Old bad grades

[Amanda Simcox]

Help, I need some advise. When I first entered college I was not a very good student, but it was not for the lack of trying, I worked full time and tried to go to school 19 hours a week. Haha. Well. I became very sick and just stopped going (did not withdraw). Needless to say, I failed everyting. In doing that, I quit college altogether, and joined the military. Now, five years later, I know what I want to do, be an osteopathic doctor. I am a surgical tech and an NREMT in the reserves, I work full time, a member of the Society of women engineers (a student of course), part of Mu Alpha Theta ( a society for mathematical acheivment), a member of Phi Theta kappa, with a gpa of 3.45. However, the college I go to now did not transfer the old bad grades in, and I have not taken the classes over. How is this going to affect my chances. I have not taken the MCAT because I'm not sure if I'll just be wasting my money. I not sure if I can make the cut. Some advise please.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Pepe]

Amanda,
My situation is very similar to yours. I went to college for a bit, did o.k., ran out of money and joined the military. After five years I returned to school to finish my pre-reqs. My first time in school I had a few F's and D's. After the military my GPA rose significantly which helped my chances alot. If you have the same sort of progression with an increasing GPA then you should be o.k. Also the AACOMAS application will only use the best grade in computing your GPA. The AMCAS averages the two grades together. For me this was a difference of half a letter grade total. Anyway if you retake and do well in the classes you did poorly in the first time it shouldn't hurt you at all. Some people will say repeats look bad and this is possible but it didn't hurt me at all. The military definitely had a way of focusing my attention. Anyway what were you in? P.S. You will probably have to do pretty well on the MCAT though.

 

[Robb1818]

Amanda,

You story sounds very similar to mine. I also had an absense before I got my act together. Mine was 3 years. When I decided to return to school my grades went through a night and day difference. The bad thing about this is that these grades will follow you around until med school. The good thing is that it shows that you have matured and now know what you want to do. It does hurt when calculating your AMCAS GPA, however, you can explain all of this in your interview...believe me they will ask.

Good luck to you.

Rob


------------------
Carpe Diem