premed classes and grades

[Dustee]

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HI, I'm a nurse practitioner and decided to pursue a career in medicine. Before I went back to school to get my NP degree, I tried some sciences classes with an outcome of poor grades. After discouraging years, I decided to become a NP. After been on the work force as a NP, I have strong urge again to go for medical school.
I was not sure whether I should go through post bac program or just take classes at the university as an extension student. I'm still deciding on that.
My concern is that, is my poor grades from the past going to hurt me when I apply for medical school? Does application automatically averages all the grades of the science classes? I last took them 5-6years ago. I am very determined to get good grades this time. Please help!😍

 

[DrMidlife]

The good news is you'll have a ton of options to choose from, in tidying things up. Check the postbac forum.

The less good news is that every grade, on every undergraduate transcript you've ever had, still counts. My music major grades from 1984 will be on my med school app. Graduate GPA doesn't offset undergrad -they're counted separately.

You'll probably need to take some upper division science, and to retake some of the prereqs if you got below a C, and/or maybe retake some of the prereqs to prepare for upper div or the MCAT.

See this guide that's an SDN standard: http://www.studentdoctor.net/downloads/medshort.pdf

Best of luck to you.

 

[MasonPrehealth]

I'll caveat the last post by saying that every course grade in every class you took since undergraduate will be on the record. However, most people would rather pay attention to your more recent grades as a measurement of your current preparation both academically and personally. So don't be afraid to retake the prerequisites if you did badly in them back when you didn't know any better.

 

[Dustee]

I'll caveat the last post by saying that every course grade in every class you took since undergraduate will be on the record. However, most people would rather pay attention to your more recent grades as a measurement of your current preparation both academically and personally. So don't be afraid to retake the prerequisites if you did badly in them back when you didn't know any better.

First of all, thank you guys for replies.
So, is that mean my grade on the application won't be averaged? For example, I have taken chemistry with C. If I retake the same course and get A, it would show both C and A or average them out to B?

 

[ShyRem]

Every course and every grade you received on any transcript is reported and shown on your application. The final GPA, however, averages the two grades together for AMCAS, but for AACOMAS I believe it replaces the grade.

Most of us had some poor grades in the past... and unfortunately they never go away. Ever. 🙁 But you can do a lot of mitigation by showing strong grades from here out.

 

[Dustee]

Every course and every grade you received on any transcript is reported and shown on your application. The final GPA, however, averages the two grades together for AMCAS, but for AACOMAS I believe it replaces the grade.

Most of us had some poor grades in the past... and unfortunately they never go away. Ever. 🙁 But you can do a lot of mitigation by showing strong grades from here out.

I don't know where to start now. I'm so discouraged by my poor grades. Even though I get straight A's from now on, my undergrad gpa will be lower. I got 3.9 gpa in my master's program, but I heard it does not count. What should I do?

 

[Dustee]

Every course and every grade you received on any transcript is reported and shown on your application. The final GPA, however, averages the two grades together for AMCAS, but for AACOMAS I believe it replaces the grade.

Most of us had some poor grades in the past... and unfortunately they never go away. Ever. 🙁 But you can do a lot of mitigation by showing strong grades from here out.

I don't know where to start now. I'm so discouraged by my poor grades. Even though I get straight A's from now on, my undergrad gpa will be lower. I got 3.9 gpa in my master's program, but I heard it does not count. What should I do? 🙁

 

[CarolinaGirl]

Dustee

I am in a similar sitituation as you. I am also a FNP who is planning to return to med school. My undergrad GPA is not bad but not stellar: around 3.6. My grad gpa is a 4.0 and I was really hoping that would count more.

I have talked with some schools about this problem and they said that the Grad gpa does not get thrown into the "equation" when calculating gpa stuff but that Grad gpa's can be like bonus points. My interputation of this was not to worry b/c they will also look the most recent grades.

 

[Dustee]

Dustee

I am in a similar sitituation as you. I am also a FNP who is planning to return to med school. My undergrad GPA is not bad but not stellar: around 3.6. My grad gpa is a 4.0 and I was really hoping that would count more.

Dear Carolinagirl
Your gpa is great! My undergrad gpa does not even make it to 3.0.
So, what is your next step? Are you currently enrolled in postbac prog?
Maybe we can help each other up since we are walking on a same path.