Hello everyone. I’m excited to find someplace to get answers about medical school. I have a somewhat unique situation when compared to many students. Unfortunately after two tours in Iraq I have seen many co-workers injured or killed and I would like to play a direct role in helping my fellow Soldiers. This has led me to consider a career in medicine. I am confident that I can complete the school, but I am worried about admission. I had really bad grades as an 18-19 year old. Here’s the entire situation…
I am currently 30 years old and will be graduating college at the end of July. I started college in 1997 at Ball State University. Unfortunately while at BSU I was irresponsible and as a result my grades suffered. I had a D- in a couple science courses. I left BSU with approximately 35 credit hours and a 2.3 GPA.
My wife and I moved to Indianapolis where I attended an aviation maintenance school at Vincennes University. My grades increased drastically. I averaged 3.6 GPA during the year I attended the school. Due to 9/11 I left the aviation field at the end of the 2001-2002 school year. I worked for about a years until I was mobilized for duty in Iraq in 2003-2004.
After returning from Iraq I went back to work. My new job sent me back to school. This time I went to ITT Tech, a nationally accredited institution from which credit hours are nontransferable to regionally accredited schools. After a couple semesters of school at ITT my employer closed their doors so I left ITT. During my time at ITT I studied computer science and earned a 3.7 GPA.
I eventually transferred to the UIndy where I am finishing my degree in Liberal Studies. Unfortunately about nine months ago I was sent back to Iraq with 4 courses remaining. UIndy has made an exception to their policies and are allowing me to take the final 4 courses at an online school. As a result I am attending American Military University to complete the final courses and transferring the credits back to UIndy. My GPA at UIndy is 3.65 and my GPA at AMU is 3.6. In order to graduate from UIndy I have compiled courses from BSU, VU, UIndy and transferred courses from my Army training (AARTS).
I transferred from school to school. How is this viewed by medical schools?
The BSU science courses were from 12 years ago. Unfortunately they are going to tear my GPA apart once I start taking the prerequisites. Is it possible to remove the bad science credits? I live over two hours from BSU so it would be difficult to retake the same courses from BSU.
What do medical schools consider science courses? Are they just referring to bio, chem, physics, etc? I have several electricity classes that some four-year schools count as physical science courses. Would these count to help bring up my GPA?
How do medical schools treat the AARTS transcripts? These are not CLEP courses, but they don’t have letter grades assigned either.
Any help or advice will be appreciated. Thanks.
Short story:
your situation is not unique 
that is good news!!
what I’m imparting here is what has been told to me;
get your pre-reqs done, and ace them or come very, very close to it
take the MCAT and do very, very well on that (think over 30, if not over 32)
apply broadly. One thing you have going for you that others of us don’t, is that you are young.
Last, do not really attempt to remove your past. It is who you were, it helped mold you into who you are now. BUT keep up the great work in the science classes required and you’ll be fine
btw,
1 year gen chem
1 year organic chem
1 year physics
1 year bio
ALL with labs.
hope that helps.
I’d worry more about how AMCAS is going to classify your grades than how med schools will. As I’ve learned the hard way, AMCAS doesn’t always use basic common sense in determining how to assign grades for your BCPM.
I’d suggest you call them up now before things get crazy busy with the upcoming application season to see exactly how things will stack up once you apply.
Welcome, jcarmack! First of all, thank you for serving your country. I know what you guys have endured Over There has been life-changing and unfathomable to us civilians. It’s truly laudable for you to want to train to help our valiant soldiers.
As jkp said, you are in good company here in regards to past “difficulties”. All of us have arrived at this point later in life, perhaps with less than stellar grades, scores, and backgrounds. If being a doc is really what you want, I’m sure you can do it. It’s great to have an existing doc backing your decision, too. That means a lot.
I don’t have personal experience with med school admissions, but I do with other universities and grad schools and I can tell you that major improvements in GPA show maturity and a renewed focus, both important. That said, I don’t believe that you can remove any grades/classes from your record, nor can you “replace-by-retake” your old grades to improve your GPA. What you can do, as jkp mentioned, is ace your med school pre-reqs. That way you show dedication, focus, and drive, no matter what you have done before now. What sucks about acing pre-reqs is that you have to pretty much make all A’s in very tough subjects like advanced chem and bio classes, and you’ll need to take them at fully accredited institutions (most on here seem to think 4-year colleges/universities are best). You’ll also want to look over the requirements for schools you’re interested in, as some have more pre-reqs than others. For example, here in NJ, Calculus I is required for admission to med/osteo schools. Many others outside NJ have no such math requirement.
Unfortunately for GPA purposes, you can’t replace any classes. For the MD schools at least, the AMCAS will require you to put every course and grade you’ve ever attempted at any post-secondary school. As pathdr2b mentioned, they’ll reclassify courses into categories, some of which seem bizarre to me and I’ve been in higher education for over 13 years. Check out the info on the AMCAS site - it’s a lot to take in but helpful in the end.
But, what’s in the past is done and you have the opportunity now to rock the pre-reqs. Focus all your attention on doing a great job on that and the MCAT and the rest will fall into place.
Correction: Now “college math” is required for med schools in NJ, a recent change I suppose, but either way, it will be part of your BCPM average.
I had some D’s as an undergraduate because I was working 3 jobs and spread too thin. The difficult news is that no matter what the reason, you cannot get into most medical schools with a D in a med school prerequisite class. If you retake the class, your grades for the two times you took the class are averaged, which means you need a B or better to bring your D’s up to an acceptable level. I also don’t know if medical schools will accept technical school grades. I know that online courses and community college grades typically don’t count. There may be an exception made for you due to your military duties, but I wouldn’t count on it without consulting the admissions officer at a few medical schools you are interested in. Getting into medical school is not what most people would call a “fair” process, especially for us non-trads, but, speaking personally, the sacrifices I had to make in my family life, finances, and time made me value even more the acceptance letter I received this spring.
- rmsteinberg Said:
What do you mean they don't count?
AARTS transcript WILL NEED to be submitted to AMCAS but they only count as P/F type course NO GRADE.
My prehealth advisory office told me that grades from medical school prerequisite courses taken at a community college or online will not be accepted. Unless you have a prior understanding with a particular medical school, they may consider that you have not fulfilled the prerequisite requirements.
As mentioned in another thread, CC credits are accepted by many medical schools (although not always ideal). Online classes are a little bit more challenging right now. Online courses offered by a properly accredited institution that would count or transfer towards a degree at a 4 year institution will likely be accepted. I think you will see a change in the thinking about online courses as many universities are offering a wide variety of online courses, particularly in non-science areas. Many schools offer on-line options for some of the courses that they offer on-campus and do not designate anywhere on your transcript that your course was an online course. Lab courses, obviously, are much trickier to do online.
Please be cautious in believing everything that anybody tells you along this path. I have met and heard of many pre-med advisors who simply do not know what they are talking about. When I was going through the process, I verified information as much as possible. I read extensively - books, the AAMC’s website, school websites and called and visited med school admissions offices.
The best source of information about whether coursework will be accepted is always the admissions office of med schools that you are interested in. I always encourage people to call med schools, especially if they are limited to applying to a few schools for any reason.
Effex,
Does this apply to all these kinds of “credit by examination” tests–like CLEP, AP, Excelsor, etc? Regardless of how well you scored on the crediting exam, AMCAS will only accept it as pass or fail–no quality points, etc? Therefore, you can’t use them in calculating your gpa???