School, grades, and upward trends

[lamberter]

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Is it possible to get into med school with a bad first year? Does explaining these grades help?

This year was my first year as a bio pre-med student. I'm planning on applying to the CLS program at my school next year and apply to med school after I finish the requirements for med school and the CLS program (approximately 5 years in total). So, I've never been a bad student (graduated high school with a 3.87 GPA) and this year ruined me. My father attempted suicide twice and went to jail. Not even two months later, I found my roommate/cousin on the bathroom floor, dying from acetaminophen poisoning. Never have I used my private life to excuse bad grades, however I feel hopeless in this situation. I'm ending this year with about a 2.0. I'm retaking classes this summer and I've created study plans in order to better my chances of getting into med school (leaning towards osteopathic medicine). I've wanted to do this since I was in elementary school and I'm not giving up... I just need to know how to get there.
Here are some of the things I do outside of school:
-certified pharmacy tech
-hospital volunteer
-*tentative* trip to intern at a clinic in Vietnam in July.

If anyone has words of wisdom or any success stories please feel free to share.

 

[zukunft195]

Assuming you take an equal number of credits each year in college and get As in every class from now on: (2.0 + 4.0 + 4.0 + 4.0)/4 = 3.5 GPA.

~3.5 GPA, 503+ MCAT, some experience and a strong DO letter --> apply broadly --> act normal at interviews --> you're in.

If you really want to enter medicine, you're going to have to learn how to cope with tragedies in your personal life. Medical school is four years, and residency is at least three years. That's a seven-year block of time during which you'll be busy and stressed... and chances are, something bad is going to happen to you or somebody you know over the course of those seven years. This is your time to learn that academics need to come first, even in the face of tragedy and personal hardship.

Put your academic performance first. Put your dreams first. Don't let unfortunate events in your personal life confine you to a professional future that you don't want.

Take it from a 24-year-old non-trad who let personal issues get in the way of his undergraduate studies, and who now has to waste his mid-20s completing a post-bacc.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Gourd]

It is absolutely possible to get into med school even though you did bad first year. Put that first year behind you and excel the rest of your undergrad and get a great MCAT score and you will have a very reasonable shot getting into medical school. I'm sorry to hear about the terrible events you have gone through but on the positive side you can tailor those adversities into your personal statement and say how they brought you closer to medicine? You only have one year under your belt so show adcoms you are much more capable and you will have a shot at med school. Life happens but there is always a tomorrow. Best of luck.


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[lamberter]

Assuming you take an equal number of credits each year in college and get As in every class from now on: (2.0 + 4.0 + 4.0 + 4.0)/4 = 3.5 GPA.

~3.5 GPA, 503+ MCAT, some experience and a strong DO letter --> apply broadly --> act normal at interviews --> you're in.

If you really want to enter medicine, you're going to have to learn how to cope with tragedies in your personal life. Medical school is four years, and residency is at least three years. That's a seven-year block of time during which you'll be busy and stressed... and chances are, something bad is going to happen to you or somebody you know over the course of those seven years. This is your time to learn that academics need to come first, even in the face of tragedy and personal hardship.

Put your academic performance first. Put your dreams first. Don't let unfortunate events in your personal life confine you to a professional future that you don't want.

Take it from a 24-year-old non-trad who let personal issues get in the way of his undergraduate studies, and who now has to waste his mid-20s completing a post-bacc.

Best of luck to you.

Thanks so much for this advice. I never really let those things get to me until it happened until death was looming over me. I'm hoping these next three years will ameliorate my circumstances. Are you going to apply to med school afterwards?

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

I'm going to echo the above posters and say you're definitely still in the running for a competitive application for medical school. It's very common to have a poor performance the first year in college (for both tragic and... not so tragic... reasons.) ADCOMs hear this type of story over and over again.. as long as you take a step back, examine where you went wrong, and correct it, you will be fine.

Get A's/B's from here on out (as many A's as possible... but a B won't kill you), keep volunteering, get some shadowing, go on that trip to Vietnam, take things one day/step at a time, and you will come out with a strong, well-rounded application, that DO schools will like.

Make sure you take your pre-med pre-reqs seriously! The better you conceptualize the material now, the easier it will be for you come MCAT time.

Good luck.