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- Pre-Medical
Retaking Classes
- Thread starter LINYKid
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I'll try to help you out, you may get a better response in the non-trad room but heres my story.....
I graduated in 1990, went to Cameron University on a Debate and baseball scholorship and proptly flunked almost everything except the courses I really liked. Honestly because of some personal problems at home ( I was an abused child) I did'nt have the maturity or dicipline(sp?) to do it yet. I went to another junior college taking classes every now and then skipping some semesters and playing minor league basball and managed to pass about 60% of my classes( why I didn't drop them I don't know) the only good thing that happened for me is I not only gained some maturity but I did manage to get good grades (A's and B's) in courses I liked ie history, goverment, and bio. so by that time I've got about 30 hours with about a 1.3 gpa.
Then life changed for me. I was in a near fatal car accident in 1995 and completly destroyed my knee. So the dream of playing baseball was over. I screwed around for a few years feeling sorry for myself and then in 2000 started really deciding what I wanted to do with my life did research on every medical field dental,pharmacy,and medicine. By pure chance in my research I ran across the osteopathic retake policy and knew it was for me. It took me another year and a half to get my finances together enough to follow my dream.
Sorry for the life story... the short of it is, I've retaken about 5 or 6 courses, including chem1 and psych 1 to raise my gpa along with the required courses for a bio degree with a minor in chemistry so only counting retakes I've got a 3.1 non science and a 2.5 science with about 75 hours taken. The point is, I've talked to many application specialist from alot of the osteopathic schools and all of them say the fewer classes retaken the better, but an upward trend, with a heavy course load(at least 15 hours of science in a semester) shows the admissions committee your dedicated. Not to mention going throught the grind of taking classes over to get a better grade shows your serious. It may take awhile but there are numerous profiles on mdapplicants.com showing people that have retaken upwards of 10-12 courses and gotten in. It can be done.
I graduated in 1990, went to Cameron University on a Debate and baseball scholorship and proptly flunked almost everything except the courses I really liked. Honestly because of some personal problems at home ( I was an abused child) I did'nt have the maturity or dicipline(sp?) to do it yet. I went to another junior college taking classes every now and then skipping some semesters and playing minor league basball and managed to pass about 60% of my classes( why I didn't drop them I don't know) the only good thing that happened for me is I not only gained some maturity but I did manage to get good grades (A's and B's) in courses I liked ie history, goverment, and bio. so by that time I've got about 30 hours with about a 1.3 gpa.
Then life changed for me. I was in a near fatal car accident in 1995 and completly destroyed my knee. So the dream of playing baseball was over. I screwed around for a few years feeling sorry for myself and then in 2000 started really deciding what I wanted to do with my life did research on every medical field dental,pharmacy,and medicine. By pure chance in my research I ran across the osteopathic retake policy and knew it was for me. It took me another year and a half to get my finances together enough to follow my dream.
Sorry for the life story... the short of it is, I've retaken about 5 or 6 courses, including chem1 and psych 1 to raise my gpa along with the required courses for a bio degree with a minor in chemistry so only counting retakes I've got a 3.1 non science and a 2.5 science with about 75 hours taken. The point is, I've talked to many application specialist from alot of the osteopathic schools and all of them say the fewer classes retaken the better, but an upward trend, with a heavy course load(at least 15 hours of science in a semester) shows the admissions committee your dedicated. Not to mention going throught the grind of taking classes over to get a better grade shows your serious. It may take awhile but there are numerous profiles on mdapplicants.com showing people that have retaken upwards of 10-12 courses and gotten in. It can be done.
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I retook 6 classes total, most resulted from not taking my education seriously during my freshmen year. Bio I and II (got C's in both first round), Physics I, Genetics (C-), Orgo I (D), and Microbiology (C). Yes. I retook classes I got C's in. A lot of people don't recommend doing so and that you should just take upper science classes instead. Well, I was a science major so I took pretty much all the science classes my school (private) had to offer. Since my GPA wasn't where I wanted it to be I decided to retake those classes I got C's in the first time but know for sure I could get at least a B or an A in the second time around. I replaced all those with A's.LINYKid said:
Out of the four interviews I went on no one ever question the number of classes I retook.
FutureDocDO said:I retook 6 classes total, most resulted from not taking my education seriously during my freshmen year. Bio I and II (got C's in both first round), Physics I, Genetics (C-), Orgo I (D), and Microbiology (C). Yes. I retook classes I got C's in. A lot of people don't recommend doing so and that you should just take upper science classes instead. Well, I was a science major so I took pretty much all the science classes my school (private) had to offer. Since my GPA wasn't where I wanted it to be I decided to retake those classes I got C's in the first time but know for sure I could get at least a B or an A in the second time around. I replaced all those with A's.
Out of the four interviews I went on no one ever question the number of classes I retook.
Thats awsome! They didn't even mention your retakes! I hope that happens to me!
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If they ask just say how immature you, not saying you are, were when you started but you've learned from your mistakes and has since improved. It's not a big deal. Remember, numbers are the first thing they look at. They don't usually look too much into detail in your transcripts.blaze1306 said:
FutureDocDO said:
I'm counting on my wealth of life experiances to help not hinder me. Even if I graduated college with a 4.0 right after highschool I was definatly not mature or stable enough to stick with medical school. I'ts been hard but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
