how much will a bad year hurt me?

[joysofpi]

So I've had kind of a rough year, dealing with pretty bad clinical depression. Fall Quarter my gpa dropped down to around a 2.8, and Winter quarter I had to drop out entirely (so now I have 4 W's on my transcipt). I pulled it together a little towards the end though, Spring quarter i had a 3.7 . How negatively will this affect my chances for med school? Is it still worth pursuing?

This was my second year btw. At the moment my overall gpa is somewhere around a 3.4, BCPM is ~3.3

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[Phoenix.]

It's absolutely still worth pursuing if you want to be a doctor. If you pull it together and do well from here on out, I think you'll be fine. You may need to explain the reason for that low gpa semester and/or semester of Ws on applications, but I'm sure it can be done and if you sound mature and reasonable about it, I don't think it will keep you from becoming a doctor if your application (MCAT, ECs, LORs, essays, etc.) are solid. Also, if you're really worried about it, check out DO schools. They are much more forgiving of a rough semester, and will actually substitute new grades for the old ones if you repeat the classes. But honestly, I would think you'd still have a very good shot at MD schools if you do well from here on out. Also, your state of residence will come into play too. Since state schools are always the best bet, having a state school increases your chances as well (although it's much harder in CA even though they have state schools).

Anyway, that was a lot of babble about stuff that you really won't have to consider for a year or so. The thing to keep in mind is just to do your best going forward. Try not to get any other Ws, and try to consistently get good grades the next two years and I think you'll be fine.

 

[MonkeyNuts!]

i had a 2.7 semester. Applied with a 3.2 cumGPA, 3.0 bcpm. 7-8 interviews, 3 acceptances. Did a crapload of work to get competitive (grad school, mcat, lot of research, etc), but just finished MSI with no problems.

your situation is not bad at all.