Rough first semester with Chem, looking for opinions/advice

[jpaulmakeyafall]

Hi, I had a scholarship to play lacrosse for the University of Tampa but decided to attend my local community college for the cheaper route and to focus on academics without the distractions of well.... being in Tampa. This college corresponds all of its curriculums with The University of Maryland so its somewhat no joke. My first semester here as a freshman is halfway through and I finally kicked the importance of studying into gear after I failed my first chem test and looking at pulling out of general chem with most likely a C or best possible scenario, B. High school was a breeze, never having to study for A's .All my free time now is spent studying since I have developed an obsession of getting into med school. I get to the college at 9am and don't leave usually until 9:30 pm.

EXTRACURRICULARS
- volunteer at Cardio & Neuro Unit at hospital (3hours a week)
-play for a serious lacrosse program (5 days a week, 2 hours a day, year round, #3 team in the country)
-shadow top cardiologist at Union Memorial hospital (Dad's has connections being a EP tech)
-work part time at Under Armour
-church related work (sundays)

My outlook for the end of this semester is pulling a 3.25 or 3.00 GPA. I have a bunch of extracurriculars and was wondering if this will effect the medical school admissions process and hopefully looking over the bad first semester as I develop from high school into college.

Will they potentially overlook the low GPA if the rest of college goes very well even with it being a community college? How will my chances still fair with this first semester of community college against a Vanderbilt freshman with a 3.8 with little extracurriculars? thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[chmowrey]

Just pull your grades up and keep them up. Plenty of people have overcome early mishaps and gotten into medical school. If your extracurriculars are cutting into your ability to make the grades, you may want to consider backing off some of them until you find the appropriate workload. Great extracurriculars will not overshadow a poor GPA, and you don't need 1000s of hours of these ECs to have "strong" ECs.

 

[JessebenBenjamin]

Same as first person. Getting ECs is easy. Fixing a broken GPA is not. Focus on having a high GPA and finding your rhythm in college.