Is it worth retaking this course or not?

[jeremmed77]

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I am currently a freshmen in college, but I was taking college classes since I was sixteen while I was still in high school. So although I am taking 13 credits right now, I already have about fifty seven credits under my belt. Will medical schools factor those fifty seven credits out of my grade point average or not? I am assuming they won't, but I wanted to be sure. As of right now, my grade point average is 3.61.

The reason it is so low is because when I was sixteen I got a D in an English(At the college) course and a lot of B's. Should I retake that English class or not? How do medical schools figure out your gpa if you retake them? I am assuming that they average the two grades out. If this is the case, my gpa will only change from a 3.61 to a 3.66 assuming I get an A in the course. I calculated that by adding my imaginary new 4.0+1.0 and dividing that by two. This would mean the average is a 2.5 gpa or C. Is that how they calculate the new gpa?

So I do not know if it is worth retaking since I am not actually attending the college it was offered at, but I could take it in the summer if I wanted to. I still have four more years left so I have plenty of classes to bring my gpa back up. Would you retake it if you were me? Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance!

 

[manraj76]

They do count your high school grades They don't replace your old grade with your new grade.

 

[chrisoc13]

No they do not simply average the courses together. Instead they take both of them. Meaning you will have one D and one A on your transcript. There is no replacement or averaging for MD schools. DO schools allow replacement.

All of your college coursework will be included in your GPA, regardless of when you did it.

While retaking it will not make that D go away it is very likely you will need to either retake it or take another English course along with a writing intensive course as most medical schools require two semesters of English prior to matriculation and a D does not give you that credit. For many (if not all) schools you need a C or higher. So yes you should retake it, but not for the reason you thought. It will only change your GPA as much as any other class of equal credits would but you need it as a pre-req for medical school.

 

[jeremmed77]

While retaking it will not make that D go away it is very likely you will need to either retake it or take another English course along with a writing intensive course as most medical schools require two semesters of English prior to matriculation and a D does not give you that credit. For many (if not all) schools you need a C or higher. So yes you should retake it, but not for the reason you thought. It will only change your GPA as much as any other class of equal credits would but you need it as a pre-req for medical school.

I actually already have seven college English credits that are considered writing intensive so I do not need that D class for that. Since I fullfilled the prerequisite, would you still retake it? Thanks for the advice.

 

[chrisoc13]

I actually already have seven college English credits that are considered writing intensive so I do not need that D class for that. Since I fulfilled the prerequisite, would you still retake it? Thanks for the advice.

As long as you have the required coursework for medical school then no I would not. It isn't one of the science pre-reqs and it will simply add another class to your list. I got my only D and C+ my first semester of college and never retook them because it wouldn't be replaced but simply added to my transcript. It hasn't hurt me other than it was very difficult to overcome in my GPA. Since you were very young when you made that mistake my personal opinion would be to simply move on and do well in the rest of your classes. But others may disagree. I have a friend who retook a B+, which is crazy. People have their own ideas on what to retake.