Organic Chem?

[simplej]

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Hello All,
Im new here and i am first semester junior who is strongly considering pharamacy school in the future.
I am pursuing a degree in Biomedical Sciences, with minors in microbiology and chemistry. My GPA is about a 3.15 at the moment, but that does not tell the whole story about me as a student. I just received a research grant to do work from an independant company to pursue bacterial drug resistance at my school's lab based on an experiment that wrote and designed, work that i will be undertaking, presenting, and publishing with a mentor over the course of the next year. I run a few clubs and do community service and will be applying for pharmacy tech jobs in the next month or 2, I have a pretty heavy course load but there is one thing that has been bothering me.
I got a B in orgo chem 1, and C- in orgo chem 2. Every school i have seen will not take a C- in an orgo course, which brings me to some questions.

1.) Should i give up some possible future courses (molecular genetics, Pharmacology, Analytical Chem etc) to retake this course?
2.) should i not worry about the grade and continue relevent coursework and research that improves my depth as student?

Is my application going to get tossed when pharm schools see a c- one semester, despite a sold B grade in orgo 1? or are schools going to say well, he shouldve retaken it but he moved on and achieved in other areas relevent to the program and undertook projects of his own and overlook the fact that i got a 72.4% instead of a 73% in one course?

thanks for the advice, move this thread if need be, and sorry i wrote so much

 

[JADpharm28]

If the "-" will be on your transcript, I believe most schools will not accept the grade. Say you know the grade was a 72% but your transcript simply says "C" then this is fine. But if your transcript says "C-" then you will have to retake it depending on some school's requirements. Check on the websites of the schools that you are applying to to see their policy about it. I know the schools that I plan to apply to will not accept "C-" grades. They must be "C" or better

 

[simplej]

Thats what i was thinking, i did not know if they would take the average gpa of the 2 with their labs which would be just below a b-, a 2.6 i believe for the 8 credits together or if each was individual

 

[JADpharm28]

I personally do not know of any schools that do that. Your best bet is to call the school, look on their website or on pharmcas. One of those 3 will definitely give you an answer. The only way the C- wouldn't matter is if Orgo 2 was not a pre-req for the school, but I have seen that most schools require it.

 

[simplej]

absolutely, i have just noticed that some schools lump "organic chemistry 8 credits" -2.5 gpa, others divide it" organic chemistry 1 4 credits", "organic chemistry 2 4 credits"-1.8 gpa in my case

 

[headortail]

My 2 cents: most schools don't accept the C- in organic, and if you just look at schools where you can go around that C-, your options are severely limited. What's more, if you got a C- in organic, there must be a reason for it. As you said, your course load was heavy, which meant you probably didn't master organic second semester. It is very hard to do well in pharmacy classes without having a good foundation - you don't have to be an organic chem whiz or anything, but at least you need to understand the common reactions. Drugs are, after all, molecules.

It's just one semester, and in my opinion, it'd be better for you both now and later to retake the class and get a really good grade instead of opting for one of the "fancier" upper division courses. Can you take it at a community college over the summer? That's also another option. As long as you've got the basic covered, that's the most important thing before moving on.

 

[NickW9682]

I would retake it, you should definitely be better with it now and the schools will like to see that improvement. I think its kind of a load of bs how some schools use the minus system and some schools do not. I got my undergrad in Marketing from Va Tech which uses the minus system but am currently finishing my science prereqs at South Carolina which utilizes a plus system but not a minus system. It can make a big difference in your overall GPA. Also a B+ at South Carolina is a 3.5 whereas Va Tech and probably most other schools it is in the 3.2 to 3.3 range. Seems like there should be national standardization for this.

 

[Indypharm]

I would also retake. You don't want to just barely get into pharmacy school or be the "exception" that got in on some other merit. Save yourself some stress during application time and retake the course. A B in that plus everything else you have going on would make you a great candidate.

Hello All,
Im new here and i am first semester junior who is strongly considering pharamacy school in the future.
I am pursuing a degree in Biomedical Sciences, with minors in microbiology and chemistry. My GPA is about a 3.15 at the moment, but that does not tell the whole story about me as a student. I just received a research grant to do work from an independant company to pursue bacterial drug resistance at my school's lab based on an experiment that wrote and designed, work that i will be undertaking, presenting, and publishing with a mentor over the course of the next year. I run a few clubs and do community service and will be applying for pharmacy tech jobs in the next month or 2, I have a pretty heavy course load but there is one thing that has been bothering me.
I got a B in orgo chem 1, and C- in orgo chem 2. Every school i have seen will not take a C- in an orgo course, which brings me to some questions.

1.) Should i give up some possible future courses (molecular genetics, Pharmacology, Analytical Chem etc) to retake this course?
2.) should i not worry about the grade and continue relevent coursework and research that improves my depth as student?

Is my application going to get tossed when pharm schools see a c- one semester, despite a sold B grade in orgo 1? or are schools going to say well, he shouldve retaken it but he moved on and achieved in other areas relevent to the program and undertook projects of his own and overlook the fact that i got a 72.4% instead of a 73% in one course?

thanks for the advice, move this thread if need be, and sorry i wrote so much