So my final semester of college has been pretty rough for me. I ended up with a C and a C+ in two of my classes (both science classes), and my other two classes were P/NP (passed both of them). My GPA will still be above a 3.6 and my MCAT is 33 (10/14/9). How badly will my poor final semester grades affect me? Should I consider a post bacc? I'm afraid schools will look at it as "senioritis," but in reality I was going through a lot personally and emotionally (coming to terms with my sexuality, coming out to family/friends, long-distance breakup). Any help is appreciated!
2 C's in final semester?
- Thread starter quokka
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What's your year by year breakdown? And what's your sGPA?
I was freaking out about this too not too long ago but I think if you're still above a 3.6 you should be okay.
I was freaking out about this too not too long ago but I think if you're still above a 3.6 you should be okay.
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The adcoms can probably offer better advice here! How bad are downward trends if the GPAs are still competitive? @Goro @gyngyn @Catalystik
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AdCom members are human beings. Just do your best to explain your situation, if specifically asked.
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My own Adcom members tend to be pretty harsh about declining grade trends, unless there's a good medical reason or a family disaster.
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If this decline in grades has only occurred in your final semester, I'd say that you should be prepared to address it in interviews; it may come up if you have an otherwise good enough application to warrant some interviews. However, it sounds like the nature of the reasons aren't likely enough to warrant mentioning in a personal statement, but you might be able to use it if a school's secondary application asks you for an essay about "your greatest challenge."
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This is a really tough call and to be completely honest yes the downward trend is a red flag. Keep in mind it's one thing for someone with a 3.6 to end up with a 3.45 their last semester; that can be managed. But what you are saying is a whole different level. You literally have a 2.2 with 4 classes and two of them pass/fail. That's a really bad thing to have in your first semester nonetheless your last
Regardless of your reasons and how valid they are in terms of crippling your performance this will still be a problem at many med schools. What makes this tricky is every med school is going to look at this differently. Now this is largely guessing how it'll come across specifically to med schools but the key idea is you have to consider all possible ways of how a med school could look at this even if it is guess work largely
Some might find a way to look past it. Some taking another semester might help alleviate concerns. Some a full year. And then there could be some where you basically have to start over in terms of proving yourself academically perhaps and that might even be more than a year to get them to look past that 2.2. Again this is all just me trying to come up with potential scenarios and this obviously could all be wrong but you have to think of every possible scenario here also in terms of how a med school might look at this.
A 3.6/34 is solid. There are obviously slot of other factors in your life which complicate this and they will be interpreted differently by different med schools. I have to kind of recommend a Post bacc if possible. If there one thing clear about admission its that adcoms are interested in how you are doing now at the time of the application and that all your past problems are behind you. A 2.2 will not make it look like they are. While every school will look at the 2.2 differently a strong post bacc year(which you are very capable of if committed) will definitely help ease a lot of concerns about your app and I think is worth the effort. The risk of applying now with that red flag and getting shut out is just far too significant to not try to account for imo
Regardless of your reasons and how valid they are in terms of crippling your performance this will still be a problem at many med schools. What makes this tricky is every med school is going to look at this differently. Now this is largely guessing how it'll come across specifically to med schools but the key idea is you have to consider all possible ways of how a med school could look at this even if it is guess work largely
Some might find a way to look past it. Some taking another semester might help alleviate concerns. Some a full year. And then there could be some where you basically have to start over in terms of proving yourself academically perhaps and that might even be more than a year to get them to look past that 2.2. Again this is all just me trying to come up with potential scenarios and this obviously could all be wrong but you have to think of every possible scenario here also in terms of how a med school might look at this.
A 3.6/34 is solid. There are obviously slot of other factors in your life which complicate this and they will be interpreted differently by different med schools. I have to kind of recommend a Post bacc if possible. If there one thing clear about admission its that adcoms are interested in how you are doing now at the time of the application and that all your past problems are behind you. A 2.2 will not make it look like they are. While every school will look at the 2.2 differently a strong post bacc year(which you are very capable of if committed) will definitely help ease a lot of concerns about your app and I think is worth the effort. The risk of applying now with that red flag and getting shut out is just far too significant to not try to account for imo
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Nice post.
Keep in mind that AMCAS GPAs are listed year-by-year, so a 4.0 in the fall term would moderate a spring term GPA of 2.2 up to a 3.1+, but still that's going to stand out in a negative way, causing a microanalysis of the year's grades on the provided transcript. What will be found would not reflect well.
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I'll say you clearly are capable of doing quite well when you aren't dealing with such issues(if you have above a 3.6 even after that semester you probably had above a 3.65 before it). That's part of the reason you should do a post-bac. You want to be judged based on your accomplishments and what reflects you. A year in post-bac of doing well like you have in the past and there's a much better chance you will be judged on the work you have done most of college not that 1 semester than you would be applying as is.
