downward trend is really bad, read the following article about a cornell student:
Marilyn: Pursuing a Post Bac Program
Off to a strong start
Marilyn came to Cornell sure of her career goal to be a doctor. She quickly settled in at college, joined a student health related organization, and pursued her interests in ballroom dance and community service projects such as Habitat for Humanity. During her sophomore year she began doing research and became involved in student government. At the end of her sophomore year she had a 3.5 grade point average and was ready to take the MCAT. She volunteered at a local hospice over the summer and did well on her MCAT which she took in August shortly before returning for her junior year.
A setback
Fall semester of her junior year her mother had back surgery, and Marilyn decided she would spend as much time as possible at home helping her mother and her family. Every weekend was spent at home, a two-hour drive from campus. Frequently her weekend trips home stretched into three or four day stays. This resulted in missed classes, and she dropped the extracurricular activities she had always found time for in the past. She earned at 2.7 GPA fall semester, after making up work for incompletes. Spring semester she registered with the Health Careers Evaluation Committee (HCEC). She was still going home many weekends. She finished the semester with a 3.0 and had a 3.28 cum for six semesters. Given the demands of her family because of her mother's long convalescence, the downward trend in her grades, and her feeling that she was too distracted to pursue application in the way she wanted, she had considered not applying at the end of her junior year. She had always assumed, however, she would be in medical school the fall after college graduation, and she felt she should not give up on this goal. Her parents also strongly encouraged her to apply, so she did.
She received four interviews and got on one wait list but did not end up being accepted to medical school. She earned at 3.0 fall semester of her senior year and 2.4 her final semester, graduating with a 3.1 cumulative grade point and a downward trend in her academic record.
To re-apply or not to re-apply?
At the end of her senior year she realized she had done nothing to improve her application. If anything she was now a weaker applicant, so she did not reapply. Instead she took a research job at a prestigious medical center. This was work she knew she would enjoy, and she believed this experience would help her when she reapplied. After working a year, she reapplied very widely, but on her second try she did not receive any interviews.
Post bac
As she made plans to re-take the MCAT to replace outdated scores and update her HCEC file to apply for a third time, she contacted the health careers advisor. The advisor told her she would probably need to present recent, strong science grades to make herself competitive as an applicant and advised her to complete advanced science courses before applying again.
Marilyn decided to enroll in an enhancement post bac program. Since leaving college she had continued her community involvement and health care related work. Once in the post bac program she realized, with hindsight, how much she had neglected her studies in her last two years of college, in large part because of the many responsibilities she had taken on in her family during her mother's long convalescence. In the post bac program she earned a 3.7 GPA each semester. With a new, strong academic record and continued experience that demonstrated her devotion to medicine, she applied for the third time and was accepted. She had never anticipated that her road to medical school would be so long, but she did not regret that she had persevered in working toward her hard-won goal.
