<p>I have been put my sincere effort here but I realized I am doing average (sometime bit below) here for all my midterms.
I go to study group, individaul tutoring, office hour, hours of effort (way more than I did in high school), use previous released test as a reference but pulling B- (2.7 GPA here).
Worsening is that all the science classes are curved in the way average is set up to be B- (2.7 GPA).
Now I am a premed student and I don't think I can pull better GPA here.
I am able to enroll in my state school and I am able to enroll as a honors student there.
Am I making a bad choice?</p>
<p>nope. </p>
<p>UCB is a hard school, esp. since its satured with good science students (many of which are premed).</p>
<p>you’d be doing yourself a favor to get out of there, esp. before courses like Org Chem kick in. (assuming you are a freshman)You dont want to get weeded.</p>
<p>Would you elaborate when you say no?</p>
<p>Ctseiphon< I feel incompetent at this point</p>
<p>If you want to be pre-med, you have to have a higher GPA. So if that is your goal, you may need to transfer.</p>
<p>Leave…I don’t’ understand why premeds flock to UCB.</p>
<p>and it sounds like the OP is OOS…an even bigger reason never to go to UCB as a premed.</p>
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<p>and, you asked about taking out loans to attend UCB because your net cost was $30k (sounds like your family has a very low (Pell qualified) EFC).</p>
<p>I hope every OOS premed who has eyes on UCB and UCLA reads your thread and other posts. You have nice stats. You could have gone to other schools for premed and received generous merit and maybe grants since it appears that your EFC is very low. </p>
<p>Transfer ASAP and do your best. You need to do some serious grade repair, which may not be easy if much of that 2.7 are from science/math courses. You’re going to have to dilute those grades by taking more BCMP classes and acing them.</p>
<p>Why did you pick UCB? Did you think med school adcoms would be impressed? Did you consider how ridiculously hard it is to get into a Calif med school from OOS? How much did you borrow for this semester?</p>
<p>Got 1/4 of total cost from financial aid. Yea I thought 2.7 isn’t good for a med school even if it is Berkeley…</p>
<p>Med schools do NOT give GPA’s a pass from Berkeley or other schools. They expect Cal applicants to have have 3.5+ GPAs.</p>
<p>if you are OOS, you made a “bad choice” for choosing Cal. (Actually, it was worse than bad; it was downright foolish.)</p>
<p>btw: A 2.7 from MIT will not get you into med school.</p>
<p>btw 2 : all premed prereqs are curved at all schools, so don’t assume that your instate school is any better. </p>
<p>btw 3: Upper division courses have much higher grades curves. For example, MCB at Cal, one of the most popular majors for premeds, has a mean GPA of 3.5; of course, that is only those that haven’t found an easier major.</p>
<p>However, the in-state school would likely not have as high-caliber a student body as Cal, so getting a higher GPA is more probable even if classes are curved.</p>
<p>Also, someone with a 2.7 from MIT <em>could</em> get in to a med school (it depends on the rest of the application).</p>
<p>I have read through the advice the other posters gave you. I just want to give you some “food for thought” before you make any hasty decisions. First, you are no dummy - yout stats are respectable and as an OOS student it is more difficult to gain entrance to UCB than it is for in-state students - so UCB did not make a hasty decision admitting you. You probably were ranked near the top of your HS graduating class and depending on how competitive your HS was, you may or may not have felt the competitveness with the other HS students. Now, you are in an extremely competitve environment which is new to you. You are no longer at the top like you were in HS, you are now just average in the competitve UCB student pool. You have a B- average and the pre-med classes are set at a B- average on the curve and you don’t feel like you can do any better than that. Well, you are facing the same dilemma that many freshmen pre-med students are facing throughout the country - they go to college and for many, being in a more competitve environment they are not pulling the high grades they did in HS. What can be done? Many decide that pre-med may not be for them and they switch to another major that is not as rigorous. If one decides not to switch majors and go to a less competitve school that has a honors program, they hope they will find a other students that are less competitive thus they can be at the top again but there is no guarantee in that. Many in-state pre-med honors students may not have been given enough FA to make it feasible to attend higher ranked more prestigious schools so they wind up at their in-state school in a honors program with substantial merit aid. So, the bottom line is that you can not assume you will do better to get into med school at your in-state school in the honors program - you could possibly be an average student again. A degree from UCB is very prestigious, much more so than from many other state schools. You may want to take time to evaluate your present major and see if there is something else you may want to switch to and stay at UCB. If you really want premed at your in-state school, go for it, but it may not be a walk in the park like you think it could be and, remember, it does not guarantee entrance to med school. Good luck!</p>
<p>How much does UBC cost you (net cost, $ loans?) How much would your instate flagship cost ? Would you be eligible for the Honors program there? Can we ask what it is (there’s a difference between UN-Reno and UWashington…)? Are there competitive private universities you could transfer to and what would the financial aid situation be (considering transfers get low financial aid - do you have any hook to offset this?) Could you stay at UCB and follow another path than premed, one that may have better odds of success for you?
Keep in mind that in order to find a job, your major doesn’t matter all that much as long as you have a good GPA and internships; the major may matter for some specific jobs, of course, so it all depend what you’d be interested in doing.
2.7 at Berkeley and for a first semester freshman isn’t bad, by the way.</p>