Started off so strong

[brettevan]

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I've posted on the board before but not in a while and was looking for some advice.

To give you a little background I attended college from 2003-2006 and basically screwed around the entire time with many F's and W's. I returned to school in 2010 and began my pre reqs. A's and B's in everything. Then last semester I took orgo I and genetics and a research class and ended up failing all of them. My initial plan was to finish my pre reqs, graduate and go to an smp and try my luck with allopathic. Now with the recent F's my chances of going that route are down the tubes. So now as I see it I have two options, graduate and then retake every class I've done poorly in since 2003 and then apply osteopathic or try and apply to a post bacc, take all of my pre reqs over and see if I could get in from there.

Has anyone been in a similar situation or do any of you have any constructive advice for me. After 3 years of salvaging my gpa with all a's and b's my cumulative is still far below the acceptable level for entrance to med school but with retakes I could be competetive. I honestly don't know what to do right now and it's causing me a lot of aggravation especially because I'm on par to graduate in may. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys!

 

[TriagePreMed]

What happened that semester?

 

[brettevan]

Honestly after doing well in the rest of the pre reqs I got cocky. I took 18 credits of hard science hoping that if I took them all together I would be able to graduate sooner. It was a terrible decision which I take full responsibility for. Couple this with family issues and I just didn't have enough time to dedicate to my course load.

 

[Chip N Sawbones]

What is your current GPA? If you apply to DO schools you don't have to retake every bad grade you've ever gotten. You just need to do enough retakes to bring your GPA up to competitive levels. You will need to retake last semester's bad grades, though, whether you want to try for DO or MD. I doubt that an SMP or formal postbac program will accept you unless you can demonstrate some recent academic success. This time, take a light enough schedule that you can get nothing short of perfect grades in every class, even if it means taking one class at a time.

 

[TriagePreMed]

Honestly after doing well in the rest of the pre reqs I got cocky. I took 18 credits of hard science hoping that if I took them all together I would be able to graduate sooner. It was a terrible decision which I take full responsibility for. Couple this with family issues and I just didn't have enough time to dedicate to my course load.

Yeah, that can definitely happen. I'm sorry to hear that. You sound mature about it and your different choices here on out. If you can break the 3.0 and a 30+ MCAT, you can still do the SMP, but I would highly recommend Osteopathic medicine. A lot of people worry about this route, but if you follow its history and how now they are merging ACGME with AOA, it is pretty obvious things will only get better from here on out. Retake the classes until you reach a 3.4+ and get a 26+ and you're set.

Best of luck.

 

[Freesia88]

Getting competitive again for Allo would take some time and resources which if you are willing to put in can certainly work out... As Triage said, the DO route is not a bad option.

It's good that you are learning from the experience... getting cocky/biting off more than you can chew can go downhill fast.

You are certainly not beyond repair. Rearrange your plans to adjust to the best path to get you where you want to go and dive in again.