What grades matter most? Prereq's or Upper Level Sciences?

[Slash]

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Just wondering what the thought around here is. Where is more emphasis placed, on the prereq sciences, or in some upper level sciences you may take junior and senior year? An advisor at my college is giving out the advice that it's ok to underachieve in the 1st two years of college (make C's) because medical programs don't even really care what how you do in your first two years of college. She says they look more heavily at your last two years of college. So I guess she is saying it's ok to make C's in the prereq's so long as you make strong B+'s and A's in your upper level sciences? I don't totally buy her logic. In my book the prereq's should be more important than the upper level sciences. Thoughts?

 

[UBTom]

All of them are important. DON'T GOOF OFF DURING YOUR FIRST TWO YEARS IF YOU CAN HELP IT. GPAs are extremely difficult to pull back up once you let them drop.

 

[boyan]

I agree. My GPA was low at the beginning. It cost me a lot of effort to pull it back up. Dont let your GPA go down cuz you'll regret it

 

[Slash]

So in other words, this advisor is giving out bad advice. It's poor judgement to be telling students they can "get by" their first two years because medical programs won't really care how they do in the first two years, IMO.


A friend of mine who is attending a community college right now is underachieving in his science classes at the community college. He's under the impression that once he transfers to a 4-year university his GPA will start with a clean slate and that at that point he can buckle down and study hard and submit his "new" GPA to medical programs when it's time to apply. I have told him that it doesn't exactly work that way. I told him that when you apply to medical programs all of your classes are taken into account to compute your Science GPA and non-science GPA, regardless of where and when you took the class. He continues to tell me that all that matters for GPA purposes are the courses he will have taken at the university. Which is it?

 

[koobpheej]

I don't know if you have filled out AADSAS yet, but they want grades from every class you have taken. Including CC grades. If you have a 2.0 GPA because you got all C's at your CC, it is going to be very difficult to get the competitive GPA required to get into medical/dental programs. If a GPA is sufficiently low, the application may not get enough attention for the adcom to notice the vast improvement between the first two years and the rest of an academic career. It is an easy way to weed through 2000 applications. I would get the best grades I could when classes are easy and don't require a lot of effort to get those grades. Don't automatically assume that you will be able to get a 4.0 just because you wanted to. I have had classes where I have worked my butt off, and still got a B (biochem lab sucks).

 

[PERFECT3435]

Originally posted by Slash
So in other words, this advisor is giving out bad advice. It's poor judgement to be telling students they can "get by" their first two years because medical programs won't really care how they do in the first two years, IMO.


A friend of mine who is attending a community college right now is underachieving in his science classes at the community college. He's under the impression that once he transfers to a 4-year university his GPA will start with a clean slate and that at that point he can buckle down and study hard and submit his "new" GPA to medical programs when it's time to apply. I have told him that it doesn't exactly work that way. I told him that when you apply to medical programs all of your classes are taken into account to compute your Science GPA and non-science GPA, regardless of where and when you took the class. He continues to tell me that all that matters for GPA purposes are the courses he will have taken at the university. Which is it?

since when did the cc advisors give good advise?
i think that the first 2 years of college are the most crucial time for any student.
it is normally when people screw up and by the time you mature up (like myself(, you will have to get nearly all "A's" to get your gpa noticed by adcoms.

 

[drPheta]

Originally posted by boyan
I agree. My GPA was low at the beginning. It cost me a lot of effort to pull it back up. Dont let your GPA go down cuz you'll regret it

My sentiments, exactly

I mean, word.