Hello! I am a third-year premedical student, and the reality of my situation has made me realized that I will not be accepted to medical school without addressing and improving major flaws in my academic profile. I have a cumulative GPA of 3.207. I came into my freshman year of college with a strong sense of overconfidence and certainty in my academic skills (given that I was an excelling student in high school). I did very poorly in my first semester (cGPA: 3.406) and earned mainly C’s in my science courses. I continued to take major pre-med science courses the next semester without addressing the cause of my academic underperformance in the previous semester; needless to say, I did worse and finished that term with a GPA of 2.8. After this, I lost all confidence in my academic abilities to succeed as a student. In the fall semester of my sophomore year, I received an institutional action for attempting to cheat on a physics exam and received an F in the course. This not only made me question my competency to become a doctor; surprisingly, but I also underwent significant character development and even developed a connection with the physics professor. I realized that I was in a deep “hole” and would need to work twice as hard to “make it out” if I truly desired to become a doctor. I took time to reflect on why I felt the need to cheat on an exam and reflected on the reason why I was consistently underperforming in my science courses. Since then, I have seen an upward trend in my GPA. I finished the fall semester with a 3.778 (I had 2 B+: psychology and Biochemistry I). Overall, I have 5 C’s (Gen Chem II, Calc I + II, Orgo I + II) and 1 F (Physics I).
I have not taken the MCAT yet, but I hope a good score can help my overall stats and open more doors to potential medical schools. My plan is to keep this upward trend till I graduate, improve my EC’s by working as an EMT while also shadowing and volunteering, and try to get a good MCAT score. I plan on taking a gap year to complete a DIY post bac program to improve my GPA, but I do not know If there are better options to use this gap year. Given the severity of my situation (a low GPA and institutional action) and substandard EC’s, I feel very defeated and I am not sure if an “upward trend” and improved EC’s is enough to become a successful applicant to medical school. Aside from the plans I listed above, what can I do (or should do) to improve my chances of getting into medical school?
