IA Question

[mellocellofello]

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Hi everyone,

I've got a question about reporting an IA. I performed very poorly in the winter quarter of my freshman year (got F's in two out of my four classes). I received an email from the associate dean basically saying that I should be subject to disqualification from the school, but they would defer a decision about my academic standing until they reviewed my spring quarter grades. Long story short, I changed majors, managed to do better, and successfully graduated on time without receiving any further communication about my grades or academic standing.

Fast forward seven years to now, I'm having doubts about whether or not to report this on my app as an IA. I contacted my old university to clarify whether or not this would be considered an IA (I included the wording of the question in AMCAS in my email), and they said this is not considered institutional action since I was not disqualified from the major or the university.

My concern is that med schools will look at my freshman year grades and think I'm lying that no IA was taken against me. I want to be honest in my application, but I also don't want to report an IA if I don't need to. Advice?

 

[LizzyM]

Be honest. This sounds like academic probation which is pretty typical when academic performance falls below a specific benchmark. Report it as such, say that you changed majors and pulled yourself out of the hole academically and managed to graduate on time. No big deal. Just report it because it is the right thing to do. An IA does not require that you be expelled.

 

[KnightDoc]

Hi everyone,

I've got a question about reporting an IA. I performed very poorly in the winter quarter of my freshman year (got F's in two out of my four classes). I received an email from the associate dean basically saying that I should be subject to disqualification from the school, but they would defer a decision about my academic standing until they reviewed my spring quarter grades. Long story short, I changed majors, managed to do better, and successfully graduated on time without receiving any further communication about my grades or academic standing.

Fast forward seven years to now, I'm having doubts about whether or not to report this on my app as an IA. I contacted my old university to clarify whether or not this would be considered an IA (I included the wording of the question in AMCAS in my email), and they said this is not considered institutional action since I was not disqualified from the major or the university.

My concern is that med schools will look at my freshman year grades and think I'm lying that no IA was taken against me. I want to be honest in my application, but I also don't want to report an IA if I don't need to. Advice?

If the school says it's not an IA, it's not an IA. Case closed! If it should ever come up (it won't!), just produce the e-mail where the school advised it's not an IA. After all, it's the school that determines what is and is not an IA, not you, and not AMCAS. If the school took an IA due to academic performance, wouldn't that be noted on your transcript? Good luck!!!

 

[KnightDoc]

Be honest. This sounds like academic probation which is pretty typical when academic performance falls below a specific benchmark. Report it as such, say that you changed majors and pulled yourself out of the hole academically and managed to graduate on time. No big deal. Just report it because it is the right thing to do. An IA does not require that you be expelled.

Even in a case where the school specifically advises that it's not an IA? It honestly looks like, in OP's case, he was specifically advised that the school was DEFERRING a possible action as opposed to taking one. With all due respect, why would reporting something that is not required to be reported "the right thing to do"? It's not like he's hiding the Fs or anything.

 

[LizzyM]

OK, if he included the AMCAS wording and was told it was not an IA, then he can go in peace. It still sounds like academic probation to me and having overcome it looks like a good thing to me... I'd almost say it should be reported an an IA just to give an opportunity to highlight the comeback after that awful first term.

 

[mellocellofello]

OK, if he included the AMCAS wording and was told it was not an IA, then he can go in peace. It still sounds like academic probation to me and having overcome it looks like a good thing to me... I'd almost say it should be reported an an IA just to give an opportunity to highlight the comeback after that awful first term.

What really confused me in the first place is that I technically did meet the university's standards for academic probation, but they didn't put me on academic probation. I'm guessing it's because they skipped considering probation and went straight to considering disqualification because my grades were so bad, but decided to hold off on taking any action until the end of the school year. It still doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but the office that handles these issues has no record of institutional action against me.

However, I think you bring up a good point that if I report this incident as an IA anyway, it would give me the opportunity to speak about my comeback without having to either mention it in my PS/secondaries or ignore it completely.

Thanks for your responses!

 

[rdyotz]

I agree with LizzyM. I don't see a downside of reporting it. While the school may say it is not an IA, the line is blurred enough that people reviewing your file could assume it was an IA that you did not report. Some schools give you space on the secondary to report bad grades, but most don't. Use these extra characters for an IA explanation to describe the event and show how you moved forward and improved yourself. I'm just an M0, but I don't see an issue with someone doing poor academically during freshman year and turning it around.