Does a bad semester kill your chances at a top-20?

[DendWrite]

Does having a bad semester (~3.0, 15 credits) ruin your chances at a top-20 if you manage to bring your GPA up to the average for applicants at that school? In other words, if you have this bad semester early but show improvement over the next few semesters and have the same GPA as average applicants, will this be looked down upon? I'm a sophomore right now, and have been working 40 hrs. / week this semester and it's left me with little time to sufficiently prepare for a lot of my classes.

Thanks.

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[rockaction]

Statistically speaking, you probably won't get into a top 20 medical school anyway. Very few people do.

 

[apumic]

Statistically speaking, you probably won't get into a top 20 medical school anyway. Very few people do.

^That.


Actually, statistically speaking, you probably won't get into a med school at all, most people don't.

 

[sully677]

Statistically speaking, you probably won't get into a top 20 medical school anyway. Very few people do.

Harsh, rock!

 

[rockymhs]

^That.


Actually, statistically speaking, you probably won't get into a med school at all, most people don't.

Another excellent point!

But doesn't about a third of applicant each cycle get into med school according to MSAR? I was surprised by this number. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[DendWrite]

Yes, medical school admissions are competitive. Excellent points. But could you please address the question?

 

[Contrarian]

no one is going to say it kills your chances, because it won't. all it does is make your already narrow chances narrower.

 

[mmmcdowe]

No, and I like your name.

Worry about working as hard as possible (and think about quitting the job if you want a better chance of bringing your GPA up), worry about what schools to apply to in the end. I didn't even think about top 20 vs state school vs x vs y until after the MCAT.

 

[FasterThanAll]

Well, low cumulative science and overall GPAs are looked down upon. They won't care about the fall '09 semester, individually.
: )

 

[rahmadi]

Top 20 doesn't mean anything, literally.
As long as none of the grades are below a C, it won't matter if your cGPA is significantly higher when you apply.

How bad does it look if you got a C- in a class? Assuming your GPA is fine.

 

[rockaction]

Harsh, rock!

haha. getting my second B in college is bringing me down.

don't worry about it, OP. just do your best.

 

[JJMrK]

One semester's worth of mediocre grades is less important than its overall effect on your GPA.

 

[TheMightySmiter]

How bad does it look if you got a C- in a class? Assuming your GPA is fine.

It's not great, but hopefully it's in a random elective rather than a prereq. Won't tank you, though.

 

[Physics of Math]

1) A lot of the "most people don't" comments are not completely accurate. The reports that show overall applied/acceptance ratios are seriously flawed because they include all people who apply to medical school, not just people that have a chance, want to go, and completed all the pre-reqs. It's rather primitive actually.

Plenty of people get into top-20 schools, just not a high statistical percent.

2) GPA is important in the same way actually going to a college is important. If it's really bad it will kill you, otherwise its weight diminishes with the inverse of your other application indicators (MCAT, job, ECs, portfolio, etc.) In other words, the better everything else is, the less they will care about a GPA: especially one that isn't badly messed up.

Getting into medical school (a good one) is a lot like dating a perfect/amazing/excellent women. You need to avoid any deal breakers, be up to par with the competation, and then have something that makes them want you.

Also, assuming you are working 40/hrs for a reason, you can actually make a lower GPA work to your advantage. Most medical schools (yes, even good ones) are quite understanding when it comes to working for a living.

 

[mmmcdowe]

1) A lot of the "most people don't" comments are not completely accurate. The reports that show overall applied/acceptance ratios are seriously flawed because they include all people who apply to medical school, not just people that have a chance, want to go, and completed all the pre-reqs. It's rather primitive actually.

Plenty of people get into top-20 schools, just not a high statistical percent.

They are also not completely appropriate.

Anyways, "Most people don't" is the same as saying "not a high statistical percent." Further, I assume that everyone who applies to medical school wants to go and are done or almost done with the pre-reqs. Since we can not assume that any given person is going to be in the "has a chance" category out of the many pre-meds I don't see anything wrong with including all applicants. In fact, I would say the numbers that we see are actually too optimistic since they can not account for the many people that didn't continue pre-med due to poor performance or poor study habits.

 

[FlowRate]

I believe the infamous AAMC ORM and URM grids give a good indication of how many % of "not uncompetitive" applicants get in. (I'd ballpark ~80% of applicants moderately competitive or better)

edit: and, as noted below, the whole idea of SDN is figuring out how to make yourself competitive. BTW, I like the SN, "Techno" =)

 

[Techno]

For general admission guidelines, sdn is GREAT, but no one on here knows exactly how things could play out with a specific application. Just work to the best of your ability!

 

[Physics of Math]

They are also not completely appropriate.

Anyways, (1)"Most people don't" is the same as saying "not a high statistical percent." Further, (2)I assume that everyone who applies to medical school wants to go and are done or almost done with the pre-reqs. Since (3)we can not assume that any given person is going to be in the "has a chance" category out of the many pre-meds I don't see anything wrong with including all applicants. In fact, I would say the numbers that we see are actually too optimistic since they can not account for the many people that didn't continue pre-med due to poor performance or poor study habits.

Your assumptions are wrong. Not to sound mean, but for my game theory class "thesis" I researched factors impacting medical school admission.

(1) Sort of true, but after you factor out the people who shouldn't count, the rejection rate isn't as drastic as it appears.

(2) Sadly(stupidly), this isn't the case. A good deal of people apply due to family pressure or out of a desire to help others, amount to something, etc. Also, there's a reason so many medical schools have a "no exceptions" policy with pre-reqs. For whatever reason, some applicants still think they can get in even if they don't follow the rules.

(3) Yes you can...a 1.85 gpa 16mcat with no mitigating circumstances is not getting into medical school. Also, depending on the school, applicants who start to apply, but don't finish, are "rejected". As a personal example, I never finished my an undergraduate application to Cornell, but I still received a rejection letter.

The game theory behind admission is fascinating. Run a correlation parse over mdapplicants.com and you'd be surprised what comes up. For the most part, people consider slightly above the school average to be the same as "competitive", but this just isn't true.

I should write a book: what medical schools really want.

 

[FlowRate]

The game theory behind admission is fascinating. Run a correlation parse over mdapplicants.com and you'd be surprised what comes up. For the most part, people consider slightly above the school average to be the same as "competitive", but this just isn't true.

I should write a book: what medical schools really want.

Is it more like 1 stdev above the average?

 

[rahmadi]

It's not great, but hopefully it's in a random elective rather than a prereq. Won't tank you, though.

I got a C- in a prereq class (introductory biochem). I took later courses in biochem though and got A's and B's in them. Is it worth retaking the class even tho it wont affect my GPA?

 

[Physics of Math]

Is it more like 1 stdev above the average?

A little... stdev isn't really all that useful on (a) tight data (b) [[c]] data

Roughly each point above the average linearly increase your chances of acceptance, and each point below exponentially decreases your chances.

"Competitive" is usually 3-4 points above the average. Remember, at most colleges there really isn't much of a data spread. Harvard doesn't accept a lot of 20's and 45's to get their average. Instead, the average is usually the score the overwhelming number of people received, making it an absolute average.

You should consider taking a class or two in game theory,it is really cool, and should count for BCMP.

 

[mmmcdowe]

Your assumptions are wrong. Not to sound mean, but for my game theory class "thesis" I researched factors impacting medical school admission.

(1) Sort of true, but after you factor out the people who shouldn't count, the rejection rate isn't as drastic as it appears.

(2) Sadly(stupidly), this isn't the case. A good deal of people apply due to family pressure or out of a desire to help others, amount to something, etc. Also, there's a reason so many medical schools have a "no exceptions" policy with pre-reqs. For whatever reason, some applicants still think they can get in even if they don't follow the rules.

(3) Yes you can...a 1.85 gpa 16mcat with no mitigating circumstances is not getting into medical school. Also, depending on the school, applicants who start to apply, but don't finish, are "rejected". As a personal example, I never finished my an undergraduate application to Cornell, but I still received a rejection letter.

The game theory behind admission is fascinating. Run a correlation parse over mdapplicants.com and you'd be surprised what comes up. For the most part, people consider slightly above the school average to be the same as "competitive", but this just isn't true.

I should write a book: what medical schools really want.

No you can't. What I meant by what I said is that you can not look at someone freshman year of college and say you won't be able to get into medical school. Thus, the number of applicants is going to be a lot lower than all of the people who took a crack at getting into medical school and fell by the wayside. Further, why would you remove the non-competitive people from the statistics? The fact that they are non-competitive is important because it shows just how few people who try for medical school get in. I wish there was a way to include all of the people who self selected out of medical school applications because of low gpa and mcat so that people see how few of the hopefuls (which is higher than those who apply, competitive or not) actually end up making it into medical school. Are you meaning that you are trying to show statistically how well people that are competitive for medical school do? Then I could see wanting to remove the non-competitive people. Once again though this statistic won't help any given freshman pre-med because he or she won't know if competitiveness is within his or her grasp.

 

[dru2002]

A little... stdev isn't really all that useful on (a) tight data (b) [[c]] data

Roughly each point above the average linearly increase your chances of acceptance, and each point below exponentially decreases your chances.

"Competitive" is usually 3-4 points above the average. Remember, at most colleges there really isn't much of a data spread. Harvard doesn't accept a lot of 20's and 45's to get their average. Instead, the average is usually the score the overwhelming number of people received, making it an absolute average.

You should consider taking a class or two in game theory,it is really cool, and should count for BCMP.

Only having the game theory exposure from my econ classes I'm sure I don't grasp what you are getting at. But, I have had a few statistics classes. Harvard's 10th percentile is a 32 and 90th percentile of a 40 with a mean of 36. Although it is a stretch to say it is a bell curve without knowing all the data points I feel comfortable in making that assumption.

I could be misunderstanding your argument so please feel free to correct me, but if your assessment is correct based on linearity and exponentiality wouldn't we expect the mean to be significantly closer to the 90th percentile then the 10th, not evenly distributed, as the data is?

Looking at other schools such as Duke your assessment appears correct, perhaps Harvard was a poor example.

 

[Physics of Math]

No you can't. (1)What I meant by what I said is that you can not look at someone freshman year of college and say you won't be able to get into medical school. (2)Thus, the number of applicants is going to be a lot lower than all of the people who took a crack at getting into medical school and fell by the wayside. (3)Further, why would you remove the non-competitive people from the statistics? The fact that they are non-competitive is important because it shows just how few people who try for medical school get in. I wish there was a way to include all of the people who self selected out of medical school applications because of low gpa and mcat so that people see how few of the hopefuls (which is higher than those who apply, competitive or not) actually end up making it into medical school. (4)Are you meaning that you are trying to show (5)statistically how well people that are competitive for medical school do? Then I could see wanting to remove the non-competitive people. Once again though this statistic won't help any given freshman pre-med because (6) he or she won't know if competitiveness is within his or her grasp.

(1) Sorry, I seem to have misunderstood what you wrote. It looked as though you were referencing applicants, not freshmen.

(2) Non-applicants wouldn't dilute the statistics, if I understand you correctly.

(3) I more specifically meant the "beyond hope" ones, not non-competitive ones. It's important because it more accurate reflects admissions data.

(4) Sort of, I was trying to show that top schools don't reject as many genuinely competitive students as it appears. Id est, most applicants couldn't get in because they aren't up to par. Conversely, most competitive applicants do.

(5) I used game theory over statistics as my theory was the statistics were incorrect/flawed.

(6) True, but he she would have a more accurate guide, and would know what scores he/she would actually need.

The overall premise was the data provided for the MCAT/GPA scores of the various schools is generalized to the point of being useless.

 

[Physics of Math]

accidental repost

 

[Physics of Math]

Only having the game theory exposure from my econ classes I'm sure I don't grasp what you are getting at. But, I have had a few statistics classes. Harvard's 10th percentile is a 32 and 90th percentile of a 40 with a mean of 36. Although it is a stretch to say it is a bell curve without knowing all the data points I feel comfortable in making that assumption.

I could be misunderstanding your argument so please feel free to correct me, but if your assessment is correct based on linearity and exponentiality wouldn't we expect the mean to be significantly closer to the 90th percentile then the 10th, not evenly distributed, as the data is?

Looking at other schools such as Duke your assessment appears correct, perhaps Harvard was a poor example.

I think we are arguing different points. My research was on which numbers get you in, not which numbers make up the class (that involves factoring in matriculation data). In brief (maybe I'll make a youtube summary), the idea was GPA and MCAT scores play a much smaller part in admissions than currently believed. This is primarily because most of the other factors can not be easily standardized or quantified. My research attempted to quantify said data.

As for the exponential v. linear, lower GPA/MCAT scores must correlate with higher ECs, LoRs, etc. Further, my research showed that GPA/MCAT could not make up for/replace ECs, LoRs, but ECs, LoRs, etc. could replace GPA/MCAT.

So yes, you could have bell curve admissions (it looks more like a split bell curve), but it's more coincidental than causal. If nothing else, there's much more to it.

Edit: OH! I understand. I was looking at the logic behind the numbers, specifically trying to find out why people with good scores couldn't get in and why people with bad scores could. I wasn't arguing the data itself was wrong, just misleading.

Edit2: Don't forget to account for dilution. Id est, 40+ scores have a higher acceptance rate, but are less common.

100% > x -> 10 people
50% >y where y < x ->100 people

 

[mmmcdowe]

(1) Sorry, I seem to have misunderstood what you wrote. It looked as though you were referencing applicants, not freshmen.

(2) Non-applicants wouldn't dilute the statistics, if I understand you correctly.

(3) I more specifically meant the "beyond hope" ones, not non-competitive ones. It's important because it more accurate reflects admissions data.

(4) Sort of, I was trying to show that top schools don't reject as many genuinely competitive students as it appears. Id est, most applicants couldn't get in because they aren't up to par. Conversely, most competitive applicants do.

(5) I used game theory over statistics as my theory was the statistics were incorrect/flawed.

(6) True, but he she would have a more accurate guide, and would know what scores he/she would actually need.

The overall premise was the data provided for the MCAT/GPA scores of the various schools is generalized to the point of being useless.

We are clearly not speaking on the same wavelength, though your paper does sound interesting and I would love to take a look at it. I definitely do agree with you that getting into a top school is less random and crapshootesque than people like to make it out to be.

 

[Physics of Math]

We are clearly not speaking on the same wavelength, though your paper does sound interesting and I would love to take a look at it. I definitely do agree with you that getting into a top school is less random and crapshootesque than people like to make it out to be.

That's all my paper was on. All I meant was people look too hard at the raw numbers (MCAT/GPA). I think we're on the same wavelength but in different mediums .

I'll see if the JAMA wants to publish it.

 

[hahaha123]

I got a C- in a prereq class (introductory biochem). I took later courses in biochem though and got A's and B's in them. Is it worth retaking the class even tho it wont affect my GPA?

I think as long as you show some improvement, they might let it slide considering it was an early course... You might also want to check how certain schools deal with retakes.

 

[Grand]

A year ago, I went to University Of Texas San Antonio MS Open House. There was an ad-com talking to us; He said that, last year they had accepted a student who failed 5 classes in her first semester.

 

[mmmcdowe]

A year ago, I went to University Of Texas San Antonio MS Open House. There was an ad-com talking to us; He said that, last year they had accepted a student who failed 5 classes in her first semester.

Good to know, but technically that doesn't apply to a thread about top 20s.

 

[JJMrK]

1) A lot of the "most people don't" comments are not completely accurate. The reports that show overall applied/acceptance ratios are seriously flawed because they include all people who apply to medical school, not just people that have a chance, want to go, and completed all the pre-reqs. It's rather primitive actually.

Plenty of people get into top-20 schools, just not a high statistical percent.

2) GPA is important in the same way actually going to a college is important. If it's really bad it will kill you, otherwise its weight diminishes with the inverse of your other application indicators (MCAT, job, ECs, portfolio, etc.) In other words, the better everything else is, the less they will care about a GPA: especially one that isn't badly messed up.

Getting into medical school (a good one) is a lot like dating a perfect/amazing/excellent women. You need to avoid any deal breakers, be up to par with the competation, and then have something that makes them want you.

Also, assuming you are working 40/hrs for a reason, you can actually make a lower GPA work to your advantage. Most medical schools (yes, even good ones) are quite understanding when it comes to working for a living.