Colorful Transcripts and Medical school

[ab2701]

How do medical schools view transcripts that have C's, B's and A's on them as opposed to those who have perfect to near perfect transcripts? I am especially worried as I fall in the former category and want to keep my options open for the future...im currently a first semester sophomore and would really like to receive some advice from some of you older premeds who have been in a similiar situation to me and have succeeded.

Furthermore, as I am a disadvantaged student with extenuating personal circumstances (terminally ill parent), will these factors in a way explainn these grades? Additionally, will I have to limit my choice of med school based on these grades even if I end up with a cum of 3.6+ (with a good mcat obv)...Cornell and Mount Sinai are two of my top choices....i would really appreciate a response. Thanks guys !

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[emttim]

How do medical schools view transcripts that have C's, B's and A's on them as opposed to those who have perfect to near perfect transcripts? I am especially worried as I fall in the former category and want to keep my options open for the future...im currently a first semester sophomore and would really like to receive some advice from some of you older premeds who have been in a similiar situation to me and have succeeded.

Furthermore, as I am a disadvantaged student with extenuating personal circumstances (terminally ill parent), will these factors in a way explainn these grades? Additionally, will I have to limit my choice of med school based on these grades even if I end up with a cum of 3.6+ (with a good mcat obv)...Cornell and Mount Sinai are two of my top choices....i would really appreciate a response. Thanks guys !

From everything I read, I don't see why you would have a problem applying anywhere if you ended up with a cumulative GPA of 3.6 or higher and a good MCAT...just make sure your ECs, LORs, and all those other inane abbreviations that only pre-meds give a crap about are good as well. I don't know how much leniency adcoms will give you for having a terminally ill parent you have to take of, but I have no experience in this, so I can't really offer any useful information on this.

The fact that you're a first semester sophomore puts you in good shape anyway...if you show an upward trend, that's going to look pretty good by itself, so adding a good overall GPA and MCAT on top of it should make you competitive.

 

[taponthecloud]

How do medical schools view transcripts that have C's, B's and A's on them as opposed to those who have perfect to near perfect transcripts?

Well, I think you know the answer to this...If you fall into the latter case, work harder to keep your grades consistently high so you'll end up with an upward trend.

Furthermore, as I am a disadvantaged student with extenuating personal circumstances (terminally ill parent), will these factors in a way explainn these grades?

I'm sorry about your family situation. If you believe a personal circumstance has significantly affected your academic performance, then you should think of how you will convey this to med schools in the most honest and straightforward manner. Don't, however, use this as a crutch.

 

[ab2701]

yea having a terminally ill parent did affect my academics tremendously last year. Furthermore, finances were severely limited for my parents because of this which caused me to work and help pay some of the household bills while attending college...i dont know if this really has any impact/effect on my application.

I really appreciate the responses. I just dont want any doors closed as Ive always been a dreamer and fortunately, at least for my undergrad college, I was able to land my dream school. Thus, im looking to do the same for grad if possible

 

[taponthecloud]

yea having a terminally ill parent did affect my academics tremendously last year. Furthermore, finances were severely limited for my parents because of this which caused me to work and help pay some of the household bills while attending college...i dont know if this really has any impact/effect on my application.

I don't understand what exactly you mean by this...?

I really appreciate the responses. I just dont want any doors closed as Ive always been a dreamer and fortunately, at least for my undergrad college, I was able to land my dream school. Thus, im looking to do the same for grad if possible

Well, dreaming aside, I think if you just focus on what you need to do (ie. get your grades up, prepare well for the MCAT, apply early, etc.) then you'll do fine in the application process.

 

[ab2701]

well, i was wondering whether working for more than just personal expenses would possibly label me as disadvantaged? Does being disadvantaged have any bearing whatsoever in the application process?

 

[taponthecloud]

well, i was wondering whether working for more than just personal expenses would possibly label me as disadvantaged? Does being disadvantaged have any bearing whatsoever in the application process?

Sounds like a good question for LizzyM... I didn't apply as disadvantaged, but I'm sure some SDNers did/have.

In your case, I doubt it will affect you negatively.. from what I've read.

 

[BloodySurgeon]

You know I think C's look much nicer on transcripts. They have that nice looking curvature to them that you just don't see in an A. Also, didn't a philosopher once argued that Cellar Door was one of the most beautiful combination of words in the English language. Well you cant spell Cellar Door without a C or a D here or there.

 

[Spin]

It varies from college to college, but I'm guessing that most places are willing to cut you at least little slack, especially if your experience helped you grow as a person and you've demonstrated that you can handle a tough courseload. I know that USF specifically provides a section on their secondary application for you to explain every grade you got that was B- or lower. If student #1 got a C in organic chemistry because he didn't figure out how to study until right before the final, and student #2 got a C because he worked 30 hours a week and had a sick family member, they'd definitely look more favorably on student #1.

As far as competing against the "perfect" transcripts, just keep your GPA in the competitive range and have an upward trend. You might also want to check out specific schools' websites to see what they say about C's, or even call them.

 

[aaj117]

So when most schools say they're looking at the "entire package", they're not lying. I have plenty of As, plenty of Bs, sprinkled with the occassional C. As long as you can prove to them that you are able to do the work and really want to be a doctor by doing well in required classes, doing very well on the MCAT, and having a lot of diverse activities both medically related and volunteering/community service, I think you will be fine; especially if you can in fact get it up to a 3.6. I know that my experiences have shown this, as my GPA is very low, but there are a lot of personal reasons just like you described. I managed to do well on my MCAT, though, and have a couple of thousand clinical hours on an ambulance and doing hospital rotations, as well as a lot of leadership and other ECs. Get close with a professor or two now. Don't look for pity, but make sure that they understand how your external situations are affecting your school progress and your GPA so that they can echo that in their LOR, how they know you are more than capable even though individual grades may not reflect it. You will definitely still have a shot at those schools with a couple of Cs. My old college roommate is an M1 at Cornell right now and she had a few, and I am interviewing there on thursday with more than my fair share of them.

 

[Jolie South]

on several of my secondary apps, there have been places to describe how i paid for college and if i was forced to contribute financially to the household as well.

these would be perfect places to explain your circumstances. it also goes to show that some schools really take this into account.

i particularly remember this about the baylor secondary.

 

[LizzyM]

well, i was wondering whether working for more than just personal expenses would possibly label me as disadvantaged? Does being disadvantaged have any bearing whatsoever in the application process?

In medical school application lingo, disadvantaged is a self-designation on the AMCAS application. It refers to your childhood (0-18 years of age). If you self-identifiy as disadvantaged, you are asked to answer a series of additional questions about family income, government support (answer "yes" if you lived in a housing project, received free school lunch, were on welfare, etc), whether you worked before 18 and if so, if the earnings were for other than your personal expenses, and how college expenses were covered (% from each of several sources including need based grants, merit based scholarshis, loans, personal funds, familiy contribution, etc).

Some adcoms will take into account that an applicant did not have some of the material resources enjoyed by many applicants.

I think that most applicants would agree that the applicant who had insufficient food and clothing as a child and who lived in crowded, substandard housing might have arrived in college at a disadvantage.

Working to help the family during college is a different situation and one that you can explain in the AMCAS essay. Don't inflate your involvement though - adcoms can see right through the applicant who claims to have provide 30 hours of care per week but was enrolled in a college 500 miles away at the time.

The adcom wants to avoid the applicant who is going to flunk out of school because of competing responsibilities.

 

[Maxprime]

How do medical schools view transcripts that have C's, B's and A's on them as opposed to those who have perfect to near perfect transcripts?

They don't like them as much as the perfect ones.

 

[gotmeds?]

They don't like them as much as the perfect ones.

I should also add that they prefer higher MCAT scores over lower scores.

 

[ab2701]

thanks for the many responses. I guess im a little paranoid right now as my grades are not up to par at the moment with some of the other premeds on this forum. However, this is unfortunately not due to my slacking than it has to do with family and financial problems (bankruptcy, poverty level income).

 

[Auron]

I should also add that they prefer higher MCAT scores over lower scores.

blasphemy