Thoughts on my semester

[drjay29]

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So last year, I changed my major to biology in order to pursue medical school and I was doing quite well.
The first two semesters in biology I averaged a 3.6. My concern is with this semester taking away my chance at pursuing medicine; there was a point in this semester when I had all A's, but an illness in the family caused me to basically have to support my family and my grades suffered because of that. If things work out, I could average a 3.30 for the semester. Is it possible that this semester will hurt me?

 

[Albanian Mafia]

yes

 

[drjay29]

how much

 

[Albanian Mafia]

bigly

 

[pseud0]

Depends..probably not that much. You don't need a 4.0 to get into medical school.

and a biology major actually won't help you get into medical school either, believe it or not.

 

[drjay29]

Thank you, I appreciate that, I am a little stressed out over this situation

Depends..probably not that much. You don't need a 4.0 to get into medical school.

and a biology major actually won't help you get into medical school either, believe it or not.

 

[happypenguin28]

I'm so sorry about your family and I hope all works out there! Sending best wishes here.

I think you're fine as long as you do well in other semesters/the rest of your application is solid! I averaged a 3.3ish (3.2ish for science) for a whole year of undergrad, but ended up with a 3.7+ overall and have 6 MD IIs currently, including at some top 20 places. I think it helped that this was fairly early on in my college career and I had a strong upward trend after this year. It's come up in a few interviews and people seemed generally satisfied with my explanation that I was just overwhelmed/hadn't learned good time management/study habits yet - one interviewer explicitly told me not to worry about it after my explanation. I certainly didn't have a serious extenuating circumstance like you do. I did also take some time off after college and have done some pretty interesting, unusual things and had good MCAT score, so I'd imagine my GPA and especially one bad year was a smaller part of my application overall. It might be different if you try to go straight through, but this has just been my experience! I definitely wavered on whether or not I was "cut out" for med school after that year so I understand how you might be feeling stressed about it but I do think things will work out for you!

Seconding the no need to be a bio major - I actually wish I had figured that out earlier and majored in pub pol! 🙂

 

[Sea Otter]

What is your overall and science GPA now? One semester doesn't matter in the grand scheme if your average is high enough.

 

[Turkishking]

One semester is fine.

 

[jqueb29]

I mean it certainly won't help, but how much it affects you depends on what your cumulative and science GPAs would be. If they're still 3.6-3.7+, you're just fine.