For Those Of You Thinking Of Posting A "i Got A C Thread..."

Good post.

That or a low GPA thread. Check out my thread in the postbac forum about special masters program as eternalrage suggested. I have a 3.2 GPA- only got one C but the majority of my grades were B-'s, B's with a few As here and there, yet still got into Tulane. Life is not over. It's how you deal with it, how you handle yourself and what you do to improve your situation that will ultimately shine.

Another thing that I've also noticed on the pre-allo boards especially, is that many individuals are ready to give it all up if they dont get into medical school as soon as possible. Many tend to forget that the average age of most medical schools stands somewhere around 24-25, many nontrads, many reapplicants, many fresh out of college. Its not the end of the world should you not attend medical school in your first pass. In fact, there was a thread here not too long ago where the OP finally got in after his third time applying to medical school. Just relax, and let life move on, and not get so weighted down by it. You'll get in if you're semi-smart about it, realistic, and ready to jump through many hoops to get there. Alot of getting in is just about how far you're willing to go to get into school.

thank you...perhaps ppl will stop posting the I got a C and now my life is ruined trends! hahaha I somehow still doubt it...but let this trend get a continuous bump throughout Dec and early Jan...when winter marks come up, because if we learned from this year's Aug MCAT, we gonna see a **** load of these trends pop up.

i'm surprised everyone has their transcripts memorized so well...i can't remember most of my classes past two semesters ago... albeit my transcript is an alphabet soup of craziness

I find this news relieving, and helpful. It almost seems that if you get any grade lower than an A, the doors of med school are shut on you.

to those who never made C's: yes you will get rejected by some schools too!

eternalrage said:

...I had six in my undergrad career. It does not keep you out from medical school. BUT you must either show an upward trend (if it is your freshman or sophomore years), and if there are subsequent courses in the same area of study, bust your arses for that A.

In addition, retaking the course may or may not be advisable. If you do poorly once more, you will dig yourself a deeper hole. Even if you do well, it does not cover your original score, and some schools may go as far as to disregard the new score or perhaps average the two. In any case, do well in the courses following it, or if you decide to retake.

If you have many, many C's, and you are a junior, senior, or graduate with a less than desirable premed GPA (ie under 3.5ish), then consider a post bacc program or a special masters program (SMP). This option may be offset with a strong MCAT score, but only maybe, and depends on the schools and the rest of your application. For further info on a post bacc or SMP, please visit the non trad forum, or do a search of the pre allos, or PM someone who discloses their enrollment in either of these options.

Excelsior!

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ER, your efforts are noble, but let's be honest about the reality that the "oh crap, I got a C" will never. ever. cease.

Ok, I got a C+ in Bio 101 and Chem 111, but A's in Bio 102, 221, 320, and two other bio courses. I also got A's in Chem 112, and both O-chems. My average is a 3.71. It also includes the retaken eco class I got a C- in, and I have an A in the next higher eco class. Can I get into competitive schools with this? I know a 3.71 is good, but I'm not sure if they're looking for people who have had a 3.7+ throughout undergrad. My GPA for the past semesters have been: 3.5, 3.14, 3.2, 4, 4, 4, and 4.0's in summer sessions. I don't want to waste money applying to a school that accepts 3.7+ students but wont accept me since I did poorly in the first classes. I'm just wondering.

NewYorkDoc said:

Ok, I got a C+ in Bio 101 and Chem 111, but A's in Bio 102, 221, 320, and two other bio courses. I also got A's in Chem 112, and both O-chems. My average is a 3.71. It also includes the retaken eco class I got a C- in, and I have an A in the next higher eco class. Can I get into competitive schools with this? I know a 3.71 is good, but I'm not sure if they're looking for people who have had a 3.7+ throughout undergrad. My GPA for the past semesters have been: 3.5, 3.14, 3.2, 4, 4, 4, and 4.0's in summer sessions. I don't want to waste money applying to a school that accepts 3.7+ students but wont accept me since I did poorly in the first classes. I'm just wondering.

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OH MY GOD...DID YOU MISS THE POINT OF THIS THREAD?! TROLL TROLL TROLL

*throws hands up in the air in DISBELIEF*

I know that I will have a good chance in getting into A medical school. I'm asking WHICH would I be a likely candidate at with 4 C's. If anyone is trolling the thread it would be you. I'm asking a valid question unlike you, calling me out when you have no idea.

NewYorkDoc said:

I know that I will have a good chance in getting into A medical school. I'm asking WHICH would I be a likely candidate at with 4 C's. If anyone is trolling the thread it would be you. I'm asking a valid question unlike you, calling me out when you have no idea.

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You're doing it wrong.

Timmythemic22 said:

You're doing it wrong.

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You could atleast be helpful and concise and define 'it'.

eternalrage said:

NewYork, just keep those grades climbing, try not to get more C's, if they press you about it in the future in interviews, tell the truth. Before we advise you, what is your science gpa?

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It's around 3.7 as well. These are the schools I'm applying to I'm wondering if the 4 C's, despite the final average of 3.71, will keep me out of: Duke, Vanderbilt, U Chicago, Washington U, Yale, Harvard, John Hopkins, U Penn, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Northwestern.

Do you have any second tier schools just in case?

NewYorkDoc said:

It's around 3.7 as well. These are the schools I'm applying to I'm wondering if the 4 C's, despite the final average of 3.71, will keep me out of: Duke, Vanderbilt, U Chicago, Washington U, Yale, Harvard, John Hopkins, U Penn, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Northwestern.

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Sorry if I was an ass, but I don't think everything is so cut and dry. Try for those schools and make sure you have some second tiers like Braluk said.

Also...if you have explanations for those C's...put that in your file...or address it in interviews...

And...I'm not completely clueless...I have a D and a C+ on my transcript and 3 B-s and a bunch of B's all over the place...but I still don't ask people about whether or not I'm in trouble. You just have to try and see what comes of it, and then if it doesn't work, then take more coursework - like a post bacc.

braluk said:

Do you have any second tier schools just in case?

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Of course, but my dream is to go to one of the schools I listed. I could always try for residency if this doesnt work. Is there are special section of the app's for explanation of grades?

Not specifically, there may be a section on the secondaries that asks you to provide any additional information that may not already be covered by whatever has been provided thus far, but that aside, I dont remember anything poignant that asks you to address certain grades.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this thread!

Also, if anyone ever visits the non-trad website (oldpremeds.org), you can find the story of OldManDave - one who went from sub 2.0 GPA (trasncripts peppered early with all available letters of the alphabet) and is now in an Anesthesiology residency at Dartmouth.

Oh, and he's one cool guy.

just to go along with the OP, i had 17 C's and 2 D's in my undergrad. yeah, i know nothing to brag about or anything (far from) but i've been admitted to a school so far. goes to show you yes, it is difficult but certainly not impossible. doing well in an SMP really did it for me and it can for you too, if you're willing to go the extra 10 miles.

I didn't have any Cs... But I did get a lovely D.

It hurts your GPA but if you other parts of the app is strong you should get at least 4-5 interviews if you apply to the right schools and enough of them. As usual, in state schools are your best chance.

Just went back and counted, I got 13 C's in college.

i think im going to postone in about 7 weeks, i hate calculus. s#)t is so pointless!

Dr. Josh said:

I think I'm getting a D; is my life over?

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I got 2 and still got in...its not over for you...but upward trend is definitely important.

this thread is meaningless once it gets off the first page.

3 F's 3 D's 4 W's and a handful of C's. Still waiting on that first acceptance, but it is possible.

QuantumMechanic said:

to those who never made C's: yes you will get rejected by some schools too!

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This bears repeating, for all of those reading the thread and feeling quite smug. Hell, I never even got a B and I got rejected or waitlisted at a ton of schools.

15 C's
5 D's
2 F's
2 Allopathic, Non-Carribean, Med School Acceptances.

jojocola said:

i think im going to postone in about 7 weeks, i hate calculus. s#)t is so pointless!

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Calculus is quite useful for doing pharmacokinetic calculations, particularly when dealing with things besides first-order elimination. You'll see it probably mostly in toxicology.

Dustbunny said:

Calculus is quite useful for doing pharmacokinetic calculations, particularly when dealing with things besides first-order elimination. You'll see it probably mostly in toxicology.

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Ok so besides knowing what a derivative is and how to use the quick equation for polynomials how is anything in calculus helpful. You learn all of that stuff in pre-calculus.

i got 6 C's (mol. bio, human phys, ochem, physics) and 1 c-. My average came right to a 3.1. And I got into a slew of schools, including some top schools. I got 14 interviews out of 20 applications. And I withdrew when I got into my top choice, UCSF.

I've only got one piece of advice... just do what you're passionate about. Don't do things only for medical school. Show commitment and followthrough, and if they see that, you'll be fine.

Think Big said:

15 C's
5 D's
2 F's
2 Allopathic, Non-Carribean, Med School Acceptances.

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you must have a story!

Better believe it Someday when I have time I'll post the whole thing.

TMP-SMX said:

Ok so besides knowing what a derivative is and how to use the quick equation for polynomials how is anything in calculus helpful. You learn all of that stuff in pre-calculus.

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I used to waste my time being angsty about things "I'll never use again" then I realized that it was a waste of my time and effort, STFU and did the work. I even had fun along the way sometimes.

Here's a thought: you're going to have rotations that you'll absolutely hate and never use what you might learn while on them. But you still have to do them, so why waste your effort whining? Just do the work and go do something fun when you're done. Complaining only increases the amount of time it takes to do something.

Time for a friendly reminder: some of the self-reported stuff on SDN should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

If you choose to swallow everything you read here as the gospel truth, at least have sufficient intellect to understand that statistical outliers like Think Big are an extreme exception to the rule.

Dustbunny said:

I used to waste my time being angsty about things "I'll never use again" then I realized that it was a waste of my time and effort, STFU and did the work. I even had fun along the way sometimes.

Here's a thought: you're going to have rotations that you'll absolutely hate and never use what you might learn while on them. But you still have to do them, so why waste your effort whining? Just do the work and go do something fun when you're done. Complaining only increases the amount of time it takes to do something.

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I wasn't complaining. I was responding to your post. I did horribly the first time around in calc II then got an A the second time around. You don't have to tell me to just do the work because I know how undergrad works by now much like all things in life. Also, I didn't have to take calculus I and II, I chose to.

eternalrage said:

The rule being "no one lies."

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Am I an exception to the rule? You bet
Am I lying? Not at all

I had some distance between undergrad and post-bac/grad school and, more importantly, when I went back to school I got in touch with my inner-gunner.

Think Big said:

Am I an exception to the rule? You bet
Am I lying? Not at all

I had some distance between undergrad and post-bac/grad school and, more importantly, when I went back to school I got in touch with my inner-gunner.

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don't sweat them. people on SDN just sometimes get mad when 3.8ers with 35s and + doesn't ensure acceptances. Outliers become outcasts because they're not the rule... but i happen to think that being not the rule or the norm is what made us 'outliers' get in in the first place.