Does it look bad to be a part time student for a semester

[Ahmed786]

Hey all I was taking 12 credits along with an MCAT class and now I am failing one of my classes and am considering dropping it and going down to 9 + MCAT class. In the past couple of years I've taken 14 15 3 15 for the semesters and one summer (3 credits) but if I suddenly drop to 9 will med schools question me about it? Thanks

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[dw2158]

med schools will not want you to drop below full time. if you're failing, well... you may be better off dropping it anyway, though. tough call. is there no way you can pull the grade up by letting your MCAT studying slide a bit? recovering from a less-than-stellar MCAT score is WAY more doable than recovering from an F, IMO.

 

[koffein]

Drop if you're going to fail it for certain. Look for online classes at your university or any other classes that are mostly self-study that have not yet had exams. If you find such a class email the professor, ask to enroll in the class, and you'll be a full-time student again.

C>W>D
C- is iffy/up to you.

 

[cubssox2000]

I dropped a class the semester of my MCAT prep too, and only had 11 credits at the end. Still got accepted. As long as you started the semester with more than 12 (or whatever your school considers full time) you will be fine. Just be sure that you can explain it to an ADCOM member later.

 

[Retsage]

C>W>D
C- is iffy/up to you.

Hell no. W's don't become part of your GPA. A 'C' does. Don't have a ton of W's, sure, but nobody will care if you have one or two.

 

[Habeed]

If you are going to get anything less than a B, drop it like a hot potato. Med schools do not examine each and every semester for 'full time' enrollment like you think. The way the printouts they look at are arranged, the people evaluating you have to do extra work to be able to spot this.

They sure a heck notice a C though.

 

[Jolie South]

C would be better than W or a D. What about the tuition that you'll lose on this?

A C is not a big deal. People get into med school with a D on their transcripts.

I think any of the above scenarios is going to look equally fishy. I guess it's up to you whether you'd rather start all over in the course or bust your butt and move on.

 

[DarknightX]

C would be better than W or a D. What about the tuition that you'll lose on this?

A C is not a big deal. People get into med school with a D on their transcripts.

I think any of the above scenarios is going to look equally fishy. I guess it's up to you whether you'd rather start all over in the course or bust your butt and move on.

I strongly disagree with this. A grade of a C calculates into your GPA, while a W does not. If you have one or two W's, that's not going to kill your application.

After seeing how the admission process works, I can tell you that most admission committee members aren't going to run through your application with a fine tooth comb, like some pre-meds think. They have thousands of applications to get through. Your course history by AMCAS is just one huge long laundry list of classes and nobody is really going to notice/care if you took 3 classes instead of 4 one semester. I know a lot of people that just skim through applications and just look at the bottom line; ie, GPA and MCAT. A 4.0 is a 4.0. If you have 2 or 3 W's, nobody is going to care too much.

Things that stick out like a sore thumb are what you should worry about. If you have straight A's and one C or D, that sticks out. If you have 10 W's, ya, that sticks out. If you took a semester off and didn't explain why, that will probably stick out.

Personally, before I interview, I take about 1 minute and look at BCPM GPA. Then I'll run through their science classes and see if there's any red flags. I don't take the time to see what the course load was each individual semester, or that they took organic chem with molecular biology and physics. So don't be a martyr and take a C, thinking that it is more impressive that you stuck it out. It's not.

 

[DarknightX]

If you are going to get anything less than a B, drop it like a hot potato. Med schools do not examine each and every semester for 'full time' enrollment like you think. The way the printouts they look at are arranged, the people evaluating you have to do extra work to be able to spot this.

They sure a heck notice a C though.

Yup, I totally agree with this. Remember, it's ONE huge long list of classes...nobody is going to do that much extra work when they have thousands to run through.

 

[JackInTheBox]

I dropped to part time student status my senior year because I ran out of classes I needed to take, and I was never called out on it. That may have had something to do with carrying 22+ units every other quarter...