Sophomore in college

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gpa =/= intelligence

your gpa is reflective of your work ethic and dedication, not how smart you are
 
so basically, you have gotten C's in all your pre-reqs thus far? I'm not a med student (also a college soph), but I'm pretty sure you might want to pick that up.

you are probably not working hard enough, I've seen plenty of students with pedestrian minds at my school pull decent GPA's and good grades in their pre-req science classes. They just work harder.
 
I'm not going to beat around the bush here. You are going to have trouble if you want to go to medical school straight out of college. Pull a Vih, and start making decisions based on obtaining your dream.
 
xrevision said:
I'm not going to beat around the bush here. You are going to have trouble if you want to go to medical school straight out of college. Pull a Vih, and start making decisions based on obtaining your dream.
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vih?
 
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bryante77 said:
Yea, I see that I have to pick up my GPA, but how many more semesters do I have left to do so. In other words, when do I have to apply to medical schools?

And yea, I see about the working hard thing, I just used to do really well in HS with certain study habits, and now in college, I have to step up those habits. It just kind of sucks how the same students that asked for my help in HS are doing better than me now. It would be much easier to understand if they also did better than me in HS. It seems as though everyone is "catching up" In freshman year HS I had like a 97 avg then went down and in senior year (when i took 4 AP's) it was like 86 (btw the AP's were not weighted). Cumulative was like 91. The students that I talk about had terrible average in freshman year when the course work was easier, and somehow did better later on when it was harder. It really pisses me off since I worked hard and did well in HS, but it doesn't matter because college is what counts....
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Its not that they are catching up, its that they are making progress, while you aren't. Dwelling on that doesn't help in the slightest.

Let me tell you the story of my life thus far. I used to be a really lazy student back in HS, smoked a lot of pot, never took my work very seriously, and graduated around top 15% in a particularly weak class. Trust me, it was a tiny school (50 students per class), and everyone thought I was the dumbest person in the class (mostly because of the antics I pulled). Oh, then I got rejected from all the top colleges I applied to (and had I been OOS for the one I go to now, I probably would've been rejected from here too lol)

But when I started college, I basically leapfrogged everyone in my class. I just started to work my *** off while the students who were more successful than me in HS just sat around getting fat and being self content with the fact that they were so good in HS. You might have been better than those kids back in HS, and really college is no different. They put in the work that you haven't, and they're benefiting, while you aren't. Theres no other way around it.
 
yeah all these guys are right, it's all about how hard you work plus a little common sense and strategy ie choosing the right professors, balancing course load etc.
 
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bryante77 said:
I wish I could just start medical classes already instead of this crap. I bet I would do better in those classes since I am very good in straight medicine classes. I know more about medicine than everyone who is doing better than me in orgo. To not be able to go to med school because of this is stupid.
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No offense, but you seem to have this totally undeserved feeling of entitlement.

I'm no med student or doctor (I'm also a college sophomore), but if you can't do well in undergraduate pre-reqs or classes, I seriously doubt you could succeed in medical school.

Knowing more about medicine has nothing to do with what kind of doctor you'll be. I know more about medicine than most of my friends or classmates, but that doesn't mean I'll be a better doctor solely for that reason. There are others who know much more about medicine than I do at the moment because they're in nursing or medical technology/allied health majors. They'll be great at that, but I cannot see any of them as doctors.

A little bit of medical knowledge doesn't make you more deserving of anything. And you'll have to stop believing you're the smartest person around that will make a better doctor than everyone else, especially if your grades don't reflect that. What you do need to do is work harder and more importantly, work smarter (ie, better study habits).
 
bryante77 said:
nice... a D+ on my first orgo test just because I didnt get any partial credit for some stupid synthesis problems. I studied my *** for this, and the hard work didnt really pay off. I wish I could just start medical classes already instead of this crap. I bet I would do better in those classes since I am very good in straight medicine classes. I know more about medicine than everyone who is doing better than me in orgo. To not be able to go to med school because of this is stupid.
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If you can't do well in ochem then you won't do well academically in medical school, even if you still know more about medicine than your peers there. So what's your point? Are you saying it's stupid to not be a doctor because you suck at academics?

The reason why you have to prove yourself academically is because it shows you have the work ethic to be a doctor.
 
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bryante77 said:
No, I am saying its stupid not to be a doctor because I don't do very well in Ochem, especially for stupid clerical errors like that. I bet there are millions of doctors out there who did not do very well in Ochem but still pulled it off. After all, diagnosing a patient has nothing in the least to do with Ochem, you send the results to a lab and they take care of that. It's more memorization in medical schools. Just because my friend happens to be better at organic than myself, doesn't mean he will be a better doctor. He just happens to be good at orgo. I bet I will school them in medical trivia and such, they just know what they have to know for the classes and that's it. I bet I would do well in medical school without organic. The stuff is just useless, and has no real applications. I know people are going to be like "Of course it has applications, medicines are made from organic materials, or enantiomers of certain drugs can change their effects. etc etc", but really, doctors could care less, they just need to know the end result, and go from there. Once they grasp physiology, anatomy, etc. they should be good to go. I know more about anatomy than the kid who does well in orgo does, I am 2 steps ahead.
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but Orgo is very important, not only does it prove that you can think abstractly but is pretty much the basis for a lot of biochemistry which is very important in the medical profession.
 
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you just gotta sit down and do it. I hated orgo and calculus... but i wasn't gonna let it get in my way of becoming a doctor. i could breeze through physics and bio all day... but i had to study my butt off just to get a B+ in orgo. you're not gonna be good at everything, very few students are, but the ones with high GPAs put the work in to make up for their shortcomings in certain subjects. Thats what you need to do.

with a 2.79gpa you are gonna have an uphill battle and i doubt you will get into a med school straight outta 4-year undergrad. traditionally most students send out their application the summer before senior year. the average GPA of students getting accepted is about a 3.6-3.7

the transition from highschool to college is tough for some. you really have to put in more than double the work to make the same GPA you used to.
 
hum3a said:
you just gotta sit down and do it. I hated orgo and calculus... but i wasn't gonna let it get in my way of becoming a doctor. i could breeze through physics and bio all day... but i had to study my butt off just to get a B+ in orgo. you're not gonna be good at everything, very few students are, but the ones with high GPAs put the work in to make up for their shortcomings in certain subjects. Thats what you need to do.

with a 2.79gpa you are gonna have an uphill battle and i doubt you will get into a med school straight outta 4-year undergrad. traditionally most students send out their application the summer before senior year. the average GPA of students getting accepted is about a 3.6-3.7

the transition from highschool to college is tough for some. you really have to put in more than double the work to make the same GPA you used to.
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Second this. What I have heard is you need to spend ATLEAST two hours of study time for every hour in class time. Although I have had a few teachers reccomend 4 hrs per every hour and you still are only guaranteed a C😱.

Do I spend two hours for every class hour??? nope, but I do spend alot of time for a few classes such as Orgo. Put in the time and effort and results will come.
 
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Organic is pretty relevant...

You wouldn't let a mechanic work on your car if he didn't know how the whole car worked, right? That's a bit of a generalization, but Organic and Biochem are really one continuous subject, and both are pretty important in my eyes.

We've all been gypped of a few points here and there, but resilience is a very important trait for prospective medical students. It sounds like you have the dedication, but you will have to do some serious work from this point on. If it means you have to study five times as much as anyone else, and sleep half as much, you'll be that much better for it if you pull it off.
 
You're absolutely right, OP.

Your stellar 86 in high school should mean that you do not have to work hard at college to get into medical school.
 
T12 said:
Organic is pretty relevant...

You wouldn't let a mechanic work on your car if he didn't know how the whole car worked, right? That's a bit of a generalization, but Organic and Biochem are really one continuous subject, and both are pretty important in my eyes.
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i agree.

orgo is so damn important to biology it's not even funny, and most of us just memorize our way through it. honestly, medicine is not the right field if you want to learn biology inside and out.
 
Yea that's what I did for the last test, and I knew the material, I just didnt get partial credit for 2 10 pt problems, 0 pts each, wtf lol. I got full 10 pts on another problem and 5 pts on another 10 pt problem, so I know they give partial credit. The mechanism was very similar to the correct answer, and this would have gave me a at least a C on the exam. Really sucks, I wish orgo was more clear cut.. This is the right answer and that's it, no bs. I guess I will have to try harder next time, again.
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Stop whining. This isn't even the real issue. If you had worked hard before and had a good GPA this one test wouldn't kill you.

This thread is pointless. Either put the work in or don't. You make the decision, you live with the consequences.
 
So. I made a pretty big turnaround and now I have a 3.5 gpa and got 35 on MCAT. Ended up with A- in second semester Orgo. That said, Physics was still a lot easier for me, A for both semesters, and Upper division Bio classes were really interesting, did really well in those including non-major courses. Pretty much A's and A-'s after that. Shadowing was really interesting and I even helped the doctor diagnose patients by suggesting various possibilities based on symptoms. It seemed like every time a patient complained of certain symptoms, we though alike and what I thought he pretty much said. I thought "I could do this!" He said that my knowledge about what irregularities in body functionality and the symptoms that are linked to them is very good, and that I'd be a great doctor with my patience and compassion.

However, I know that I still have a lot to learn and I will take advantage of my time in medical school. My love of knowledge alone will grasp my interest and I will love it. I applied to MD and DO schools, the premise behind the DO curriculum is very interesting and deals with the added aspect of spiritual health, which I feel is important. I believe that the DO degree should be MDO, since the DO training requires additional types of courses and the rest of the curriculum is the same as MD. Could any DO's and MD's clarify this for me? Besides the slight difference in curriculum, what are the other difference between MD and DO? Thanks
 
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