any advice would help

[hereandnowiamu]

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This is the situation:

After I graduated high school I attended Loyola University. I was there for a little over a week and was just unable to afford school as I was not getting any financial aid from them. Unfortunately, I did not know how to withdraw from classes so I just stopped going and called the university and told them that I would no longer be attending, they did not tell me that I needed to fill out paper work and said that it was fine. Then I started in at a small private university where I excelled, my gpa was 3.75. After a couple of semesters, I transfered to NIU. While at NIU my mom lost her job and needed me to come back home to support her, otherwise she was going to be thrown out. Since I was an EMT, I immediately stopped attending courses and moved back home t to work and help her pay the bills. I did not attend classes at NIU for more than a month, the add/drop deadline for this school did not pass and attendance records would show that I was not at any of my courses. I am currently talking out this issue with the Dean at NIU, I am pretty sure this is going to get resolved. However, according to Loyola I owe them like 13,000 dollars or else I cant get a transcript. And if it doesn't work out with NIU then I would have to pay 8,000 in order to get a transcript. Being the first person in my family to graduate high school and go to college sucks!
While at my current institution I have done extremely well and continue to hold a gpa of 3.7 with my science gpa a 3.98 having taken a lot of upper level biology courses. I am worried that I am going to have to send transcripts from the other universities and report them on AMCAS app. Are there any exceptions to the transcript policy? I don't mind reporting the schools as I will be completely honest with the issues I have had with college and my family/financial struggles but it would really hurt my gpa as those grades or lack thereof would be factored into my AMCAS gpa. What should I do?!!! I will not sacrifice my honesty and will tell med schools exactly what happened but I am just worried thats all...🙁

 

[prionsRbad]

You have to report all classes taken from all institutions you attended, sorry. If you don't send them in, you run the risk of being kicked out of med school for academic dishonesty when they find out. (It would be very easy to find out that you attended said schools).

The good news is if you are applying to DO schools, AACOMAS will let you replace grades if you retake the classes that you did bad in. They will take the most recent grade for a repeated course and it does not have to be from the same school . . . just a comparable course.

It sounds like your problems are mainly financial. I'm not sure what else you can do beside start paying the schools what you owe them.

Good Luck

 

[ThePiratesse]

That's a toughie. It sounds like you are handling as best as you can by trying to work it out with the schools. It would really suck to have to pay all that tuition. I'm not sure what you can do from an AMCAS standpoint.. unless you can contact them and ask them about your situation. Its good that NIU might work with you as far as getting your transcript. If Loyola doesn't budge, maybe you could work out some sort of payment plan in order to get them to release your transcript. I hope everything get resolved soon!

 

[DrMidlife]

Yikes. Prions is right - if there's a transcript, you have to submit it.

I can relate, sort of. I didn't get my bachelors until 16 years after I graduated high school, and I have 5 college transcripts. I had no clue what I was doing.

In your shoes, I would go door to door at both schools until I found people who would help wipe my record. I would write letters, send emails, and make it a job. Where I live, the multicultural center tends to be the best all-around source of information, and you might find a good guide there - how to present your case, how to form a plan of attack. I'd do two laps of each school (hit every administrator twice) and then pay for a lawyer to back me up on the third lap. Without exception, I would be very, very professional, respectful and positive in how I communicate.

You're not going to like this, but I think you should slow down your med school plans until this is resolved. These transcripts are a huge obstacle, and until removed, you're pretty much screwed.

Go get 'em.

 

[MaximusD]

Wow and I thought it was a pain in the ass that I had to fax some stupid form to PSU to release my transcripts for my HPSP app.

 

[hereandnowiamu]

Of course I will report these if after talking with AMCAS and asking if they would want the transcripts, if there are even transcripts... I think a better resolution to the situation is a compromise from Loyola to put W's on the transcript instead of F's or DW's. With that thought how would the DW's look? I imagine not too good, but I am able to explain the issues with my transcripts and further show that at my current institution I have excelled to on of the top students at the school and have an extensive list of ec's including vast amounts of research. How should I spin this in my personal statement... any suggestions?

 

[DrMidlife]

Of course I will report these if after talking with AMCAS and asking if they would want the transcripts, if there are even transcripts... I think a better resolution to the situation is a compromise from Loyola to put W's on the transcript instead of F's or DW's. With that thought how would the DW's look? I imagine not too good, but I am able to explain the issues with my transcripts and further show that at my current institution I have excelled to on of the top students at the school and have an extensive list of ec's including vast amounts of research. How should I spin this in my personal statement... any suggestions?

This does NOT go in your personal statement. Your personal statement is a marketing/sales document and it should talk about your strengths. Every app you fill out has space for "do you want to elaborate on any academic performance issues" and that's where this goes. And there, you humbly take responsibility for what happened, and by mentioning that you're a first gen college student, that's your CYA. There are also plenty of apps that specifically ask if you're a 1st gen college grad. Just make sure that your transcript is squeaky clean from here out.

AMCAS is not in charge of this issue. Each school can demand to see these transcripts. Various schools I've applied to have asked for separate submission of every document that went to AMCAS. A whole 'nother transcript submission is required before you matriculate at any school.

In my mind, your priorities with these transcripts should be:
1. Get the transcripts released, even if it costs you $20,000, and even if they have F's on them.
2. Get the F's changed to W's.
3. Get the tuition debt forgiven.

See what I'm saying? Most important is transcript release, next most important is not having F's, and money is least important. This is from the perspective that you could be $200k in debt on the other side of school, so what's $20k and/or the time to earn that money, if that's the only way to do it? You can explain F's, and/or repeat them away for DO schools, and you have to explain W's anyway. But having mysterious missing transcripts is a death sentence. You're up against 45,000 other applicants, and needing special consideration (unless you're URM or disabled) isn't reasonable.

I know this sounds really discouraging, but you have a lot of work to do, and it can be done.

 

[t-funk]

If you want to go to professional or graduate school, you will need to pay off your debts. Maybe you could take out extra in loans each semester and gradually pay them down over a couple of years. Maybe the schools will work with you and negotiate the debt. One way or another, they need to be paid off before you even think about applying.

Another thing is that you can expain what happened in your PS without mentioning anything negative. If you basically explain your circumstances which led you to the point where you are at and make yourself sound strong and determined, the adcoms will be able to infer that some sort of uncontrollable (even if it wasn't) and unfortunate circumstance happened to cause these Fs/Ws. You may need to retake, if you haven't already, any classes in which you got an F in to keep your GPA up to a 3.7. If you have cleaned your act up and not had any other issues since, many (not all) ADCOMS may be willing to overlook some of the things you did at 18 or 20 yrs old. Unfortunately for you, your situation sounds like it may take a few years to resolve. Don't give up and just keep plugging away.

 

[prionsRbad]

This does NOT go in your personal statement. Your personal statement is a marketing/sales document and it should talk about your strengths.

In my mind, your priorities with these transcripts should be:
1. Get the transcripts released, even if it costs you $20,000, and even if they have F's on them.
2. Get the F's changed to W's.
3. Get the tuition debt forgiven.

👍 I agree with DrMidlife here. This is exactly what I would do in terms of prioritizing.

I had a string of W's and a couple D's and F's on my transcripts and I did not mention it in my personal statement. I retook the classes and got A's and used the "additional information" box to explain my bad grades early on in college.

Good Luck