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<p>Why do people keep jumping on the fact that I said Harvard med? I already said the reason my goal is high has nothing to do with prestige and everything to do with motivation.</p>
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<p>So, let’s see. The adviser said you were fine. The counselor said you were fine. We’re all saying - from the vantage point of adults - you’re fine. What will it take to convince you? You’re asking our opinions, and yet you’re not listening to them. </p>
<p>Sometimes shooting for the stars <em>isn’t</em> the right strategy. Sometimes shooting just to do well is enough in life. Not everything has to be 100%. Not every test has to be a 100. Just enjoy your time at Yale.</p>
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<p>The point that you seem determined to miss is that it DID pay off. You found out that the demands of college are at a whole new level compared to high school - something every college kid learns. You learned that if you really power up and buckle down you can raise your scores in the 70s up to 100 in tough classes. And you finished the semester with decent grades in hard classes from one of the top universities on the world. Where is the lack of pay off?</p>
<p>You’ve discovered what college level high performance looks like. Keep the work up from here and you have every prospect of getting into medical school when the time comes. Honest.</p>
<p>And don’t kid yourself that getting into Harvard Law School is going to be any easier than the pre-med route. You’ll have to work your tail off to succeed on that path too.</p>
<p>You can get into med school with a 3.4GPA. A young lady I know did just that. You might not be able to get into Harvard Medical School, though. If you don’t want to be a doctor unless you can go to Harvard, then you really don’t need to be a doctor.</p>
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<p>There’s a big difference between striving to do your best and having unrelenting standards. You will end up having a miserable life if you put so much pressure on yourself that you are stressed about getting a 3.4 your first semester of college. Learning to deal with setbacks and being less than perfect is what life is all about. People who are perfectionists often quit at the first sign of adversity because they can’t deal with being less than perfect. Sounds like you are getting your first real taste of this.</p>
<p>The problem with unrelenting standards is you will continue to set the bar so high that you won’t be able to meet all of them and then you start to feel really bad about yourself. Worse, you will expect people like your spouse and children to meet your ‘high standards’ and you will make everyone around you miserable.</p>
<p>You did the best you could your first semester at a highly competitive school. You should feel proud of your effort, not beating yourself up. You might or might not get into Harvard Medical school but if you’re really interested in a career in medicine, you will probably be able to get into medical school somewhere else.</p>
<p>Trust me, the couches of psychiatrists and marriage counselors everywhere are filled with people who have to be the ‘best’. Here is the clinical definition of unrelenting standards:</p>
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<p>Usually, there is an underlying feeling of inadequacy or low self-esteem that drives one toward being the ‘best’ or perfect. I agree with some of the other posters, you should probably talk to someone about this.</p>
<p>Secondly, you should realize that you are at a highly competitive college and it’s a whole different ballgame from HS. In HS, there is usually a normal distribution curve when it comes to intelligence & ability. At a place like Yale, people on the low end of the bell curve have already been weeded out. The classes are being taught at a higher level and pace than a state U where there is more variation in ability. I think this is a shock for some students who were use to being the big fish in a small pond and then when they get into a highly selective school, they aren’t at the top of the class anymore. They’re just one of many bright, competitive students and probably not even the brightest or the most hard-working.</p>
<p>Finally, college is a huge adjustment for most kids. By the end of next semester, you will probably have figured out what you need to do to make it work. Just don’t go jumping ship at the first sign of a setback and give yourself a break. Life should be about the process, not the outcome. You can control the process but not always the outcome.</p>
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<p>Oh, come ON now, Dbate. You didn’t even realize people ever got grades “as low” as a 3.45? Did you think every single person at Yale got a 4.0 at Yale?</p>
<p>Dbate:
You are not an idiot, anyone who has made it to Yale and is doing better than most freshmen with a course load like yours, is definitely not an idiot!!
For what it is worth, I have a friend who had grades similar to what you currently have from a school that is not in Yale’s league, and they are half way through med school.</p>
<p>The good thing for you is you are concerned about what has happened. You will get into med school. </p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I was never much of a student in high school. Got mainly C’s without trying. I struggled for a few years in college and then realized life was passing me by so I got real serious about school. I started working real hard to get A’s (I was a Bio major also). One semester I ran into two teachers who basically kicked my butt. In fact, in the chem class I needed an A on the final to get a C in the class, which I got. Trig was a lost cause. I had to do it over and got an A the second time around. I remember feeling just like you do. There was a song that was popular at that time that went. “My future’s so bright I’ve got to wear shades.” It was about a guy doing really good in school, and here I was thinking that my future was over. I eventually went on to graduate with honors. The point is, if I can go from a C student (who admired students like you in high school) to graduating with honors with a degree in Biology, you can surely go from one bad semester to reaching your goals. Don’t worry, you will learn to overcome all this.</p>
<p>I also know a girl who was a 4.0 student, got a full ride athletic scholarship to Duke and almost flunked out her first year. </p>
<p>Another thing, think about what you’re saying, on the one hand you are saying that nothing less than Harvard Med is good enough, on the other you are saying that you wish you went to a state school, which means it is probably harder to get into Harvard anyways.</p>
<p>Why does it have to be Harvard MS? Insurances pay the same no matter where you go to school. I am going to paraphase and old saying here, but, "What do a call someone who graduates at the bottom of his class from the lowest ranking medical school in the country?
“Doctor”</p>
<p>I also think when it comes to the MCAT’s you will outshine your friends from Texas!!
Good Luck!!</p>
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<p>I went to a counselor already. And I tried to explain to him that everything in life requires planning, that is why I need to have a game plan. I planned my entire life out the summer after fifth grade and it has gone fairly smoothly so far ONLY because I planned for it.</p>
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<p>I know, I do the regular stuff college people do. I drink, party, and hang out with my friends on the weekend. But during the week I have to focus on school. </p>
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<p>It actually does help. I went to counseling already and the person was a waste of time, he basically said I should relax and accept mediocrity. I am better at non-quantitative courses, so maybe I will shift there in the future. </p>
<p>Right now my schedule for next semester is:</p>
<p>Chem
Cell Biology
English
American Political Institutions
Chem Lab</p>
<p>hopefully my grades will be better now that I won’t have math :/</p>
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<p>I can accept that as a motivation, especially for someone your age. But you have to recognize that your life is a marathon, not a sprint. Needing to be out in front all the time is a recipe for mediocrity as a marathoner. Also, we are talking about grades here, not what’s ultimately important. It’s true that you are a student, and grades reflect real information about something central to your current “job”. But one of your tasks in becoming an adult is to wean yourself off of a dependence on grades and other external evaluations to tell whether you are meeting your own standards for being “best”. Real life doesn’t usually give you something that pat, simplistic, and reductionist – and if it did people would justly criticize you if you paid too much attention to it.</p>
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<p>And exactly how does this extremely immature attitude jibe with your supposed commitment to set lofty goals and try to be the best? This is the crux of the matter: What is more important to you, your pride or your education?</p>
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<p>But that’s not true. You are going to be in for a major, major shock one day because something is going to happen that you haven’t planned for. I was a lot like you. Then I had two unexpected shocks in the course of one year (family member committed suicide; my twins were born with severe health issues and didn’t know if they would make it). I learned a very valuable life lesson. You can’t plan your life the way you think you can.</p>
<p>And, you miss out on life by planning. Your eyes won’t be open to … hey, what if I take this art history course and I decide I really love art history? There are a lot of paths you’ll cut yourself off from if you are so grimly determined to choose a path and stick to it no matter what.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, your hard work did pay off. You said yourself you brought your grade up to 100 after studying for two weeks. Good for you!! </p>
<p>It is too early to decide which path to take. Give yourself more time. See how your courses next term go. Even if you change majors late in the game and/or decide to take fewer courses per term, taking extra time to graduate, so be it. </p>
<p>You might consider taking some courses in the summer. Spread out the workload. </p>
<p>Aligning yourself exclusively to Harvard revealed your naivete. Try to loosen your grip on that dream a little bit. Not because it can’t happen but because it doesn’t need to happen for you to find success. </p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with having lofty dreams and ambitions. Prematurely locking yourself into one extremely unnecessarily difficult path is not wise. That is what we are cautioning against.</p>
<p>Part of being smart is knowing when you need professional help, Dbate. It’s rather like the alcoholic who has not yet said to himself, “I have a problem and I need help.”</p>
<p>Planning is great – I am a champion planner, myself. I could run an organizing business for people! But planning needs to help provide you JOY, not limit you and box you in. No one says you have to commit to being a doctor or a lawyer at this stage in the game. No one says that you can only be a doctor out of Harvard Med School. Relax. Really. It’ll all work out in the end.</p>
<p>Also - take a class or join a club just for fun. Photography or something. All work and no play makes someone a dull boy.</p>
<p>dbate:
Look at this also, you came to Yale not knowing what to expect, you raised your grades throughout the semester, now you know what you need to do from the start for next semester. You will do fine. </p>
<p>You don’t need a shrink, you have high expectations for yourself. You will meet those expectations.</p>
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<p>Do you understand that average at Yale is still >>> the vast majority of people?</p>
<p>Dbate, did you even look at the AAMC table that was linked for you on a previous post? Even if you end up graduating with the EXACT same GPA that you have now, and assuming you can pull off a 30 on your MCAT, you have a 85.9% chance of getting into Med school. It might not be Harvard, but at the end of the day you would still be called “Dr. Dbate.”</p>
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<p>So true. DD just got a “B” in Orgo, and trust me when I say she was doing a happy dance.</p>
<p>Dbate - I have always found this old thread to have a lot of great thoughts regarding attending a “reach” school (and Yale is a reach for anyone). I especially like TheAnalyst’s post #101.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/511022-whats-like-kid-attend-reach-school-7.html?highlight=theanalyst[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/511022-whats-like-kid-attend-reach-school-7.html?highlight=theanalyst</a></p>
<p>My D has had experiences similar to yours. Freshman year she didn’t seek help when things got tough, thinking she could just power through it and the result was a couple of B’s. She has worked extemely hard and has steadily moved her GPA up to a 3.8 (science 3.6). When she left our small town to head to college she said, “You know, I’m not above using a tutor”. It just took her until sophomore year to take her own advice. This was a kid who scored in the 99%tile on the ACT and SAT (with an 800 CR) and the only NMF in her class. We told her that was one of the smartest things we’ve ever heard her say. If things aren’t clicking right away, she’s learned to jump on it immediately. She gets a PhD tutor, she goes to office hours, etc. It has helped alot! </p>
<p>Good luck to you!</p>
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<p>I realize I am being irrational but I have always had the constant fear that if I slipped up in one respect then I would completely fail. It is the reason I have been afraid to smoke weed with my friends, because I am afraid I will eventually become a drug addict and drop out of school. Likewise it is the reason I didn’t drink until college (and even then never getting really drunk) because I was afraid I was going to become an alcoholic.</p>
<p>I am not trying to be whiny, but I am legitimately fearful that if I accept grades like this…well then I will get grades like this. </p>
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<p>I already had a major shock which is compounding on this problem. I recently accepted my self as a homosexual and have been to counseling for that as well. In fact that probably contributed to my poor grades because some days I would wake up and just have to go pray and miss class because it weighed on me so heavily. </p>
<p>Right now I feel as though everything that I have worked hard for is falling apart. I am a baptist and can not be gay. I am smart and shouldn’t be making these kinds of grades. It feels as though the entire world I planned since fifth grade is melting into nothingness and I pray to God and He doesn’t respond. I just feel like my world is falling apart around me.</p>
<p>yawn…,</p>
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<p>Okay, now I think we are getting to the real issue.</p>
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<p>My son had some problems that he couldn’t solve in freshman physics first semester. I suggested that he go to the tutoring center but he never did - he wasn’t used to asking for help. He did fine but he had to work much harder than was necessary. He used the tutoring center in the second half and then became a tutor. If he has a question on something, he can always just ask one of the other tutors that specializes in the area. In the workplace, we all have our specialties. If you’re banging your head on something for a few hours, you eventually consider asking your coworkers for help because oftentimes someone else can figure out something in five minutes that would take you hours or days to figure out. It’s not that they are necessarily smarter - they may have different skills or training.</p>
<p>You might want to talk to a professor or counselor over this. I don’t know any parents that would be unhappy with your results. Most would be quite proud. There are things that you can do to improve GPA and there are lots of threads with the usual stuff. It sounds like you put in a very good effort and achieved very good results.</p>