Chances of Getting Into Medical School/PhD Program with Bad First Semester of College

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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So, I’m just wondering what my chances of getting into a respected medical school or clinical psychology PhD program are after having a rough first semester. I only took 13 credit hours, which was my mistake because I usually end up procrastinating unless I have a lot of work to do. I have been dealing with an eating disorder and debilitating panic attacks for the whole semester, so dealing with that made it even easier to put school on the back burner. My health problems due to the eating disorder and the panic attacks often kept me out of lectures, but I am getting the treatment I need and am ready to get my academics back on track. Anyways, I am looking at ending this semester with a GPA in the 2.5-2.9 range. Is this totally going to kill my chances? I’ve never done this terribly in school, so I’m honestly a little lost when it comes to approaching a situation like this.

I know that everyone says, “I will do better next semester” but they really have no intention of sacrificing their lifestyle to integrate better study skills and time management into their schedules. However, I am not one of these people. I am fully committed to getting better grades from here on out. I plan on taking 18 credit hours next semester to keep me busy and focused on school. I also am going to take advantage of office hours, in addition to dedicating a minimum amount of time each day to my studies. I know that I’ll retake one of my classes from this semester because it has a minimum grade requirement for my major, but other than that, I am looking at boosting my GPA with higher level courses rather than retakes.

If I can pull a 4.0 (I know it’ll be difficult) next semester, I am looking at a cumulative GPA around 3.5. If I can stay on an upward trend, I can potentially get up into the 3.8-3.9 range by the end of my undergraduate career, but that might be a little ambitious. I guess my most important question is whether or not one bad semester, especially the first one, will disqualify me from the admissions process.

Thanks for reading this novel of a post.

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You haven’t ruined your chances for med school or clinical psych. You have 7 more semesters to raise your grades and get yourself on track. Admission officers know students often have a rough transition to college and understand that. Adcomms also do consider upwards trends in grades/GPA.

I suggest that you plan on taking a gap year or two and applying to professional school after graduation so you have extra time to strengthen your GPA.

However, first things first. You must get your health issues under control. This is the most important thing and I urge to speak at length with your therapist about whether you’re ready to go back to school full time in the spring. Recovery takes time and you need to learn/develop positive ways to deal with stress. There’s no shame in taking time off to get healthy and it will not be held against you during admissions. If you do return for spring semester, you may want to consider taking a reduced courseload so you’re less likely to feel overwhelmed. Remind yourself that gaining admission to a professional school is a marathon, not a sprint. It doesn’t matter who gets there first; just getting there at all is what’s important.

Some things to keep in mind:

—osteopathic med schools allow grade replacement
—clinical psych programs are not quite so grade-driven in admission as a med schools

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Also, unlike medical school, clinical pysch programs rarely take people straight out of undergrad.

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<<< my chances of getting into a respected medical school >>>

All US medical schools are respected.