hi garibaldo,
Don't despair. I went to uc berkeley too, and i at first did okay but then slipped into c territory later on....berkeley is incredibly competitive and it takes a lot of work just to maintain okay grades, as you already know. But the good part is that most med schools know this. They know that Berkeley has huge science classes with crazy curves too weed out people so that there's smaller classes for upper-division courses like molecular biology and immunology. So, your B's really ain't so bad, especially in organic chemistry where they give D's and F's to the bottom half of students automatically.
Still, you should obviously try to get A's. I'm just saying that your B's show that you are working hard and med schools know this. Especially since you've improved from C's--they know you're on to something. Round out the rest of your college career with A's in all of your science courses, by taking lighter loads (just 2 science courses tops, plus 2 electives). Sounds tough, but you can do it especially over the short term (I imagine you have just 3 semesters left?). Then if you're still not satisfied with your GPA, take a few post-bacc courses and do well in those. I'd stay away from the master's or Ph.D. programs for now--you might not need them if you can get your science GPA to a 3.2 or 3.3. If not, a 1-2 yr. post-bacc program or a master's might be in order.
So, hold off on applying to med until you finish college and get your science gpa to 3.2/3.3. Then take the MCAT...you should do very well if you got B's in science at berkeley, judging from recent statistics. Question: which biology did you get a C in? If it's Bio 1B, don't worry--that's plant/ecology/evolution stuff and is slightly less important than bio 1A. The C in chem 3a? That's okay, since you've already improved to a B.
I think you're stressing too much. There are people who've failed classes like o-chem who still got into med school, and didn't get Ph'd's. To summarize:
1. Show improvement for the remainder of college.
2. Take a few more science classes, and make it a point to get A's or B+'s. Take MCB 101, 130 at least to show you can do upper-division work. Take alongside all this easy humanities classes or psych classes. Psych 160 (social psych) and American Studies 101 are simple classes, for instance. Get A's in these classes, consider them gimmees.
3. Do stellar on the MCAT, like 30's.
4. Make sure to do some substantive research, work that you can claim as your own. Check out the URAP office for details.
5. Get rec's from the science classes you get A's in. At the beginning of each course, start going to the professor's office hours to develop a relationship. Make him/her know you by name. Another tip: they will drop hints about test questions if they know you're trying extra hard and appreciate their help. Often the tested questions will bear some relevance to their field of work, so ask questions relevant to their field as well.
6. Apply after you've done all this. It sounds like you want to apply now--if you do, you will just waste a lot of money, like thousands of dollars.
Good luck, fellow golden bear!
Originally posted by Garibaldo:
I'm a sophomore at UC Berkeley majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology and I'm also a pre-med. I've been trying really hard in the last two years to do well, but I've also been goofing off a little too much to realistically be a pre-med. I really got screwed the fall semester of my sophomore year when I got a C in both Organic Chemistry and Biology. To make a long story short, I didn't think about the layout of my finals and they all hit me on two days and I took Human Physiology on top of those courses to make a total of three hardcore science courses in one semester. Pretty dumb, huh? I thought so in retrospect. I've only been able to pull off two B's this semester in Ochem 2 and Physics (I didn't take it in high school). My GPA is currently a 3.0 cum. and 2.7 science. I think I can bring the science GPA up to a 3.2-3.3 after this semester and Junior year (if I do really well). I've never had any doubts about medicine as a career choice. I was wondering what I should do at this point. I did lab research at UC Davis during my freshmen summer and I'm most likely going to be working as a student researcher this summer too. I'm pretty sure I know my stuff and I can score in the 30's on the MCAT (took a practice exam recently). Should I apply to all of the lower tier MD schools, all of the international schools (even the Caribbean), and the DO schools? Also, I'll apply year after year if that's what it takes. What should I do if I don't get accepted? Should I enter a post-bac program and work towards a PhD while reapplying to med school every year? Or should I get a job as a graduate researcher and do that for a while? I would really appreciate any info at this point.
