Please help. Not sure if I started off too poorly. Need advice!

[jpaulmakeyafall]

Hey guys, I'm looking for some advice. I knew I wanted to be a physician for a while, and I go to the 4th best community college in the country and they still have terrible health advisors that never told me how important A's and GPA were to getting into med school. Ive done some research and it's really freaking me out at this point where I feel as if my 3.41 GPA is too hard to come up from. I had some scheduling problems my freshman year and (stupidly) whose to W from Chem 1 to be able to fit in my practice time for lacrosse. Genetics was just way too much for me to handle at that point, and I didn't get along with the teacher that well. At the end of the year the class went from 25 people to 6. People that come from state schools always say my CC has way harder science classes than any they took. Our science department is filled with PhD's that strive to fulfill their egos and make every class very challenging.

Extracurriculars:
Currently I work 25 hours a week paying for my school, play for one of the best CC lacrosse teams in the country (which is a big time commitment), and have 30 hospital volunteer hours.

GPA- 3.41
sGPA- 3.0

Grades:
English 1 - A
Communications 1- B
Pre-Calc - B
Chem 1 - W
Health and Fitness-A

Biology 1-B
Computer and applications-A
Psychology 1- A
Sociology 1-A

Genetics- W
English 2- A
Calc- C (79%)
Chem 1- B (88%)
Interpersonal Com. -B (89%)

Now I'm taking...
Chem 2
Calc 2
Nutrition
Theatre


My question is would my grades be looked at with more sympathy since I'm an athlete and work to pay for my school? Are there any people that had the same GPA ending their fall semester of sophomore year and made it into med school? Would be taking EMT-B certification classes in the summer improve my chances?Just lookin for some advice and/or success stories. Thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Knicks17]

Definitely need to get your sgpa up, upwards trends are good as well. I think getting some credits from university would be a good idea too

 

[ciestar]

Hey guys, I'm looking for some advice. I knew I wanted to be a physician for a while, and I go to the 4th best community college in the country and they still have terrible health advisors that never told me how important A's and GPA were to getting into med school. Ive done some research and it's really freaking me out at this point where I feel as if my 3.41 GPA is too hard to come up from. I had some scheduling problems my freshman year and (stupidly) whose to W from Chem 1 to be able to fit in my practice time for lacrosse. Genetics was just way too much for me to handle at that point, and I didn't get along with the teacher that well. At the end of the year the class went from 25 people to 6. People that come from state schools always say my CC has way harder science classes than any they took. Our science department is filled with PhD's that strive to fulfill their egos and make every class very challenging.

Extracurriculars:
Currently I work 25 hours a week paying for my school, play for one of the best CC lacrosse teams in the country (which is a big time commitment), and have 30 hospital volunteer hours.

GPA- 3.41
sGPA- 3.0

Grades:
English 1 - A
Communications 1- B
Pre-Calc - B
Chem 1 - W
Health and Fitness-A

Biology 1-B
Computer and applications-A
Psychology 1- A
Sociology 1-A

Genetics- W
English 2- A
Calc- C (79%)
Chem 1- B (88%)
Interpersonal Com. -B (89%)

Now I'm taking...
Chem 2
Calc 2
Nutrition
Theatre


My question is would my grades be looked at with more sympathy since I'm an athlete and work to pay for my school? Are there any people that had the same GPA ending their fall semester of sophomore year and made it into med school? Would be taking EMT-B certification classes in the summer improve my chances?Just lookin for some advice and/or success stories. Thanks!

Short answer: no.

 

[MusicDOc124]

If you have all As are an EMT, work to pay for school, and an athlete - that would look good because it would demonstrate time management skills, well-rounded, etc. In this case - not at all. Bad grades (at least relative to med school) are bad grades - if they see you're working, playing sports, etc, and getting bad grades - they're going to wonder why, if you want to go to med school, you didn't focus on school.

There has probably been many are your current GPA and lower who are now in medical school or already graduated, but every case is different. Many who had lower may have gone DO with grade replacement (which after this current year won't exist anymore), they may have done a post-bacc or SMP, and some event took 3-4 years of additional undergradwork because thats how many credits it took to get their GPAs up.

Upward trends are looked very favorably, but dropping a pre-req class for a W to play a sport doesn't look great. Figure out some time management skills or change what you're doing if its not working for you. Your overall GPA is too bad, but that sGPA won't get you anywhere. Focus on school if even more school is your goal.

 

[candbgirl]

Don't blame a premed advisor a a CC for your bad grades. Common sense should have told you that you need great grades to get into med school. Your application might be salvageable but you have to get As from this point forward. No more dropping a class for sports even if you do go to the fourth best CC in the country. And if you manage to get into med school you'll be thankful for tough teachers even if you think they are only stroking their egos. You're going to have to figure out time management. You have hardly started any ECs and you are already struggling to keep everything spinning. What's going to happen when you transfer to a 4 year school? At some point you are going to have to learn to prioritize, decide what activity is most important. What are your current GPAs? Are you planning to transfer at the end of this semester? A word to the wise: don't depend on anyone at your school to advise you on what you need for your application to med school. Do the research yourself.


Sent from my iPad using SDN mobile app

 

[bears1992]

You really haven't done any permanent damage. Obviously if you graduated with those stats, you would be DOA for MD and a longshot for DO without a 515+MCAT. Good thing for you is freshman year carries the least weight. Just do a 3.7+ your next three years and you should be able to find your way into an MD school with a good MCAT. Also, unless you worked full time at a career position, I don't think your part time job is going to make a difference to adcoms. I always think things like work, sports and major (if your a non-trad type major) help out during the interviewnot the II process. According to adcoms on this site, an II really depends on grades, MCAT, grade trend and URM. Other schools may add certain things to that list but those 4 things seem to big things that get an II.

You need to change your work ethic and focus on getting A's with a few B's and you will do fine. Don't panick. You arnt the 2.0 student that decided he/she wants to do medical school during their junior year.