<p>Our son just completed his first semester in college. A 4.0 except for a C- in Calc II. He had AP credit for Calc I, but unfortunately two semesters of Calc is required for his major. How will this affect his med school apps? I am mostly concerned that some schools require a C or better for pre-reqs. That being said, most of them don’t require calc and if they do it’s only one semester of calc. Would he then be OK because the AP Calc I satisfies the requirement instead of the Calc II class? He should do well in his other science courses, he just struggles with calc. His school does not allow a retake unless you fail the course (D or less). Any advice would be appreciated…thanks!</p>
<p>I know that most Med. Schools accept AP credit for Calc I. My D. contacted adcoms of Med. Schools on her list with this question. To make sure, your S. needs to contact adcoms of his potential Med. School. They are very helpful. She asked them the same for Englsh.<br>
I do not know anything about Calc II. D. never took Calc II. She took Stats instead. Easy A and a very helpful for understanding of Med. Research Lab. procedures. D. is currently almost done with her 2nd year at Med. School.
I also cannot answer your question in regard to a C-. I would again, suggest contacking Med. School adcoms.</p>
<p>The school may not allow a retake, but the school can’t prevent him from taking it again elsewhere. do you have a local state univ that he could take it over in the summer…and get an A in it? (don’t retake if an A isn’t likely).</p>
<p>While a retake won’t replace the C-, it will help his BCMP if he gets an A in the retake. Since his Cal I was from an AP class, I would think it might be a good idea to demonstrate a better math grade in a college class. Cal II does not build on Cal I…maybe that was your son’s issue. </p>
<p>However, Cal III does build on Cal I so if your son’s strengths are with Cal I, then maybe he should take Cal III?</p>
<p>Stats might be a good option, but it won’t help his BCMP if Stats isn’t considered as “math” - which it’s not at a number of schools. </p>
<p>What was his GPA this semester? 4 credits of an C- can drag a GPA down.</p>
<p>“The school may not allow a retake, but the school can’t prevent him from taking it again elsewhere.”
-Taking pre-req elsewhere may pull more attention than a C-
Why not taking Stats? If he did than he is done with math pre-reqs, no need for more math unless he is really interested in the subject, but it appeared from OP that he is not. C- will get GPA down, retake or not.</p>
<p>I might consider taking Calc 1 for a grade instead of retaking calc 2. (Esp if the AP score wasn’t a 5).</p>
<p>Calc 2 is different from Calc 1 in that it requires more than just plugging numbers in the formulas to get results. Calc 2 requires a deeper conceptual understanding built on the material in Calc 1. Not all high school AP calc teachers do a terrific job of covering ALL the topics. Often there are gaps in the material taught (which will come back to bite you in Calc 2). Your son might have a weak foundational understanding of the material and needs a thorough re-grounding before moving on.</p>
<p>(Both my kiddos either tutored or TAed math at their respective colleges. Both say this is big problem and many AP calc teachers do a minimal job of covering the material. D1 has some more…pungent…comments, but I won’t air them in public.)</p>
<p>Depending on his major and research plans, he may or may not need calc 2 and/or calc 3. If he does need to take more calc, do NOT move on until he is comfortable with calc 2 --and a C- says he isn’t.</p>
<p>If his college has granted credit for the AP by awarding credit “equivalent” to a specific course name and number on his transcript, most medical schools will accept it. (Not all though, so he will need to be aware of that when application times comes. And a C- is not an acceptable grade for fulfilling pre-reqs anywhere. So he will need to apply ONLY to schools which will accept the AP credit unless he retakes calc 1 or 2 and earns C or better.)</p>
<p>Stats thru the math department will be more useful in medical school than more calc.</p>
<p>So wait are you saying that if Stats is offered through a seperate stats deaprtment at my college and not through the math dept, then I can’t incorporate it into my BCPM GPA?</p>
<p>AMCAS course classification guide:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/students/download/181694/data/amcas_course_classification_guide.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/students/download/181694/data/amcas_course_classification_guide.pdf</a></p>
<p>Statistics taken thru the stats dept will be considered a BCMP class. (At most colleges, stats is a subdivision of the math dept or applied math dept.)</p>
<p>What previous posters are referring to are stats classes taken through the business school or as a social science course.</p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying!</p>
<p>You need to look into it. I’m not sure that at “most schools,” stats is part of the math or applied math dept.</p>
<p>Hi everyone and thanks for the responses. Just to clarify a few things. Our son will not take Calc III because he only needed two semesters of Calc for his biology degree. Stats is not required, but he will probably take to help his science GPA. His first semester GPA without Calc II was 4.0, but with Calc II 3.42 and his science/math GPA is unfortunately a 3.2 because of this. Not sure if taking Calc II again over summer, with six months going by is a good idea. Most of the med schools he is applying to don’t even require Calc, so hopefully this is not a problem with the C- because it’s not a pre-requisite. Some of the schools only require one semester of Calc, so again hopefully it won’t be a problem with his AP Calc counting as that one semester. It really bothers me that his chances for med school could be ruined because of one class that doesn’t even matter for a DR. I am confident he will do well all of his future science classes. Any other advice would be so appreciated!</p>
<p>^I think you’re being melodramatic that his chances will be “ruined” with the C- in a class that doesn’t even matter. I can name at least 10 people in my class of 102 that have gotten a C in a class, and most of them were in premed prereqs.</p>
<p>I can think of multiple students from other schools who have gotten a C- in a premed prereq class. Heck one of the former long-time posters here got a C- in one semester of orgo and a C in the other, and he has arguably the most impressive academic pedigree of anyone I know. Plus, he’s just a freshman, and some people (myself included) believe that freshman year grades–assuming future grades are great–aren’t looked at with as much weight as future classes.</p>
<p>If I were him, I’d be much more bummed that this occurred during the first semester, because now the bar is much higher for his future semesters. He’s got some really tough classes ahead of him–namely all the premed prereqs, where he will be competing with his school’s best students for top grades, as well as upper-level classes for his major–and it would certainly be best for him to get as many As as possible. He will probably have to sacrifice some fun classes or some of his social life to improve then maintain his GPA, but hey…that’s par for the course for premeds.</p>
<p>If he turns out to be a fabulous applicant who happens to have a C-, I for one would be very surprised if it were the C- that destroyed his application. On the other hand, if he’s a kid with a C- and a 27 MCAT and who hasn’t shadowed and who has more Bs and Cs sprinkled throughout his transcript, he’d be fighting quite a battle to be accepted. But again, the one C- wouldn’t be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It would be the whole picture.</p>
<p>Hi kristen5792. Thanks for the feedback, but it was a little harsh to call me “melodramatic”. I guess I was commenting on how riduculous it would be IF that ruined his chances, NOT that it will ruin his chances. I agree that now the bar is set and he won’t be able to make many mistakes. I feel confident he will do well in all of his science classes, but of course who knows with classes like organic chem. He has the clinical, volunteer, and will have the research experience no problem. I am only worried that the BCMP being some sort of cutoff in the application process. Right now it’s a 3.2 and he will have to do very well in all of his future science courses to bring it up. The other question I had is whether Calc II would be considered a pre-req because many med schools need to have a C or better on those.</p>
<p>Sorry, wasn’t trying to be harsh–just chiming in that I don’t think his chances are ruined by any means. I’m glad you’re not too worried about him! Since it’s the only thing in his BCMP GPA right now, it should quickly rise when he takes more classes in the future. </p>
<p>Some schools require Calc II (Harvard comes to mind), and for those he would likely need a C (some say C-) or better. Last I checked it was something like 6-8 schools that required Calc II; if I were in his shoes, I’d just apply to other schools rather than suffer through a retake!</p>
<p>Good luck to you both!</p>
<p>If he ends up applying to a school which requires Calc 2, then that C- won’t be accepted as meeting the minimum requirements and he will be rejected.</p>
<p>Also med schools typically require 2 semesters of college level math. With a C- in Calc 2, he can’t count on that to fulfill his second semester of college math requirement. (Most schools won’t accept a C- to fulfill a requirement.) He will need an another math class with a grade of C or better for that.</p>
<p>Since he’s relying on his AP calc credit to meet admission requirements at certain schools, he would be wise to check if all of those schools accept AP credit. (As I mentioned, not all med schools will accept AP credit.)</p>
<p>As far as med schools using the sGPA as an applicant screener. Some definitely do. But the cutoff is different at different schools. It could be 3.0, 3.2 or 3.5, depending of the school.</p>
<p>Does he have any other AP or college credit (during HS) classes? Those should count. I took AP Calc AB as well as college credit Calc II during HS, and I haven’t taken a math class since.</p>
<p>dean,
There is NO way "that his chances for med school could be ruined because of one class that doesn’t even matter for a DR. " NO, NO, NO. He just needs to leave it behind him and work hard on everything that is required and he will be just fine. And do not forget to absolutely ENJOY your 4 years in UG, they will not repeat anymore, they are precious, Med. School is extremely hard work, much harder then they can imagine in UG. D. has interviewed good number of applicants. Her comment is: “poor things, they do not know what is waiting for them” Do not get me wrong! She is absolutely passionate about medicine, when she talks about any of it, academics, clinical experience, gross anatomy, anything related to it, her face just lights up. She appreciate the chance to be at Med. School, she knows that many will not have it. However, they are pushed to the extreme challenges. She is very happy with the fact that she really enjoyed her UG years and allowed many experiences there that resulted in great personal growth, but academics is always first priority. </p>
<p>D. has made sure about her pre-reqs by directly contacting adcoms of Med. Schools on her list. Even websites might not be updated in timely manner. I would not trust anything/anybody, I would trust only adcoms. Another very good source who informed her about changes in pre-reqs at one of her Med. School was her pre-med advisor. But I heard that pre-med advising is not as good at some other UG, D’s was superb and made a huge difference in her application process and acceptances to Med. Schools.</p>
<p>Hi MiamiDAP -thank you for your encouraging response. I know it’s not the end of the world, but he will have to be almost perfect on his science courses from now on to build his science GPA. We subscribed to the AAMC MSAR service and compiled the median GPA, science GPA and MCAT scores for about 15 schools. Although there were low 10% science GPAs for matriculants, the median science GPAs ranged from 3.58 - 3.8, most around 3.6 or 3.7. Right now his science GPA is 3.2 because of the 4 credit calc 2 C-. He should be able to improve that to 3.5 by the end of next semester and hopefully 3.6 by the end of sophomore year IF he does well in orgo, physics etc. It seems like your daughter is involved in the interview process for her med school? My question for you and her would be whether the science GPA is a “cutoff” for even reading the application. I’m hoping the committees will see that his science GPA would be much higher if it weren’t for this course which even isn’t a pre-req at any of the schools we researched. But I worry that they won’t even look at it because of the science GPA. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>OP-- Some medical schools do use GPA cutoffs; some don’t. Those that do use sGPAs as first round screeners don’t break out individual courses and look at the grades. Only at the overall sGPA. (In case you didn’t know, at many [most?] medical schools, a computer program is used to do the first round of screening. No human eyes involved.) Only if your son passes the the computer screening and his application is reviewed by a committee for a possible interview are his grades broken out by year and reviewed. </p>
<p>BTW, did you know that some medical schools reweight and recalculate GPAs and sGPAs using their own methodology?</p>
<p>@dean84,
After scanning the thread, I didn’t see you mention what your son’s AP exam score was for AP Calc AB. I’m curious what it was. </p>
<p>Also, there are some problems with a grade of C- that no one mentioned. There are some that will see this as a “courtesy grade”. If I were in this situation, I would make sure that there was something on my transcript that would remove all doubt that I solved whatever problem I had in that Calc II class. I know you expect great things from your son, but I would also make sure that the problem is indeed solved. Calc II requires a lot of repetitive drills (literally 100s of practice problems) to get it right. He will run into this again soon, perhaps orgo or some other class. He must understand what it takes to score in the top 20-30% in a class like this.</p>
<p>Hi WayOutWestMom and plumazul. The computerized science GPA cutoff is exactly what we’re worried about. Hopefully his application will be very strong without this ONE class, but he needs to get the point where it will be reviewed. I wonder if the med schools would share what their cutoff GPAs are. Regarding his AP Calc AB score, it was a 4. Calc does not come easy to him. The main reasons why he got such a low grade was 1.) teacher didn’t curve, 2.) one really bad test grade, 3.) final was true/false and multiple choice with no partial credit for work which he didn’t do well on either. I am not worried about this affecting any other classes as the physics requirement is general physics, and not sure how much orgo needs. Calc isn’t even required by any of the schools he’s applying to.</p>