Med school impossible with current stats??

[dreamsofmedschool]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hello. I'm new to this forum and I need some realistic opinions from pre-med and current medical students. After years of unsuccessful academic performance, I decided to give college another shot. I decided I want to become a doctor, but my past academic performance haunts me. I have a total 6 F's on my transcript( including 2 lab F's). I also have 2 D's and a couple of C's. I also have a lot of w's because in community colleges, after first days of class(if you drop the class), you end up with a W. A lot of people have told me I'm stupid for considering such a competitive field, like is medicine, and that I will never make it.The thing is I was very immature and I didn't care much about school. Is medical school (MD) unrealistic?? I'm a 22 years old Latino girl. Should I rather consider another career? Thanks 🙂 I appreciate honesty please!

 

[Spectar]

Current gpa?

 

[dreamsofmedschool]

Current gpa?

my current GPA is around 2.7 and I still have two years and a half to go. I'm doing a Chemistry minor and a Psychology major. Most of my F's are not in science classes , but they will look bad no matter what

 

[HomeSkool]

Med school isn't impossible for you, but it won't be easy.

1. Start by kicking your academic performance into overdrive. If you're going to do this, you need to perform exceedingly well from this point forward.
2. Drop the chemistry minor. A minor won't help you get into med school (adcoms don't care about minors), so at this point all it's doing is adding to your workload and stress level with no actual payoff potential.
3. Refer to this thread when deciding which courses to retake: Simple rules for retaking courses.
4. Get busy with clinical and nonclinical volunteering, as well as shadowing. @LizzyM gave some great counsel regarding the number of hours to target in this thread: How many volunteer hours are solid?.
5. Don't worry much about research. You've got more important things to prioritize.
6. Plan for at least one gap year. That'll allow you time to do a post-bacc if you need to, or to work on other ways of increasing your competitiveness.
7. Develop your plan for MCAT study. I recommend taking it during your senior year, when you know whether you've been able to sufficiently improve your academic performance. Don't take it before you're ready. As @gyngyn has amusingly pointed out, MCAT scores, like herpes, are forever.
8. Have a plan B. Always have a plan B.

 

[LizzyM]

HomeSkool has good advice here. I would suggest being involved in one non-clinical community service program (mentoring young women, friendly visitor to the elderly, ESL for adults, etc) that you are in a position to stick with for the long-term. Ideally, it should be in service to the Latinx community.

If you are not already fluent and comfortable in Spanish, consider taking a Spanish course (for heritage speakers if applicable). If you are fluent in Spanish, consider finding a volunteer opportunity to serve as an interpreter at a free clinic or other clinical setting. Just a few hours per week would be sufficient.

If you have to work, get a job in a research lab or a clinical setting. That's a valuable "two-fer" (paycheck and experience).

 

[BTC0821]

To add to the wonderful advice given so far, the benefit of doing as well as possible in your classes will not only boost your chances of being admitted somewhere, but in case you don't get in, a higher GPA certainly won't hurt your plan B should you need it.