Medical What now after getting F in a core class?

[AlteredScale]

Getting an F on my transcript due to academic dishonesty for ochem this semester. It would just be an F with no indication that it was for an academic violation and I would be able to retake the course and recover my university gpa. I am aware med and grad schools will calculate this F into my gpa. (&long story short, I know I deserve this and I learned my lesson).

How do I get back up from this? With COVID and online learning, I know cheating cases have increased (which isn't a justification, but I wonder how many other people are in the same boat). And to avoid flat our rejection from every post-undergrad school after, I would say this F was a result of struggling rather than academic dishonesty.

I was premed before with an almost 3.75 gpa. Now, I don't know if I should even try with my premed dreams or if it is even possible getting into med school soon after graduating college. Before anyone comes at me, trust me, I know what I did wrong and have learnt my lesson...I know no one wants a doctor who cheated and med school is even tougher...again, I just want to know how to realistically move on as a premed.

Anyone have similar experiences? Or just general advice?

You will need to do a lot of repair not only to get an appropriate grade for Med school applications but to also prove that you’ve matured and grown from this process and that they should have no question in their kind that you would have this behavior in medical school because at that stage it’s not just grades, it’s someone’s loved one on the line and you need to know and be comfortable admitting you don’t know something or know how to do something.

I believe this would entail putting a lot of effort in ECs and really being open an honest about how you have developed In time behind your IA.

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[GoSpursGo]

Two things first of all:

1) A pet-peeve of mine is people who say they “own” this and “know it was wrong,” and then in the next breath offer an excuse like”I wonder how many other people did this.” Bottom line, when you cheat, you put your career on the line and this time you came up snake eyes. You’re getting the brunt of my annoyance because I’ve seen these kinds of half-owning a lot lately, but it applies in your case. All of this to say that these half-excuses need to be totally absent from your eventual personal statement.

2) You need to ask your teacher directly whether this was reported at all to your university, and if the answer is yes you need to ask your dean exactly where if at all this appears on your record. Just because this doesn’t appear on your transcript doesn’t mean that this won’t come up as an institutional action.

Now.

This doesn’t end your career, but it makes things much more difficult. It’s going to murder your GPA, and stand out like a sore thumb regardless. It means that the rest of your app needs to be that much stronger. If it IS an IA, you also need some space between this event and your application to convince schools that this isn’t the real you. You need to crush the MCAT.

all of this to say that you should strongly consider at least one gap year, possibly to remediate your GPA, but also to buff up the rest of your app.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Totally agree with the above statements. You are not out of the medical field yet, but it may take you longer to be at a point where you should be applying to medical school now. With an IA on your record (not saying you have one), you are basically going to need to prove you are NOT that person and that you have learned from your mistake with ECs that show this and time in between the IA and application.

 

[Goro]

So you wish to enter a profession that places a very high weight in honesty by lying???? Looks like you're not owning it.

I've seen a fair number of applicants who lied on their apps about IAs get outed and then rejected.

No, I'm not sharing how.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I don't think my faculty will welcome excuses even given the challenges with online learning. We all have had to deal with it, even in medical school and 1) it's no excuse because people don't default to cheating when we go into an online format, or 2) if there is rampant cheating going on, the faculty are furious and may even be less forgiving. There have been stories pre-pandemic about cheating rings and scandals, and yes, those are the one who get caught. Let's just say, you have to retake the course and work with your student honor code officials. The faculty member just can't hand out F's for academic dishonesty without actually documenting it to the institution; there's too much risk of liability if the determination was in error.