I THink I'm Screwed

[Jiggles]

OK, to make a long story short, I did great in High School. I was on track to getting into a really good University, then all this bad stuff happened my 1st year out of school and I hit my rebel phase. One of my things I decided to rebel against was school, and racked up 6 (Yes, a whole whopping 6) zeros. So I took a year off and now everything thing is fine. I've gone back to school and have retaken all the classes I didn't go to and extras and have made really great grades. The school I go to replaces the zeros with your new grade when you retake a class. Here's my problem. I'm trying to transfer to another school and would like to get into med school later. But I read last night that when the school I am looking at looks at your application for transfers, they calculate in all grades, even the ones of classes you zeroed. Right now I have a GPA of about 3.7 without the zeros. With the zeros, I'm looking at I think a low 2. Like, 2.000001. I know GPA isn't the main thing used to determine if you're accepted or not, but I feel like I'm screwed. I've worked my butt off to getting to this place where I thought I was back to normal and those dreadful zeroes behind me. I even just got 2 extra A's during summer school last Friday. I've done the calcs and I figure if I make A's the rest of college, I'll be able to pull out a 3.3.... and I'm not saying that's not possible, but I should be realistic. Does anyone have advice on whats the best thing to do? Did I screw myself because of my party year? Has anyone even been accepted to med school with 6 zeroes?

Sorry if I've rambled. I've just woken up and have 20 minutes to get to my first day of classes of the new Summer II session, and still haven't showered.

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[ParvatiP]

OK, to make a long story short, I did great in High School. I was on track to getting into a really good University, then all this bad stuff happened my 1st year out of school and I hit my rebel phase. One of my things I decided to rebel against was school, and racked up 6 (Yes, a whole whopping 6) zeros. So I took a year off and now everything thing is fine. I've gone back to school and have retaken all the classes I didn't go to and extras and have made really great grades. The school I go to replaces the zeros with your new grade when you retake a class. Here's my problem. I'm trying to transfer to another school and would like to get into med school later. But I read last night that when the school I am looking at looks at your application for transfers, they calculate in all grades, even the ones of classes you zeroed. Right now I have a GPA of about 3.7 without the zeros. With the zeros, I'm looking at I think a low 2. Like, 2.000001. I know GPA isn't the main thing used to determine if you're accepted or not, but I feel like I'm screwed. I've worked my butt off to getting to this place where I thought I was back to normal and those dreadful zeroes behind me. I even just got 2 extra A's during summer school last Friday. I've done the calcs and I figure if I make A's the rest of college, I'll be able to pull out a 3.3.... and I'm not saying that's not possible, but I should be realistic. Does anyone have advice on whats the best thing to do? Did I screw myself because of my party year? Has anyone even been accepted to med school with 6 zeroes?

Sorry if I've rambled. I've just woken up and have 20 minutes to get to my first day of classes of the new Summer II session, and still haven't showered.

It'll be tough for sure, but if you're really determined to get into med school then you can make it happen. You're going to have to get A's (pretty much) in the rest of your classes, if not you may need to do a post-bacc, to convince adcoms that you've changed your outlook on school. GPA is very important for admission, btw. Good luck!

 

[braluk]

Hmm.. it all depends on what your school does with your transcript. Does it ACTUALLY erase the zeroes and completely wipe them off your transcript? Or does it simply keep those classes in your transcript and recalculate your GPA accordingly? If it actually wipes off the class from the transcript, then I see no reason why to list them. You might actually being doing yourself a disservice to include your zero classes if it isnt even listed on the transcript that AMCAS will have to later verify, in that it will be rejected for inconsistencies with the applicaiton and your transcript. If it is, however, listed, even if it is a "W" or "0" or whatever, I would be inclined to list the classes but to either make note to adcoms about what your school does in terms of its elimination of fluke grades, or indicate what your grades are with and without the corrections done by your school. Check first with your schools registrar, then check with AMCAS.

 

[AngryBaby]

Well, those grades will be used against you to some degree by every allopathic school in the country. AMCAS requires all grades and all transcripts to be reported and sent to their offices, respectively. If you can raise your GPA up to a 3.3 with all A's that will give you a shot at a few schools, and your science GPA should ideally be around a 3.6 or higher, but no lower than 3.5. The MCAT is REEALLY important, especially for someone in your situation so don't rush it and make sure you're prepared for it when the time comes. Get you app in early (June is best, mid-July is starting to push it for early). Get your EC's in order over the next couple years and good luck. An upward trend in grades is considered in most admissions, but many schools simply won't be interested in an overall GPA of 3.3 unfortunately.

BTW, osteopathic schools apparently don't average your retakes together but take the 2nd grade by itself (or maybe just the higher of the two?), so that'll help someone like you bigtime. There's always the Carribean and International schools, but that's a whole other debate/topic.

Good luck man.

 

[AngryBaby]

BTW, if you've got your 3.3 and virutally straight-A's in your science GPA and you do relatively well on the MCAT, special master's programs were sort of tailor made for applicants like you who need to prove they have the ability to cut it in med school. Not just a post-bacc or any M.S. but some kind of program that puts in you in class with other 1st years, there's a bunch out there and doing a search will pull them up for you. Drexel, Rosalind Franklin and Tulane I think are some of the most popular (Georgetown also). There's one here in TX allied with TCOM but administered by the Grad School that's supposed to have a pretty good rep with both MD and DO schools.

 

[braluk]

check out http://services.aamc.org/postbac for more

I suggest University of Cincinnati's program. PM me if you want some more info about SMP's I have some pretty detailed experiences in working with SMPs

 

[Depakote]

Hmm.. it all depends on what your school does with your transcript. Does it ACTUALLY erase the zeroes and completely wipe them off your transcript? Or does it simply keep those classes in your transcript and recalculate your GPA accordingly? If it actually wipes off the class from the transcript, then I see no reason why to list them. You might actually being doing yourself a disservice to include your zero classes if it isnt even listed on the transcript that AMCAS will have to later verify, in that it will be rejected for inconsistencies with the applicaiton and your transcript. If it is, however, listed, even if it is a "W" or "0" or whatever, I would be inclined to list the classes but to either make note to adcoms about what your school does in terms of its elimination of fluke grades, or indicate what your grades are with and without the corrections done by your school. Check first with your schools registrar, then check with AMCAS.

I would request a copy of your official transcript to verify this. You're going to need to see what AMCAS sees. If the zero's are on there, the 2.0001 is going to be your AMCAS GPA, if that's the case, you're going to really need ot think before you apply.

The fact that you've all this recent work is good. It basically is the equivalent a post-bac. If you could do a Graduate program, like a masters, this would (if I recall correctly) show as a separate GPA from your undergrad GPA, and allow you to demonstrate your academic maturity. Along with a strong showing on the MCAT, you might be able to overcome a hit like that GPA.

I would also write letters to the schools you apply to explaining the math of your GPA.

 

[braluk]

Also not to mention, if it DOES erase your classes, odds are, you're going to have a semester with absolutely no grades showing, and will skip over an entire semester's grades. Regardless of which, I think adcoms will know one way or another, be it an actual listing in your transcript, or a gaping deleted hole in your transcript where there should have been grades. Unless the grades are just replaced during that semester with new ones (which I doubt), it sounds to me that you will probably have to fess up to adcoms and explain yourself.

 

[Jiggles]

Wow. That was really fast guys. Thanks for the help. The zeroes stay on the transcript right now, but they just don't factor into the GPA. They were government and history classes, so they were anything like science or math. Also, I'm not planning on applying for another couple years. So how would a crappy but decent GPA look on an application along with a BCMP that's really high look? Would they assume somethings not right and the kid isn't stupid just something happened?

 

[braluk]

Well, at least you have BCMP to go for you. In that case, I dont even know if an SMP would be that much more helpful in your case then a student who has poor BCMP grades but a decent overall GPA. Because the rest of your grades seem to be in line, with one semester full of zeroes, I would be more apt to ask you to explain yourself (which you should do in your personal statement at one point or another), then to outright reject you based on your GPA. If i was an adcom member, and looked at your file. I would first probably see your 2.0001 AMCAS gpa. Then I'd see your high BCMP grade. Then I'd probably wonder, what non science classes have you flunked and look into your course history. Is this a student who has, through the semesters while he or she was here, consistently did poorly on non-science classes or was it lumped together into one or two semesters while the rest were fine? And if so, what the heck happened during this semester or two that caused this students grades to drop so dramatically in such a fashion. Then id check your personal statement or raise flags for interviewers if you were invited.

 

[Jiggles]

Unless the grades are just replaced during that semester with new ones (which I doubt), it sounds to me that you will probably have to fess up to adcoms and explain yourself.

I have no problem explaining to adcoms what happened (should I be? ). I just hate to see all my hard work for the past year and the following to be judge based on 6 classes that I took when I was a idiotic 18 year old. It's not like I tried to pass the classes that I failed. I just didn't show up at all, not that I'm making excuses for my actions or anything.

 

[braluk]

As long as you can really explain your faults, and not make excuses, and how you have changed (evident in your much better grades since then), im sure I would be more forgiving had you instead begged them to overlook your semester's grades.

 

[Depakote]

oh, I think i overestimated the gravity of your situation.

You're not as bad-off as I originally thought.

For some reason I was thinking you had multiple semesters of zeros and were farther out.

Keep going at your current pace. Make sure your BCPM stays high, bring your regular GPA up with a few more semesters of solid performance.

You might need to explain this with a few letters, but you shoud be able to pull this off.

 

[Compass]

Nothing inspires greatness more than a semester of disappointment and followed semesters of success. If you work hard and explain your situation, and possibly heavily use quotes of previous failure-turned successes like Albert Einstein, you'll have a good chance yet.

 

[LizzyM]

AMCAS is going to show your gpa by academic year and total (rows) and split out by BPCM (bio, physics, chem, math) AO (all other) and total (columns). The result on your med school application is a 3 x 5 (or more) table. When an adcom seens a year of gpa 0.0 followed by 3.7, 3.8, 3.6, etc it sees a trend that it can't help but think is positive and, perhaps, linked to an interesting (or heartbreaking) story. Don't sweat it. Work hard and this will work out for you. You may not even need a special masters program (SMP) if you can put together a great gpa for 120 credits (or more) taken after your "crash & burn".