Are my chances low

[Needhelp87]

I am attending at COD which is a community college and I was wondering what my chances are getting into med school (MD). I am currently a junior in a community college due to the fact that I switched major. My current GPA is 2.7 and I haven't taken any pre-req classes because I was planning on taking it in a 4 year college instead. The reason my GPA is so bad has to due with my 1st year I got a GPA 1.8, but since then my grades gone up dramaticly. So my question is should I retake some classes to raise my GPA then take the pre req in a 4 year college and get all A's to raise my grade and do well on MCAT......so do i have a chance or am i fooling myself eventhough my GPA is low and to make matter worse from a commumity college or do i still have time to improve? if so how?

Any criticism is good....thank you

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[FinchHead]

Are my chances low?

Yes.

should I retake some classes to raise my GPA

I would not bother retaking, unles s you are applying D.O. Just take more classes.

then take the pre req in a 4 year college and get all A's to raise my grade and do well on MCAT

Doesn't really matter if you take them at a 4 year or at the CC, as long as you do take hard science classes at the 4 year.

so do i have a chance or am i fooling myself?

A slight one, that could improve if you do very well from now on (3.9-4.0), or could decline if you do just alright or the same (3.0-3.5).

 

[Needhelp87]

can you explain why i should'nt retake my classes if i want to apply for a med school that isnt (DO)? also i caculated if i did retake serveral classes and A's them which shouldnt be hard at all...my GPA would be a 3.2 not including the pre req classes which i plan on A'sing. (Also i have about 72 credit hours)

 

[Perrotfish]

AMCAS does not allow you to replace grades, so if you retake a class and get an A it only averages the two grades together. In general, you should probably only retake a class if you have less than a C in it.

DO schools do allow you to replace grades, so if you´re applying there you should retake classes.

Your chances are low, yes, though it is doable. Even with a good GPA (I wouldn´t bank on straight As if you previously got a 1.8) you´re going to need a spectacular MCAT and probably an SMP to get into medical school.

 

[DrMattOglesby]

hey there,
i attended a community college and then transferred to a 4-year but majored in psychology so i didnt get many pre-reqs for med school completed.

i came back from my out of state (and hi tuition) university to my community college so i could afford to take classes outside of my major (the premed classes).


I have a really good GPA (3.65) and a science GPA of 3.82. I have always been swayed to something more like osteopathic medicine (chiropractic) so I am applying to osteo schools.
It is also my understanding that allopathic (MD) schools won't really bother to consider the majority of my premed courses since they were completed at my community college.

 

[RxnMan]

OP - The comments by other posters is correct. Work by taking more classes, not retakes. AMCAS (the MD application service) averages everything together. AACOMAS (the DO service) will replace old class grades with the latest retake's grade.

On the CC question, I don't know. I have read the SDN mantra that 4-yr college degree classes > CC, but I haven't heard anything else from any other source. Try looking through the Pre-Allo board for more and better answers.

 

[FinchHead]

To clarify, they don't average them. That indicates that for reatking a 5 credit class, first an F then an A, you end up with 5 units of C. They don't average them, they just count both. So, it would be 5 units of F and 5 of A.

 

[RxnMan]

To clarify, they don't average them. That indicates that for reatking a 5 credit class, first an F then an A, you end up with 5 units of C. They don't average them, they just count both. So, it would be 5 units of F and 5 of A.

So if an A = 4.0, and an F = 1.0, five units of each would be ( 4 x 5 + 1 x 5 ) / 10 = 2.5? Isn't that a weighted average?

 

[DrMattOglesby]

an F = 0.0
not 1.0

recall;
A = 4.0
B = 3.0
C = 2.0
D = 1.0
F = 0.0

 

[RxnMan]

an F = 0.0
not 1.0

recall;
A = 4.0
B = 3.0
C = 2.0
D = 1.0
F = 0.0

Yes, but the math and my point still hold true - "averaging" and "just counting both" are the same thing, and Finch's comment is really just a restatement of what I said.

 

[travoltage]

alright listen to me...forget whatever anyone else said, i didnt bother to read everyone else's opinions....

you have a low cc gpa, but you dont even have a regular college gpa. go to a 4 yr university, take all the classes and get a degree...but do good in all of them, take your mcat while ur there and ull get accepted no doubt about it. the only thing that sucks for you is that youll be older by the time u get into med school compared to ur classmates, but who cares, youre still going to become a doctor...

 

[HU34ESw]

I am attending at COD which is a community college and I was wondering what my chances are getting into med school (MD). I am currently a junior in a community college due to the fact that I switched major. My current GPA is 2.7 and I haven’t taken any pre-req classes because I was planning on taking it in a 4 year college instead. The reason my GPA is so bad has to due with my 1st year I got a GPA 1.8, but since then my grades gone up dramaticly. So my question is should I retake some classes to raise my GPA then take the pre req in a 4 year college and get all A's to raise my grade and do well on MCAT......so do i have a chance or am i fooling myself eventhough my GPA is low and to make matter worse from a commumity college or do i still have time to improve? if so how?

Any criticism is good....thank you

Right now your chances are negligent, obviously you can't get into medical school with a 2.7 GPA (although I have heard crazy stories of people getting in with GPA's this low -- but it's a very tiny majority with very special circumstances). The good news is you still have time and it sounds like you're willing to do the work. I would suggest concentrating on applying to a traditional college, and once there, start your prerequisite courses along with other courses of interest to you and pertinent to medical school. If you make the effort, and maintain a 3.8/4.0 GPA throughout, you should be able to raise your GPA to an overall 3.3 in 7 to 8 full time semesters. A 3.3 is at the bottom of the competitive scale but it's still competitive. If you do well on the MCAT and round out the rest of your application with solid volunteer work, etc. you would have a good application (but not a guarantee). It's a lot of work, but manageable.

My freshman year I partied full time and earned a GPA of 1.9. My sophomore year I maintained a B average and after that a 4.0 for my last four semesters of school. My cumulative is about 3.2 right now, when I finish my pre-reqs I should have just over a 3.4. The important thing is my overall grade trend is A and has been/will be for the last 100 credits I've earned at school. If you can maintain this kind of momentum you'll have a competitive application -- with D.O. being an even stronger possibility.

Best

 

[dtdd]

...What's an SMP?

 

[RxnMan]

...What's an SMP?

Special Masters Program. There's a whole forum dedicated to them just a little further down the main page.

 

[MaximusD]

Why the hell would he/she take a SMP? Just take the prereq courses and do well in them. If you haven't taken any yet, you still have the opportunity to ace them, take the MCAT and become a doc. Good luck.

 

[gman33]

This is in the wrong forum. OP hasn't applied before.

 

[ChimpanzeeMinky]

I would suggest that it would be worthwhile to retake the prerequisites even if you are planning on going the MD route for a couple of reasons. True, AMCAS is not going to give you a pass on your previous grades, but demonstrating that you can score As in a number of classes in which you scored poorly before is still valuable. Remember, it is not just the overall GPA they are looking at; they will be looking at individual classes, and the ones most closely scrutinized are going to be the premed prereqs. If you are able to raise your overall GPA, yet still have to record low grades in prereqs (and on some secondaries they ask you to list these separately, so they will be quite glaring there), it still raises significant question as to whether you are prepared for medical school. They are prereqs for a reason.

The other reason that it's worthwhile to retake them is that it will be a great aid to you on your MCAT. If you are instead taking high level classes in other subjects (and most likely sciences to raise your BCPM), it's going to be very difficult to put forth the required effort to get the high MCAT score that you will *definitely* need at this point. By retaking all of my prereqs, including even those in which I had done reasonably well first time around, I was both rectifying my prior record and preparing to hit the MCAT out of the park. Coupled with a good prep course, I did just that.

Retake the courses and kill two birds with one stone. But just as everyone else indicated here, you had better do it at 100%, because there is no longer any room for error here.