Should I retake BioCalc?

[dpatel123]

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Hey, I'm a freshman who has my heart and mind set on dentistry and I've heard of many students who regret small decisions they made during their undergrad career so I wanted to make sure I was on the right track from the start. First semester, I took BioCalc with a new and unexperienced professor and many of us were performing very badly in the class and she refused to apply a curve or drop a test. Finally I received a C in the class severely dropping my GPA right from the start! I didn't want to carry this with me as I knew the information and believed I could perform beter under other circumstances. This semester I am retaking the course with the same instructor and I got a 95 on the frist Exam (hopefully, I keep it up!) I was wondering whether it was smart to retake the class, whether i still have a chance of making it to dental school, and how the AADSAS looks at a course which has been retaken. I was also wondering what type of extracurricular activities I should be looking into for the summer. Thank You so much! I appreciate all of your help. 🙂

 

[DanceMnster]

One C in BioCalc definitely shouldn't hurt your chances, especially if you're retaking it now and can pull off an A. I had a rough semester freshman year with a couple of C's due to some family problems but rebounded the following 3 years with straight A/A+ and got into some great programs (including UCSF, Penn, Michigan, Maryland and Stony Brook). With a great upward trend adcoms can be forgiving for a hiccup or 2 freshman year. Just work your tail off from here on out and show them you've got what it takes to excel and you'll be fine. As for summer plans you may want to think about summer pre dental programs, shadowing dentists, or if you're interested in research you could do a summer research paid internship (any of these would look great on your application). You could also pursue some non-science related interests....for example I did a congressional internship on Capitol Hill one summer and it made for some great convo during my interviews. Best of luck and hope this helps!