bad first year, how can i make up?

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esprit88

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so, first time poster. im a biology major, pre-med, good grades, clinical and volunteer experience and other ECs. my freshman year i hated the school i was at (ive since transfered) and had a lot of personal issues. long story short, i had pretty awful grades, b's c's and d's. i was wondering how bad this would hurt my chances and if there is anything i can do to try and make up for it. haven't taken the MCAT yet. any advice?
 
Um, to be blunt, it will obviously hurt your chances quite a bit. You knew that.

Here's what you have to do. Any D's that you made in the pre-med pre-reqs (Chem, Bio, Physics, Calc, English) will have to be retaken, and I strongly suggest retaking any C's as well; even someone with a 3.9 cGPA will have an immediate red flag if they got a C or lower in something like Intro Chem. Other than that, you know what you have to do: get a 3.7-4.0 the rest of the way out. It's tough, but if you can pull that and get your GPA up to a 3.5 or so, schools will notice your upward trend; it won't be as good as if you'd made a 3.7 the whole way, but you'll get some consideration.

Also, fall of your junior year, start studying for the MCAT, as you'll want an above average score to balance out your below average GPA. Aside from all that, keep up with your clinical ECs; it's great that you started freshman year, and if you can keep those going all 4 years you'll have more experience than most applicants. If you can get involved in research somehow, do it, that always looks really good. Make sure every winter and summer break between now and when you graduate you're doing something medically related to really get a list of ECs that will wow an adcom and get them to want to look a bit beyond your GPA.

I can't stress enough how important it is that you kick your studying into high gear starting today. Luckily you've "woken up" after just one year and thirty hours or so of credits, and not after 4 years and 120 hours. One poor year is fixable.
 
If I were you I'd establish the mental set point that nothing is acceptable other than straight As from this point onward. Even a B will set back your progress in repairing your GPA. As you repeat those classes with bad grades, keep in mind that GPA repair goes faster if you apply to DO schools, because they' replace a bad grade with the grade you got on a retake. If you apply to MD schools, they will average the bad and good grade together.
 
Keep in mind that you'll have to retake any D's that are in med school pre-reqs or you won't get credit for them. Also, DO schools will only count your most recent grades for classes you retake. All is not lost for MD, but that should relieve at least a little bit of the pressure you're probably feeling. Like Spurs said, one bad year is fixable. Kick some butt from here on out, and you'll probably have a shot.
 
yeah, my grades have been straight a's since, and i've scheduled time to retake the classes that i got c's and d's in. thanks for the advice/support! anything other than fixing those grades and getting great grades from now on that i can do to up my chances? thanks!
 
To up your chances: Continue with your volunteerism and clinical experiences, start some shadowing when able. Display leadership, and consider getting research experience. Plan ahead to get good letters of reference.
 
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