I was a 3.0 student (which i know isn’t great for med school), injured my knee back this october and have had a bad year…now I’m finishing up my junior year at one of the “public ivies” and my cumulative GPA will be a 2.7 or maybe even less!! The injury forced me to quit football so now I have more time to focus on what I really want to do–become a doctor!!!..However, I struggle in my science classes, and the few pre-reqs I’ve taken make my transcript look like a train wreck.
Science classes:
intro chem lab C
intro chem lecture: C- (second try)
physicsI: D+
physicsI lab: B
Bio 1: C
CalcI: D+
Currently I might finish this semester out:
bio 2: D+/C-
bio2 lab: B/A
Physiology C/C+
So you probably think “What the hell is this guy thinking with these grades?” but I still want to try. I spent most of college not knowing what I want to do with my life and just focusing a lot on football. Now, with my focus primarily on school I truly feel that I can excel.
So, should I try to retake these classes, try to get my 2 Orgos out of the way, or just graduate by next year taking easier classes to boost my GPA and get complete my pre-reqs at a post-bacc program???
Also, can anybody tell me how difficult it is to get into a post-bacc program and what types there are?
An academic advisor showed me this site which I’ve really enjoyed reading the past few weeks. I have tried asking these questions on campus, and supposedly there is a plethora of advisors on campus who can answer these questions, but I have found that advisors are often crunched for time and only refer me to other people instead of answering my questions
…This is the first post I’ve ever made(besides facebook, lol), so any advice, encouragement, or reality checks would be much appreciated!
I’m not an expert but it might be better to get a W than a C, you might wait for another post or check with an advisor who has time or demand the time. That is their job afterall.
Welcome to the site and I don’t think all is lost, not if you really want it. I am having to boost my GPA and alot of others have done it as well.
Welcome to the site!
I’ll preface this by saying I’m not an advisor, and I have no experience with GPA-boosting. However, if I were you, I would retake the whole gamut of prereqs that have a C or worse. And I would withdraw from Bio 2 while you can. You don’t want to risk a D and a C is nothing to get excited about. Now that you are out of football and focused on a new goal, you will have a new perspective on these classes and time to work on really learning the material.Other people might say no need to retake these, as long as you do well in upper level science classes. I just don’t think you will do well in those until you get the basics under your belt. I personally had one freshman class that I got a C in, and in the two classes that built on it, I got a C and a B. The rest of my sophomore-senior classes were A’s and 2 other B’s. I think I missed something important in that first class. So yeah, I feel like when you miss something in the fundamentals, you should really wait to move on until you really understand it.
That aside, I think your goal is still doable and there are a lot of us here who made some mistakes with our early college years and are still going for it.