Has anyone gotten into a decent school with a bad semester (or two)?

[vin5cent0]

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Only a month into school and I'm already starting to worry.

I spent my first year at a CC getting generals done. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do and it seemed pointless to me to go to a Univ and spend 4x+ as much on school when I wasn't sure what I was doing. Naturally I regret it now that I'm interested in medicine, but what can you do..

Anyways, now that I'm at a University, school has been a real slap in the face to me. While CC was almost an extension of high school, "real" college has really kicked me into gear. First two tests I just blew off because I'm generally good at last-minute studying.. needless to say, two "F's" later and that mentality is gone. Next test I spent 4 hours studying for (for only two chapters, mind you) and thought I knew my stuff - 59% on the test.

I have two tests coming back later today and I'm honestly quite nervous. I spent 5+ hours studying for one and 3+ for the other. I feel like I did well.. but I also felt like I did well on the other ones. I know I can easily turn things around in the next 3 months of class, but how poorly do they look upon you for having a poor semester? Say, ~2.75-3.0?

 

[chris1264]

what type of classes are they?

 

[KnuxNole]

Considering it's your first semester in an university, you should focus on adjusting more than tackling a lot of classes. I don't know how many hours you are taking, but if that class(es) are proving to be too much, then maybe you should either withdraw from them for now, or if you have more than 12 credits, drop the load to spend more time on that.

But answering your question...NO it will not hinder your chances if let's say you made a 2.75 this semester. Especially since it seems you are at the beginning of your collegiate career. As long as you do awesome after this, you can pull a good G.P.A. Don't worry about your chances at a school now, take everything one step at a time.

 

[linguini]

Considering it's your first semester in an university, you should focus on adjusting more than tackling a lot of classes. I don't know how many hours you are taking, but if that class(es) are proving to be too much, then maybe you should either withdraw from them for now, or if you have more than 12 credits, drop the load to spend more time on that.

But answering your question...NO it will not hinder your chances if let's say you made a 2.75 this semester. Especially since it seems you are at the beginning of your collegiate career. As long as you do awesome after this, you can pull a good G.P.A. Don't worry about your chances at a school now, take everything one step at a time.

I don't know about this advice. As awful as it may sound, a bad semester can hinder your chances of getting into school...it obviously happens to a whole lot of people. To be clear, I'm not trying to insult you; you just have to be aware of what you're up against. Remember that the competitiveness to get into medical school is absurd. You are going to have to work your butt off and get stellar GPAs for the rest of your college career. It can be done, but you obviously need to change some things. As you found out the hard way, cramming for most courses is not the way to go. For me, I spent way more than 4-5 hours studying for a big test in college. Some people can do it in that time...I'm not one of them and maybe neither are you. Consider spending 2 or 3 times that amount studying...but spread it over a longer period of time so you aren't overwhelmed. Utilize all of your resources; a text book is rarely enough. Use TAs, office hours, old tests, practice problems, recitations/workshops. This semester isn't going to ruin your chances of getting into medical school but you need to work extra hard to make up for it.

Good luck!

 

[ANF1986]

Remember to average your GPA from community college with your current 4 year institution GPA as this is what AMCAS will do. Also, if you retook any classes at your CC, you need to plug those grades into your overall average as well. You could hypothetically graduate your 4 year institution with a 4.0 culm and if you left community college with a 2.0 culm, you're AMCAS culm will be in the toilet.

Withdrawl Withdrawl Withdrawl...You will have a much easer time fabricating some wild reason why you had to withdrawl than you will explaining sub 3.0 grades. The W will not be factored into your culm. I think a bad semester has the chance of shutting more doors than it will ever open. Do not sacrafice your GPA...

 

[vin5cent0]

Good advice, thanks all. Most of them are into business classes (I'm majoring in Business Admin) and one pre-med req (Orgo chem).

The chem has been a breeze so far, I'm naturally pretty good at the sciences. The other classes (philosophy, financing, econ and art) are all killing me. I spent a good 4 hours studying before a test I took last week and walked away with a 59%. I have no idea what happened there.. I'm usually quite good at doing well on tests.