Hello everyone,
I'm looking for opinions on whether I have any chance of ever getting into medical school, or if I should just pursue another career. My first two years of college were horrible. I graduated high school when I was 15 and thought going to a university 1600 miles from home would be great! I started college in 2005, a month after I turned 16. My grades were awful. I went back home at the end of my sophomore year, and left with a 1.9 GPA. I rarely went to class and almost never studied. I thought it was just a big party 24/7. I don't have my transcript in front of me, but I had some Cs, a B, an A, several Ds, a few Fs, and several WFs and WPs. If I recall correctly, I only earned about 48 credits in 2 years. I was just not mature enough to handle going to an out of state college at age 16.
I turned 18 in 2007 and did not go back to college. I am now 21 and have worked full time since I was 18. I regret the decisions I made in college more than I can even say. I am thinking of getting my associate's degree at the community college, improving my GPA, then transferring to a 4 year university. Obviously I would have to work my butt off and get nothing but As... if I do bring up my GPA, will my previous grades ruin any chance of getting accepted to a medical school? I will probably be 25 or 26 by the time I apply, so those grades will be nearly 10 years old. I'd hate to think that the choices I made as a dumb 16-17 year old will affect the rest of my life, but I'm afraid that may be the case.
Sorry for the long post. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
No need to lose hope. Given the fact that you have a lot of room for improvement, I wouldn't get down just yet. If you had just graduated from college with a 1.9 gpa, I would be concerned about getting accepted into medical school, but the reality of the situation is that you are still early in your academic career. Who knows what lies ahead? If you want it bad enough, good things will undoubtedly come to fruition.
What was your undergraduate major? Did you take a lot of science courses? This will allow people to more accurately gauge the impact on your GPA as it applies to med school. If you took mostly humanities courses and university pre-requisite classes (i.e. english, writing, history etc.) then your science GPA will not be as heavily impacted, which is good news for you. If you took a lot of science classes and did poorly, then your science GPA will reflect that. However, fear not. This is not the end of the world by any means.
I think the first thing you should do is to come to terms with the fact that the road to becoming a physician is going to be a little longer for you than some of the more traditional applicants (It took me 6 years to get my undergrad degree, and now I'm doing a post-bacc, and there's still a good chance I won't get accepted in my first application cycle due to a poor start as well). But that is totally fine, no shame in taking a few extra years to make your dreams come true. Just make sure that it is something you are willing to dedicate yourself towards.
Ok, so here's my concrete advice: Try and declare a new major at a four year university. If you have to go to community college first, that's not a big deal but do your best to take as many of the med school pre-reqs (chemistry, organic, biology, physics etc) in a 4 year university. Generally, med schools prefer to see that you take your core pre-reqs at a four year institution.
Don't let the GPA dominate your application. Even though truthfully the GPA is an important component, it is not by any means the sole criteria for gaining acceptance. From an academic standpoint, the MCAT is equally important (and according to some med schools, more important), along with strong letters of recommendation. While it would be highly unlikely that med schools will just dismiss your early undergraduate grades completely, they will definitely place significantly more emphasis on your more recent grades and specifically your science grades. It's very easy to see just by glossing over an applicants transcript that they got their act together and became serious about medical school.
Another thing to realize is that although we all go through different life experiences and make different decisions for ourselves, there are many of us (myself included) who are in a similar situation whereby we got off to a terrible start and have to work nonstop to rectify our early mistakes. Don't have any regrets about your past. For all you know, it was better for you to get that out of your system, as opposed to slacking off in your senior year, which would be more detrimental to your application. If medical schools required that all applicants maintained a 4.0 GPA over four years, we would not have very many doctors. Many applicants get off to a poor start, it's much more common than you would think.
Your extracurricular activities and personal statement will also be important, but the primary goal should be to get as many A's as possible. In your personal statement make sure to sufficiently explain your gap in your education and your poor start. There is a chance that you will have to go through an adjusting phase with studying and getting back into the rhythm (I did too) and so you maybe you won't just start off again with a bang and get straight A's for the next several years. Therefore, if you end off with a 3.0 GPA, know that once again, it's not the end of the world. A little more time and hard work will need to be invested in your part in the form of a post-bacc program, or more preferrably a special masters program (see the post-baccalaureate forum if you have questions about this). I've had to go the SMP route, and so have countless numbers of other students. Many of them have had great success.
Again, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to not get down on yourself. For God sake, you were 15 years old! I don't even want to think about how stupid I was as a 15 year old. Those are developmental years where we haven't yet gained the maturity to understand the importance of working hard. Throughout the next several years you will see people with what you consider to be perfect applications and it will make you feel like you have no chance and you will beat up on yourself for your early mistakes. But everyone is different! Some people get lucky and they start off college and get A's for 4 straight years, but later on in life in med school or as a physician they hit their rough patch and take a fall. Everyone has their ups and downs. To reiterate, getting yours out of the way earlier may actually be beneficial.
If this is what you really want, don't compromise your dreams for anybody or any reasons. You've clearly shown a great deal of maturity by acknowledging your early missteps, now it's time to put in the hard work to get the grades and I think at the end of the whole process you will learn more about yourself and your character, which will be something that warrants a big pat on the back. I think you can do this.
Best of luck, my friend.
