School are. I’ll bet not 3.9. (While I was at Yale, by the way, exactly one person – in four graduating classes – had a 4.0 for her college career, and she was not in hard sciences.)</p></li>
<li><p>Why is Harvard Medical School so important to you? Prestige? If you don’t want to be a doctor unless you can go to Harvard Med School, you SHOULD re-think your career goals.</p></li>
<li><p>Have you talked to students who are doing substantially better than you in these classes? How are they doing it? Are there things you can try to be a more effective student?</p></li>
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<p>No I don’t care about prestige I already go to Yale, I have enough prestige for the rest of my life. What I am fearful of is that if I do not set my goals astronomically high then I will become acclimated to mediocrity, and that really scares me. I push myself to be the best because all people should strive to be the best. </p>
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<p>I went to an adviser and she basically just told me I shouldn’t be worried and told me to speak to my freshman counselor. When I went to the freshman counselor she said I was fine as well. I don’t really want to ask my peers because I would feel like an dummy asking for help. I am used to being the one that people ask for help, not the other way around.</p>
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<p>No one asked you to accommodate me, if you didn’t like what i posted you didn’t have to respond.</p>
<p>Ok…so you’re not happy with your first semester’s grades. This doesn’t mean that you’ll get a 3.4 for every semester from now on. :)</p>
<p>You’ve experiences one semester of college. You now know what is expected. So, it’s very likely that from now on, you’ll have a higher GPA, which will raise your current 3.4. :)</p>
<p>As for the odd grading system. Certainly Harvard med school knows what Yale’s grading scale is. So, if you end up with an overall 3.7 (or whatever), Harvard Med will know that that would be a 4.0 elsewhere. :)</p>
<p>Also…I noticed that you only took hardish classes your first semester. Were you required to do so based on some kind of sequencing? </p>
<p>Does Yale require any Core Currriculum/Gen Ed classes? If so, can you “mix it up” a bit by taking some harder and some easier classes in the same semester? </p>
<p>I know you have a political interest, hence the IR class, but you may have to make a decision so that your GPA isn’t affected by trying to serve two interests at one time.</p>
<p>Yes, I had to take intro chem and bio for the upper division classes. I had tested out of bio via AP but thought it would be an easy A (it obviously wasn’t).</p>
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<p>Yale has loose requirements such as languages, but those tend to be the harder courses. I was trying to spread out the hard courses by taking the intense bio like cell bio before I have to take orgo and italian next year. </p>
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<p>This is true. The poli sci classes tend to be easier so I may end up taking more of those and spreading out the science classes. The good news is that I am done with all the math I have to take for the rest of my life. </p>
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<p>I was going to be a chem major but now I am thinking of bio :/</p>
<p>My young friend, you have me worried. Being a physician is a calling to provide healing and comfort as its ultimate aim. It is not for prestige, though a fine doctor deserves to be accorded great esteem.</p>
<p>You are young. That is clear. It sounds like you struggled in the dreaded “weeding” class. Some of those intro courses are the very hardest. Organic Chemistry and P-Chem will be as hard or harder, if Yale is like most other universities. If they are on the schedule for next year, prepare over the summer. </p>
<p>I’m sorry if that is not what you want to hear. If you aren’t prepared to work, work hard, even fail, you will be destroyed in your residency when an attending is mercilessly dressing you down in front of your peers and superiors. </p>
<p>As for now, if you struggle in Cell Bio I would get help early from an older classmate who has taken and done well in the class. It sounds like you had an unusually tough professor last term. Chances are that won’t be the case next term.</p>
<p>Major in biology if that is easier for you. As long as you meet your pre-med requirements, you will be fine.</p>
<p>If your academic adviser is not worried, you can trust her judgment. Don’t despair.</p>
<p>It is not Harvard or bust. That is just crazy. There are many fine medical schools that lead to excellent internship/residency programs. Think about it. Not every doctor can go to Harvard. No one expects it and once you are in practice, practically no one cares where you went to medical school. You will prove yourself in the way you provide care. </p>
<p>Now go out and have some fun over winter break!</p>
<p>Let me see if I have this straight, OP – you are a first semester freshman at Yale; your GPA after one semester is 3.45; because of this allegedly terrible GPA you are planning to scrap you plans for med school and “only” go to law school; you want people to tell you that you’re not an idiot. Do I have that right? OK, plenty of others have told you what you want to hear – you’re not an idiot, at least on the basis of your grades. Are you whiny? Yes, you are. Are you disappointed in your grades? Apparently so. Is it likely you’ll go through your entire life with no disappointments/glitches/roadblocks? Absolutely not. Do you want to hear what I’m saying/posting? Probably not – it sounds to me as if you’d rather this be another post that will boost your ego. While I do not believe you’re an idiot, I do believe you need to get a grip on reality. One semester does not make or break anything.</p>
<p>I know I even work in a pediatric endocrinology office so I have some patient interaction. It is just that I have always been told to set my standards really high, that way if I fail to meet those I will still have accomplished something great. </p>
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<p>I do work hard that is why this is so troubling. If I partied and drank all the time then I would know that my poor grades were due to my bad habits, but I didn’t do those things.</p>
<p>After I got a 76 on my first bio test I studied and on the second one got an 82, then an 84.5. I studied for TWO solid weeks for the final to get a 100. I am not afraid of hard work, I am afraid because I am working hard and putting effort into school but still doing poorly.</p>
<p>I understand that to most people switching from medicine to law seems like a superficial move but it is not for me. I have been trying to decide which field I want to go into. I spent a great deal of high school being involved with debate and domestic policy speaking, but I also loved science and took all the science courses that I could. </p>
<p>I wanted to get past the romanticized notion of being a doctor, so I worked in a pediatric endocrinology office to see first hand what doctors do. I am also a member of the Yale Political Union and an officer in the Progressive Party, because I wanted to be engaged in policy issues as well.</p>
<p>I am not “abandoning” a dream, I am trying to choose out of two that I have held for a long time. </p>
<p>Despite the caricature that most adults have of college students, not every one of us is immature. I work hard and am disappointed that my hard work didn’t pay off. That is far from being whiny.</p>
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<p>Because I like both. I was planning on doing a double major with biology or chemistry and political science.</p>
<p>*I was planning on doing a double major with biology or chemistry and political science *</p>
<p>Don’t sabotage yourself. I don’t know if you went into Yale with any AP/IB credits, but if you didn’t, you’ll end up with a lower GPA because you’re trying to do too much.</p>
<p>A double science major PLUS poly sci is just too much. Is the poly sci a minor? You can always feed that interest by taking some summer classes when you’re home at your local college.</p>
<p>Decide your career (law or MD), and then do what’s needed to get into that prof school.</p>
<p>Dbate, I haven’t read this whole thread, but I can assure you that you do NOT have “bad grades.” You’re at Yale, for Pete’s sake. You’re not going to get the same grades you got in HS.</p>
<p>Dbate, why is Harvard Med your goal? If you want to be a doctor, you can just as easily be a doctor from State U Flagship as you can from Harvard Med. As I’ve said repeatedly, Blue Cross Blue Shield doesn’t reimburse the Harvard Med student one penny more than the State U Med School grad. Medicine is a very “flat” world when it comes to prestige. </p>
<p>Your expectations are unrealistic. Stop, pull out the phone book, and look at the pages and pages of doctors listed there. Do you think all those people were 4.0 students at Ivy Leagues for undergrad, and then went on to Ivy med schools? Of course not. </p>
<p>If you only want to be a doctor if you can get into Harvard Med, then I suspect you really don’t want to be a doctor in the first place. Someone who really wants to be a doctor has passion for helping and curing people, not in what the diploma on the wall says.</p>
I’m sorry, Dbate, but I agree with her. You do need some professional counseling to get a sense of perspective and a dose of reality. It’s time to begin acting like an adult and thinking like an adult. College shouldn’t be a linear grade-grubbing slog towards a goal, (specially a goal like, “Harvard Med school” but if that’s not possible “harvard law school”.) College is a chance for you to grow in your world-view, find out who you are and what you enjoy in life, find friends and make connections between what you have learned and what you hope to learn, and to begin to find how you can make a positive contribution to society while earning a living. Grow and change. I believe you would be a happier, more-fulfilled (and, if you end up deciding that you wish to become a healer) and better doctor, if you get some counseling help. I’m sure Yale has excellent counseling available through the health center. :)</p>
<p>Why do you feel the need to decide now? You don’t. Relax.</p>
<p>Every single kid around you at Yale was a 4.0 (or close to it) in high school. Do you not understand that your set of peers has changed? Do you think they are all going to get 4.0’s at Yale?</p>
<p>Dbate, I don’t think counseling is such a bad idea. You seem to post these over the top reactions on a fairly regular basis. I don’t know if it will provide any comfort, but my first term at Harvard I didn’t not get a single A - I ended up graduating magna cum laude with highest honors in my major. For me a lot of it was taking courses that I loved and for which the way my mind worked was suitable. It did mean that I had to reassess who I thought I was.</p>
<p>By no means I question your intelligence, you made into Yale! However, even if you were #1 in your high school or in the whole state of Texas, you might not be able to get straight A’s at Yale. College is a place to learn as well as to test one’s limitations.</p>