I just finished my freshman year at my state school with a GPA of 3.15. Im majoring in biomedical engineering. Should i just forget about med school because of my GPA. I just dont see how i could bring it up to the 3.8ish like most other people
Should i just move on?
- Thread starter David126
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Are you set on your major? You've picked what's generally considered one of the hardest majors in college. You don't need a 3.8ish. The average GPA is basically 3.7. If you show an upward trend, a GPA lower than that will still be fairly competitive.
Why didn't you get great grades this semester? Is this the major you really enjoy, if you aren't in love with biomed you'll grades will be hurt by that fact, and switching to a major you enjoy can really help you succeed.
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where there's a will there's a way. My older brother's friend got in after his 4th cycle.
If you want to be a doctor for the right reasons i say do it!
gl!
a gpa only says so much 🙂
*plus we're all gonna live to be around ~100 years old. who cares if it takes you a few extra years to get to where you want to be
If you want to be a doctor for the right reasons i say do it!
gl!
a gpa only says so much 🙂
*plus we're all gonna live to be around ~100 years old. who cares if it takes you a few extra years to get to where you want to be
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i know you meant well, but this is not exactly strong encouragement..
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I was a BME major in undergrad. It IS one of the hardest majors, and you will have to work harder for the same grades vs other majors. However, med school adcoms know this, and will adjust accordingly. I had a lower than average GPA (vs accepted to med school), and still got into my first choice med school. The problem solving and analytical thinking methods you learn in engineering school are invaluable in the real world.
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😕 sarcasm?
Edit: OP, it's only your first year. Still time to prove yourself but you need to ask yourself why your grades were low. I've seen worse recover and successfully apply to med school. Study harder, get a tutor, study group, go to office hours...do whatever helps you gain confidence.
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da8s0859q
My GPA went from a 3.2 at the end of my freshman year, to right around ~3.9 by the time I applied to med school.
Don't sweat it. I'm sure BME isn't the easiest major in the world, but you'll be okay.
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I agree with your view, but sadly most adcoms do *not* adjust GPA due to hardness/easiness of major. Only in rare circumstances where 2 applicants are head to head or a close committee vote, does this come into factor *sometimes*.
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1) The average GPA for a medical school matriculant, assuming you get an average MCAT, is a 3.6. Meaning half of students get in with less than 3.6. So if you end up with a 3.4 or above you're probably fine if you can pull an average MCAT and apply broadly and intelligently. You don't need a 3.8.
2) If you're dead set on medical school, seriously ask yourself if you want to stick with a degree that's a GPA killer. I stuck it out in engineering and the result is that I barely weaseled my way into medical school during my second cycle. The more cycles you go below a 3.2 the harder this is going to be. The first step when you're in a hole is to stop digging.
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We used it when I was on the adcom. Maybe we (state school) were the minority. I would not suggest being complacent about GPA and hoping for a bump, since the magnitude of the correction is small (0.1-0.2). OP definitely needs to bring it up before app time comes.
What if your major is already another healthcare profession?
I would assume that my 4 years of Pharmacy with a 3.7 would be FAR, FAR worth "more" (?) than a pre-med's 4 years of 4.0.😡
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I would be surprised if this were the case, actually.
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no, he was saying that youare probably right
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That's what I'm saying. While I can see why the most recent coursework would be considered for any applicant, (i.e. they won't compare a college student's UG GPA to your UG GPA as opposed to your Pharmacy GPA) I feel like it would be unfair to give additional weight to your Pharm GPA simply because it's graduate coursework. My reasoning here is that just as a college student has been prepared for their college coursework to whatever extent by high school, you've been prepared for your graduate coursework to whatever extent by college. Relative to the level of coursework, each of you has had the normal amount of academic experience to prepare you for the level you're at. If anything, I can imagine a graduate/professional level GPA being more scrutinized, under the assumption that, having been through college, your academic self-discipline and work ethic should be even more honed than that of a college junior.
No, I wasn't. I may have worded that initial post confusingly.
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Er...I am about to enter my graduate years of Pharmacy where we go on rotations, everything so far was undergraduate (hence I said 4 years). But in these years, we did clinical lab data, Therapeutics, Pharmaceutics, a lot of courses I don't think pre-meds would ever have to do. And remember, Therapeutics covers all of the organ systems AND oncology. Our first years are the same as yours...I took Gen Chem, Bio, A&P, etc. Are you thinking that I will be compared solely on my pre-med courses even though, with no ego, I would be vastly superior in medical and clinical knowledge to other pre-meds?
--edit
oncology AND infectious diseases!
--edit
oncology AND infectious diseases!
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Well-said GTLO.
BTW; I am just frustrated. My GPA was well beyond a 3.8 until I hit Therapeutics. That is a GPA drainer. I thought that the GPA I had now would be beyond impressive for where I was, considering that's where most people's are and they're not taking as hard subjects.
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Maybe not on your pre-reqs alone but you must consider this: just as your particular area of study has allowed you to acquire knowledge and skills that others do not have, other majors will provide other students with knowledge and skills that pharmacy hasn't given you. And I don't believe being exposed to courses that you will take in med school will give you a significant advantage over any other applicant for the simple fact that asides from pre-reqs all the skills and knowledge you need to become a successful doctor are learned at medical school. It seems to me that your GPA is just used to see how you handle the coursework given to you in an area of study you have dedicated yourself to learn and doing poorly in that said field shows that you lack both dedication and the capacity to do well academically.
Hm. Most of the MDs I've spoken to say that we will have an advantage over side effects, doses, drug-induced-diseases (I.E; and a real patient case - a schizophrenic patient was given Haldol until she developed TD, and the MD kept increasing the dose of Haldol because he didn't realize it was a DID!) nor do they need to know doses or interactions on the spot - something we do need to know.
I guess in the end you are right, but I still think it is unfair. We have pushed much further into the medical field than others, if we excel it at (and if this entire MCAT process is to see if we can handle the med school courseload), I think that should also speak volumes.
EDIT
I feel bad for hijacking the OP's topic. Sorry!!
I guess in the end you are right, but I still think it is unfair. We have pushed much further into the medical field than others, if we excel it at (and if this entire MCAT process is to see if we can handle the med school courseload), I think that should also speak volumes.
EDIT
I feel bad for hijacking the OP's topic. Sorry!!
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While your knowledge of pharmacy may give you an advantage in practice, prior knowledge of medicine is not expected of medical school applicants, and I wouldn't bank on schools giving any more preference to someone who has prior knowledge of a related field any more than they would to someone who had a BFA. Also, the MCAT is primarily a measure of standardized test performance and a predictor of USMLE passing ability. It is not a measure of one's ability to handle the rigor of the medical curriculum, as it is a single test, not a course. It does measure one's preparedness to understand the advanced science taught in the preclinical years, as a sufficient background in the sciences is necessary to ensure everyone is on close-to-even footing when the MS1's dive in. That background in the sciences is essentially taught in the prerequisites and tested on the MCAT. That said, I do not believe that your GPA will be measured solely by your performance in the prereq's.
This line of thinking will get you less than nowhere, as not only will admissions committees (having reviewed applications of non-science majors with excellent GPA's and MCAT scores) realize that course difficulty is highly relative and not subscribe to your reasoning that yours has been objectively "more difficult" than most, they will take this attitude as arrogant and ignorant if you ever present it. The truth is your coursework in pharmacy has not been any more objectively difficult than that of almost any other major (typical "joke" majors notwithstanding.)
Any supposed superiority in medical clinical knowledge is irrelevant; medical school applicants are not expected to have prior medical or clinical knowledge to the extent that it would aid them in their study during medical school. Your GPA over the last 4 years will be classified as undergrad on AMCAS, and your next two as a pharmacy graduate as graduate work. Your graduate work may be viewed more directly than your undergraduate work as it is more recent, though this will vary by school and individual reviewer. As I said before, I would not expect your performance in the prereq's alone to be used for comparison against other students for any reason, as applicants with more arcane undergraduate programs than you are still required to be academically competitive overall. Also, the fact that you've taken advanced courses "[you] don't think other pre-meds would ever have to [take]" does not put you in any position of advantage versus those "other pre-meds," even if they are medically related. Medical coursework in undergrad =/= actual medical coursework, and if it did, biology/physiology/related majors would probably have a much higher acceptance rate vs. non-science majors. I've already commented on the issue of relative difficulty.
The only case in which prior coursework and your performance therein is decisively more predictive of medical school performance than any other applicant's undergraduate work is in an SMP.
That is the thing, i am not 100% set on medical school yet. I keep fluctuating between wanting to go to medical school and wanting to be an engineer. This is the reason that i chose my major. If i decide halfway through that i don t want to go to medical school, or if i do not get in, then i will have a back up plan.
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Switch your major to something easy like sociology or education and watch those As roll in 😀
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I'm glad to hear that you had experience with an admission committee that factored in the difficulty of the coursework, and didn't just look at raw numbers. My experience has been that the raw numbers mattered more than the course work. Who knows - perhaps the people who hold that opinion are the ones who went with "easy" majors, themselves. Perhaps they even struggled with their "easy" major, and don't want to accept that there's a more difficult course of study.
I spent a little over half of my time in undergrad as an engineering major. Like you, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do medicine, engineering or even something else. Part of the reason I chose engineering was because I liked the idea of engineering, and I also liked the flexibility that it seemed to grant.
The trouble is that engineering only gives you options if you excel in it. As far as I'm concerned, a 3.1 in engineering should be considered equal to a 3.5 (if not a 3.6 or a 3.7) in an easier field of study. However, unless a person like me wound up reading over your application, interviewing you, and fighting for you at committee meetings, you'd likely be knocked for a low GPA.
You have three (if not more) years left to go. You can bring your GPA up, and it's OK if you're not sitting at a 3.8 when you finish (especially if your MCAT score is good). However, engineering is like running a race with weights tied to your legs. Do you know why your GPA isn't higher? Are you confident that you can do better? Is there a chance that you'll do worse? The fact that you're in engineering over something easier is very unlikely to grant any sympathy or understanding for a low GPA.
Sadly, this is seriously good advice. I slowly increased my semester GPAs during my time in engineering, but it was never enough. When I finally realized that engineering wasn't what I wanted to do, I changed my major to something easier (but not the easiest you can get) and my GPA shot up and stayed up. I struggled and put in so much work to get B+'s as an engineering student, and after the change, I was achieving A's with little effort by comparison.
I find it very sad that this is the advice that we're giving. Ideally, college should be a time for you to gain exposure to a wide variety of different things, and to figure out what you want to do as a career. It shouldn't be all about the grades, and you shouldn't be so heavily penalized for challenging yourself and possibly getting an average grade (or even a poor one) for it. But that's the current reality of most (if not nearly all) medical school admissions. If you're in that game, play to win.
My advice to you, David, would be to start thinking hard about what you want to do. It wasn't until my junior year that I met with engineers in the field I was training for and found out what the realities of that area were - that was the catalyst behind why I finally broke from engineering. If you're unsure of exactly what engineering and/or medicine are like in practice, use this summer to find out. Try to intern somewhere, and start shadowing doctors or clinical volunteering. Aside from the fact that those experiences will help you later on (regardless of which field you choose), it will start to give you a better sense of what you really want to do.
And if you decide that you like medicine over engineering, change your major. As much as I struggled in engineering, I enjoyed what I learned - but that didn't help me when it came time to apply to medical schools. I hope you won't come to suffer as I did.
definately dont switch ur major to something easy just for the A's. keep ur tough major and start doing better. I agree that sometime raw gpa numbers can be more important than major/classes. however it would be obvious that you switched because it was too hard. most importantly, you need a good mcat considering your low gpa start. have fun doing well on the mcat if your a soc major
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You're right I've never heard of anyone with a non science major doing well on the mcat ::sarcasm::
let's say he does bad on the mcat, he can retake it. If he picks an engineering major and does bad he cant retake undergrad.
I'd rather maintain GPA with an easy major and use that extra effort to grasp a full concept of the pre reqs and master them, helping on the mcat 😀
It's win-win
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I went to UCSD for undergrad, and it is a school with a TON of BME majors. Many of them decided to shoot for med school, and sadly, many of the ones I know are still attempting to get in. That being said, I am finishing my SMP at Georgetown right now, and a lot of the first year students come from small liberal arts schools in the Northeast with majors like music, European Literature, and even a few philosophy majors (whatever this means). Most of these kids are not even in the same strata of intelligence as many of the BME majors that I knew at UCSD; nevertheless, these kids are in med school and the most of the BME's I knew are not. Also of note, there are a ton of engineering majors in my SMP program that didn't get into med school their first time around. These former-engineers have owned the grading curves in the med school classes this year because they are both very intelligent and well prepared for med school classes. Just because you are smart enough to do BME does not mean that you should do BME. The lesson here is: get the highest grades that you can possibly get, even if it means studying philosophy.
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BME is very low on the totem pole of "easy ways to get into med school." Words of wisdom from my first BME professor:
If you want to practice medicine in the future, get out of this major. Now.
If you want to practice medicine in the future, get out of this major. Now.
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Depends on the school I think. At my undergrad, the chair of BME also chaired the premed committee. He commonly liked to brag that BME had the highest acceptance rate of any major at our school and more than 50% of my graduating class that year went to med school.
Nevertheless, BME was still hard as hell. I could easily see how it could wreck you if your department wasn't supporting your goals.
My basic test for people who ask me about premed engineering is:
1. Are you talented in math?
2. Can you show me something cool that you built or programmed in your free time just for fun?
If you can't do 1 & 2, you're unlikely to be successful in that major.
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Also, since you're a freshman, it bears to consider what classes you did poorly in. Generally first years, regardless of major, take a bunch of similar university-wide type lower division classes (i.e. basic sciences, humanities, etc.).
If you're doing poorly in your intro to engineering classes, then yes, perhaps you need to re-examine your major. However, if you're doing poorly in your beginning science courses (calc, bio, chem, physics), then I think the problem lies elsewhere, since those classes aren't really major-specific (or even if they are, the material should basically be the same).
Also, this:
If you're doing poorly in your intro to engineering classes, then yes, perhaps you need to re-examine your major. However, if you're doing poorly in your beginning science courses (calc, bio, chem, physics), then I think the problem lies elsewhere, since those classes aren't really major-specific (or even if they are, the material should basically be the same).
Also, this:
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Obvious to other people who studied engineering, maybe, but I don't think "he changed because it was hard" would be the first thought to most people. Tons of people change their major in college, especially after the first and second semesters. It's all about discovering what you want to do as a career. This is well-known.
I know of one guy, a current medical student who was originally in business and worked in business for some years. He quit his job and took three months to do non-stop studying for the exam, and aced it - despite taking his science courses many years prior. In his own words, if he could do it, anyone with three months of solid studying could do it.
No matter what your major is, you'll need to take the science prerequisites for medical school. If you understand the material in those classes well and can retain some of the fundamentals, it will help you on the MCAT. That said, I've never heard of anyone who didn't have to study for the MCAT. There's a reason for that.
