Am I doomed?

[Silvari]

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To begin with, I 'flunked out' of High School. Straight F's all along the board. Never took the SAT or ACT, and have never done any volunteer service hours.
I've been at a community college for...3 years (or so it says on my transcript). I took time off after my first semester to work full-time. My first few semesters after that I didn't know what field I would go into, and Withdrew from 3 of the 5 courses. In total, I have about 4 W's (possibly more after the Fall 🙁), but have a 3.7o GPA. However, I've always heard that Withdraws on transcripts look like F's to adcoms. Is this true? And also, from my first college years and my record, am I doomed to get into medical school?

 

[theseeker4]

To begin with, I 'flunked out' of High School. Straight F's all along the board. Never took the SAT or ACT, and have never done any volunteer service hours.
I've been at a community college for...3 years (or so it says on my transcript). I took time off after my first semester to work full-time. My first few semesters after that I didn't know what field I would go into, and Withdrew from 3 of the 5 courses. In total, I have about 4 W's (possibly more after the Fall 🙁), but have a 3.7o GPA. However, I've always heard that Withdraws on transcripts look like F's to adcoms. Is this true? And also, from my first college years and my record, am I doomed to get into medical school?

If you actually know you have settled on medicine as a career, and dedicate yourself to getting good grades in all the classes needed for a Bachelor's degree and medical school admission, you can make it to medical school. W's may be treated by some schools as F's, but for GPA calculation purposes, they don't exist. Get into a school with a bachelor's program, get a degree in anything you want, get all the pre-req's done while maintaining your 3.7 GPA (or even improving it) and get a good MCAT score, and you have a great chance at getting into medical school. That said...

Why do you want to be a doctor? Do you have any clinical experience, shadowing, hospital volunteering, etc.? If not, start there, and find out if you really want to be a doctor. This is the first step, to decide exactly what you want to do, and know why you want to do it. Keep volunteering throughout your undergraduate career.

Be able to describe why you dropped so many classes when asked by Admission Committee members. Don't drop other classes from now on (other than for true emergencies) and better yet, only register for classes that you actually want and/or need to take. Why are you going to have more W's this semester? You need to stop this if you really want to go to medical school. W's when you are not sure what you want to do are one thing, but random W's (i.e. not due to medical/family issues) should be rare or non-existent. Some at the beginning of your college career won't bar you from medical school, but if you keep withdrawing a class or two every semester, it shows you can't handle college work, so you definitely wouldn't be able to handle med school (in the eyes of adcoms.) Good luck.

 

[stsa84]

am I doomed to get into medical school?

No, you're not doomed to get into medical school. If you work hard and get very lucky, you might be able to avoid this path. 😉

Anyway, if you reverse your trends and excel in the rest of the work (classes, MCAT, EC's) you have to do before applying, you'll be fine. And a "W" isn't viewed as an F if it truly is a "W", not a "WF". If you withdrew before midterm, it won't factor into your GPA, and you should just be able to explain why it happened.

 

[Silvari]

Some of the W's are from not having enough time to dedicate to the course. The others are from medical reasons. I go to the hospital for about a week once or twice a year...it really messes up my schedule and grade. 🙁

 

[Dawn1980]

I disagree.

I used to sit on the admissions committee at my medical school, and a W (note: singular) was definitely frowned upon let alone several Ws (which I've never encountered from an applicant, but that could be chance). I'm not a fortune teller, but I can advise you that you'll need to be extremely prepared to discuss it at great length during interviews.

 

[theseeker4]

I disagree.

I used to sit on the admissions committee at my medical school, and a W (note: singular) was definitely frowned upon let alone several Ws (which I've never encountered from an applicant, but that could be chance). I'm not a fortune teller, but I can advise you that you'll need to be extremely prepared to discuss it at great length during interviews.

Assuming you were responding to my comment, I wasn't implying that W's are completely ignored by Adcoms, just in the GPA calculations. I did state that the OP shouldn't get any more, and that getting good grades with no W's from now on would mean their quest for medical school admission was not doomed, not that they wouldn't ask about it.

 

[Dawn1980]

@theseeker: Sorry for the ambiguity. I was responding to stsa84's latter comment.

 

[zwitterion34]

I think if you have an upward trend you might still have a chance.

Also did anyone else think "Am I doo med?" For some reason those three letters were sticking out to me. I guess I spent too much on SDN... 😎

 

[stsa84]

I disagree.

I used to sit on the admissions committee at my medical school, and a W (note: singular) was definitely frowned upon let alone several Ws (which I've never encountered from an applicant, but that could be chance). I'm not a fortune teller, but I can advise you that you'll need to be extremely prepared to discuss it at great length during interviews.

theseeker4, explaining for himself, explained my post as well. I wasn't implying that they don't matter, merely that they're not insurmountable. Put the past behind you, earn the grades/scores/EC's/letters to prove you're a different person today, and med school acceptance isn't unobtainable.

 

[Drogo]

To begin with, I 'flunked out' of High School. Straight F's all along the board. Never took the SAT or ACT, and have never done any volunteer service hours.
I've been at a community college for...3 years (or so it says on my transcript). I took time off after my first semester to work full-time. My first few semesters after that I didn't know what field I would go into, and Withdrew from 3 of the 5 courses. In total, I have about 4 W's (possibly more after the Fall 🙁), but have a 3.7o GPA. However, I've always heard that Withdraws on transcripts look like F's to adcoms. Is this true? And also, from my first college years and my record, am I doomed to get into medical school?

This is a major drawback for you right now. In my eyes you can still shine in regard to GPA and proving to yourself and others those W's were due to mistakes and health reasons; and by taking some higher level bio courses and acing them you'll redeem yourself a bit, by how much depends on the school though.

You have a tremendous amount of hard work ahead of you though.

DO schools are a bit more lenient (not saying they're a lot easier to get into) toward some things. I've heard straight from the advisor for MSUCOM about some students who have taken the MCAT over 4-5 times and still got in fine.

The DO route might be your best option. My two cents.

 

[LawlasaurusRex]

If you put in couple more years of hard work, get fantastic grades and cut the withdrawing trend completely, I'm sure you'll have a good chance dependent on the rest of your application being solid. People have come back from worse, but it will add a few more years of dedicated work, time management, good decisions and great planning to put you back on track. These W's won't erase themselves overnight (not that they will ever be really excused for). You do need to transfer over to a 4-year college though. The rigor of community college programs are usually not up-to-par with formal colleges. Also, get into volunteering and some other EC gigs on the side. The admissions board will want to see that you have matured, and can manage your time properly with a "heavy" schedule of commitments. Nobody can predict for you that all this advice will get you into med school, but if you truly want to go into medicine and work hard despite all the ups and downs, it could come true (but no promises).

 

[Silvari]

Thank you guys for your input! Much appreciated 🙂

 

[typicalindian]

I disagree.

I used to sit on the admissions committee at my medical school, and a W (note: singular) was definitely frowned upon let alone several Ws (which I've never encountered from an applicant, but that could be chance). I'm not a fortune teller, but I can advise you that you'll need to be extremely prepared to discuss it at great length during interviews.

Does it matter what type of course the W was received in? Like if it was a humanities course is it frowned upon less than a W in a science course?

 

[URHere]

Doomed? No. But you have a very long road in front of you. Specific thoughts are below.

To begin with, I 'flunked out' of High School. Straight F's all along the board. Never took the SAT or ACT

This may be a problem for you when it comes to getting into a 4 year college and earning a bachelor's degree. Do you have a GED? If not, you will probably need to get one and take the SAT/ACT before most schools will consider you.

and have never done any volunteer service hours.

Worry about getting in to a school that offers a bachelors degree before you start getting hung up on community service and shadowing hours. It will likely take you years to get to the point where you really need that kind of volunteer experience.

I've always heard that Withdraws on transcripts look like F's to adcoms. Is this true? And also, from my first college years and my record, am I doomed to get into medical school?

Having a number of "W"s on your transcript isn't going to look good...but it will be less of a problem if you get into a four year school and maintain solid grades (without any more "W"s) for a few years. You stand a better chance of explaining away your poor performance if you can show that you have fixed the problem.

Just keep in mind that, although you've been at community college for a few years, you haven't really started the pre-med process yet. In many ways you may have to rewind back to high school and start over. If you are willing to do that, and you think you can keep your grades up despite your medical problems/time constraints/etc, then you have a good chance of getting into medical school.

 

[just one]

I had a similar situation where I had numerous Ws at a community college (three in one semester and twice in the same class). Never once got asked about it at interviews. Got into both of the schools I applied to.

 

[Silvari]

I had a similar situation where I had numerous Ws at a community college (three in one semester and twice in the same class). Never once got asked about it at interviews. Got into both of the schools I applied to.

Awesome! and Congrats btw~ 😀