I need help

[Anonymous16]

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Hello guys,

I need help from those of you how know alot about medical careers.
I am from Saudi Arabia, and in here the GPA only counts in 11th and 12th grade
I'm in 11th grade right now, and I plan to go to US or canada for college, and I'd like you guys to tell me:

a. How much does your GPA have to be in order to enter a good medical school? (Also please tell me some of the good medical schools in the US)

b. What is the sat exam. I hear everybody at school talks about it but i still dont know what it mainly is

c. a 4.0 GPA is how much points (total out of 100). Im not really used to how this system works. I just know the 100 total point system and the A's, B's
stuff like that

If you wanna know anything more, please dont hesitate to ask

 

[Seahawk]

A good GPA applying to med school I would say is a 3.5 or above.

The SAT is a college entrance exam that has math/reading/writing sections on it. You will need to take it to get into college in the U.S.

4.0 is considered an A average. The grading scales would be different, but it is around a 93-100/100

 

[Cmaj7th]

a. people typical shoot for a 3.5 or higher. just make it simple and shoot for straight As!
b. the SAT is a test that juniors and seniors in highschool take in the states. your score on the SAT goes on your application when you apply to colleges.
c. GPA isnt based off of 100 points. it stands for grade point average. each letter grade awards you a certain amount of points. an A gives you 4, a B gives you 3, a C gives you 2, a D gives you 1, an E gives you nothing. to figure out your gpa you look at all your classes and your letter grades and add the points youve got then divide that by the number of classes you took to get the average.

so four As is a 4.0, 3 As and a B gives you a 3.75. simple enough

also from my understanding there isnt a huge disparity of quality education amongst medical schools like there is in colleges. so any mainland US medical school will adequately prepare you to enter residency. I cannot speak for canadian schools though.

hope this helps

 

[Anonymous16]

Ok guys thanks for the help

 

[da8s0859q]

Hello guys,

I need help from those of you how know alot about medical careers.
I am from Saudi Arabia, and in here the GPA only counts in 11th and 12th grade
I'm in 11th grade right now, and I plan to go to US or canada for college, and I'd like you guys to tell me:

a. How much does your GPA have to be in order to enter a good medical school? (Also please tell me some of the good medical schools in the US)

~3.7 IN COLLEGE on a 4 point scale is average for most matriculants at most medical schools, give or take a bit. "Good medical school" is most of them, depending on who you ask. They all teach just about the same thing, just in slightly different ways. Take rankings (e.g., US News) with a grain of salt -- your individual performance on USMLE Step 1, third-year rotations, and the like will matter more than the name of the school granting your degree.

b. What is the sat exam. I hear everybody at school talks about it but i still dont know what it mainly is

[B]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT[/B]

c. a 4.0 GPA is how much points (total out of 100). Im not really used to how this system works. I just know the 100 total point system and the A's, B's
stuff like that

On a 4 point scale, 4.0 = 100. From there, schools vary a bit in how they grade. My college used a straight letter system -- an A was 4/4, a B was 3/4, a C was 2/4. So in terms of weight on transcripts, a 91 in any given class counted the same as a 99. Some schools use a plus/minus system, so an A- (91) is not the same as A+ (99), meaning that the numerical grade will be converted to the 4 point system (like a 3.5/4, for example) and used in calculating your GPA from there. Either system has its pros and cons.

If you wanna know anything more, please dont hesitate to ask

Above.

 

[Doc Payne]

You don't have to take the SAT. Instead, take the ACT. It's better developed than the SAT, and you don't get penalized for guessing (where as in the SAT, you do). Just about every single undergraduate college accepts the ACT, and the ones that don't soon will (I personally haven't heard of any schools that don't accept the ACT).

By the way, the ACT is the predominant test in the midwest, and it's gaining popularity. 24 of the 50 states in the U.S. had more students taking the ACT than the SAT, which is more than the last time I checked. ACT dominates the states Idaho and Utah in the West to as far east as Tennessee and Ohio, and even south in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Here's the link to the map I'm referring to: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/SAT-ACT_Preference_Map.svg

 

[CmichStudent]

Just to be clear- you don't enter "Medical College" right from highschool, so don't even worry about your highschool GPA when it comes to med school. They will look at your college gpa.

Depending on the undergrad college you are looking for in the US, entrance GPA can vary widely. Students at my undergrad get in with a C+ average, and we are opening a medical school in the next couple years. Not sure how that's gonna go.

Point is, your performance in college is what matters. Where you go is only a small fraction of the overall decision.