What are my chances at medical school with 2 F's in pre req classes?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

Hello~

I’m a graduate student undergoing a “gap year” between undergrad and grad school because I haven’t applied yet to any medical schools.

As the title says, I failed Bio 1 and Chem 1 during the first semester of my freshman year at college.

Long story short, senioritis didn’t end for me until the second semester of my freshman year (so basically it ended after finals of my first semester lol) and I finally decided to get it together after that. I know it’s not a worthy excuse but that’s what happened. I learned my lesson with lots of stress and concern so it definitely won’t happen again.

Since then, I have had all A’s and ended up with a 3.8 GPA

The reason my GPA is higher than expected (besides the remaining all A’s) is because I was able to retake the two classes that I failed and ended up getting an A in each. The only reason it’s not higher is because I did get a low grade for Chem lab that couldn’t be retaken (max number of retakes is 2 classes) but it was only 2 credits and not as big of a concern compared to the other two classes. However, even though the F’s did not end up being calculated into my GPA, they are of course still on my official transcript.

I was thinking about doing a Postbacc Pre med program since I don’t have any other science classes besides those two with Psychology and Sociology courses.

My major was also Psychology and Philosophy (double major)

My question is: is it worth it? Would I still have a solid chance provided I get a high MCAT score and do well with the Postbaccalaureate program?

If I have to, I will apply to DO schools.

I’m not sure which speciality I want to go into but I am thinking along the lines of Cardiology, Dermatology, etc

Especially for Dermatology, I figured it would be better to get into a medical school for the competition.

Any tips for what I should do?
I know I screwed up in the beginning but I don’t want to give up on becoming a doctor especially after 3.5 years of hard work.

Thank you~

2

What’s your science GPA?
What Science classes have you taken?

3

Even if you retake those 2 F’s, they will still
need to be reported on your medschool application and counted towards your GPA

4

It seems you might still need seven further science classes, as well as perhaps college-level calculus and statistics. With the right post-baccalaureate program, however, your goals might not be unrealistic.

5

OP, your GPA may be a 3.8 for your college, but will not be for med school. You need to recalculate your GPA including the 2 F’s.

6

@CottonTales : So the 2 Fs would count for medical school purposes along with the 2 As, even though they were earned in identical courses?

7

@merc81, yes. Every college course needs to be reported, including retakes and withdrawals. DO schools used to take a retake grade and forgive the previous one, but no longer do that. ALL will be factored into the GPA so the OP basically has a C in both classes. It will be a challenge to come back from that.

8

I haven’t taken any Post Bacc classes yet so if I need to average the grades, I suppose so far I only have 2 C’s for my science classes so far.

Provided I am able to get an A for the rest of my pre req classes, would it be enough?

9

Please recalcuate your overall GPA as well as science GPA. I was only taking your F’s and A’s to round out to a C. Please don’t start thinking about specialties. You need to get into med school first and then go from there. You are getting WAY ahead of yourself.

10

I understand where you’re coming from but I was only talking about the specialities in terms of where I wanted to go to for graduate school. And that was also in my initial question. I did not mention it again when I posted my reply so I’m not exactly sure why you’re bringing it up now when it has no relevance to my aforementioned question.

I did hear DO schools are more lenient with lower GPA’s despite the fact that I’ll have more difficulties with the allopathic specialties I had in mind.

I have recalculated my GPA but due to the fact that I didn’t take any more science classes during my undergrad years, I’m only going off of rough estimates here and more on “If I get this grade then…”

My main question was whether I should give it a shot or not and I keep getting mixed answers here.

Regardless, I’ll give it a shot with a Postbaccalaureate program, try to get the best grades and highest Science GPA I can considering my past undergrad grades, and hope all goes well. Worst case scenario, I dont get into any medical school in the country (or DO for that matter) but at least I can quit knowing I gave it a shot.

11

OP, congratulations on your UG success and willingness to do a post bac. Med school is a marathon and it seems you are willing to do the additional work. Regarding specialties, I brought that up as that isn’t something you decide on going into med school. You can’t just say I want to go for Dermatology or Cardiology. You do rotations in various fields your third year of med school to see what your interests are. But your STEP scores and other factors are what decide what speciality you go into. Derm is one of those that requires very high STEP scores. You just can’t pick what you want to do, it is score based, along with other soft factors. I only say all of this because young premeds think you can go to school and just choose what speciality you go into. That’s not the way it works.

12

@WayOutWestMom is the poster that should be giving you advice. She is the expert on all things med school and can give you the most accurate information for you.

13

If you’re a non science major without the pre-med pre-reqs, then your case may be handled differently than if you’d been pre-med, depending on how well you do in your actual postbac science classes. Those two science gen ed classes will still amount to a C but typically the postbac science GPA isn’t mixed with the college gen ed science grades, so the C’s may be compartimentalized. Your ‘major’ and general GPA would be that of your college and your science GPA would be the actual science classes you’d take in the postbac science program.
There’s also a medical program in NYC that focuses on humanities graduates, I don’t remember its name.

14

Columbia, Penn, Bryn Mawr and Bennington, I believe, are a few schools that offer either an entire program for humanities graduates or a track for humanities graduates.

15

@Lily5311

Many universities offer post-bacc programs for non-science majors. (They’re called career-changer post-baccs.)

AAMC has a searchable database here: https://apps.aamc.org/postbac/#/index

Choose “career changer” as the type.

Or you can do a DIY post-bacc by enrolling as a non-degree seeking student at a local 4 year college and take any pre-reqs you’re missing… (My older D did her career-changer post-bacc that way.)


@CottonTales has given you the straight scoop--med schools require you to report every grade from every college level class you've ever taken--even from high school dual enrollment. And you cannot use grade replacement, even if your college allows it. You must report both grades and both are used to calculate your GPAs.

So your Fs in chem and bio will be included in your GPA/sGPA along with your retaken grades. 

Grades are reported by AMCAS/AACOMAS by year in college--so it will be clear to anyone who reads your application that the failures happened during freshman year. You will usually get some leniency for that, especially if your re-takes are As. (If you don't earn As on the retake--then you probably should rethink med school.)

@CottonTales is also correct that you do not pick a specialty before you start med school. The first 2 years are general medical education. You are required to rotate through every basic specialty during MS3 (pediatrics, internal medicine, psychiatry, neurology, OB/GYN. surgery, family medicine and, at some schools, emergency medicine)  and then are allowed to do electives in other areas during MS4. Your ability to match will depend on your standardized test scores (USMLEs) ,med school grades, med school class rank,  and letters of recommendation from your preceptors (teachers) in your hoped for specialty.

Unless you are willing to go into a primary field (family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics) don't go med school. Most med graduates end up in those fields.

(FYI, fewer than 2% of med grads match into derm--and they are among the strongest students in the country. Cardiology is a fellowship level program and requires that you first complete a 3 year long residency in general internal medicine first before you can even apply to cardiology.)

OP, if you’re serious about medicine as a career–before you start a post-bacc (which is going to cost you $$$)–have you done any physician shadowing? Any hospital or other clinical site volunteering?

Both will help you decide if you want to pursue this. Not everyone can handle dealing with the sick, injured, mentally ill, elderly demented or dying and their families on a day-to-day basis.

You’ll need both shadowing and clinical volunteering for a med school application anyway. Having the expected pre-med ECs are just as important as having a good GPA and a good MCAT score if you want to go to med school.

Pre-med ECs include: physician shadowing (esp. primary care), long term clinical volunteering where you have direct patient contact (“close enough to smell the patient”), long term non-medical community service with the less fortunate, leadership roles in your activities. if you are interested in applying to top ranked med schools, you’ll also need some significant laboratory or clinical research experience because those schools are research intensive and highly value research experience in applicants.

Good luck on your journey!