<p>Ive finished two years of uni with a 2.73 gpa …I think epic fail sums it up pretty nicely.</p>
<p>A combination of a lack of motivation to work, fear of failure, no confidence in myself, and a self-defeating view of myself brought me down.</p>
<p>Now I need to know what to do. Some thoughts are:</p>
<p>I try to shoot for a 4.0 for the rest of college and ace the MCATs (I am realistic about this not happening) and apply to MD schools just for the hell of it.</p>
<p>I apply to Carribean schools</p>
<p>I apply DO</p>
<p>I apply to Burger King and enter the world of fry making business. I would apply to Taco Bell, but im pretty sure that gpa is too low for that.</p>
<p>Get some counseling, it’s free for students.<br>
Why do you sabotage yourself and your future?
How can you gain self esteem and confidence to finish school with good grades?
Why do you set unrealistic goals and expectations for yourself?
You may learn skills on how to live your life more productively.
If you don’t believe in psychotherapy- I think Del Taco will take you if Taco bell won’t.</p>
<p>Just take it one term at a time, pretend the marginal grades are not there dragging you down, do the best you can in creating good schedules that will enable you to succeed.</p>
<p>Get involved with groups that interest you, shadow doctors, volunteer, do everything as if you have a 4.0. Try not to be overwhelmed by the huge task and take it one day at a time. If you do decide to take the MCAT, take it after all the prep classes are done and you take a study review course, and take it when you are mentally ready.</p>
<p>You can recover from average grades. Yes, you have made it harder on yourself and that makes everything from this point forward even more important. Do your best, you may get a 4.0 and end up with a 3.3+ GPA or maybe you still need the science classes so will have a great sGPA. A 4.0 in your senior year would look great in apps.</p>
<p>Don’t give up, but plan to take a year off after undergrad so your marks from junior and senior year show on your app and you can show a real turnaround.</p>
<p>Aim (and hope) high. As BDM said, there are plenty of professions between medicine and fast food. Work hard and DO may be a possibility for you (and DO is just as good as MD…just don’t go Carib MD). Also, NP programs might be a possibility if you go back and get your BSN via an accelerated program.</p>
<p>@ BDM: I know, but medicine is something that I really wanted to happen, even though it may not seem that way. To put simply, I had the dream but lacked the drive to make that dream succeed. Its hard for me to see myself happy in another profession.</p>
<p>@ somemom: thanks for the advice, I will try my best to do that and maybe get some counseling to try and fight off the depression as a result of these poor grades.</p>
<p>So basically at this point im looking at DO right? There’s no possibility of an MD?</p>
<p>^Impossible question, but most likely yes. MD is highly unlikely at this pt w/o an SMP and w/o drastic changes most SMPs would not even be an option. Of course, if no SMP would take you, neither would any DO program.</p>
<p>what if i could get my gpa up to like a 3.4 by the time i was done as a senior (i know that this gonna take a $hitload of effort and discipline) but what if i did that, and did an SMP and had decent MCAT scores?</p>
<p>I don’t want to sound like im droning here but i want to exhaust every possible option before i start checking out job openings at Pizza Hut.</p>
<p>Just try hard. The odds are strongly against you but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to overcome them. Identify the problem areas and work on them. Nothing else to be said, really. A 3.4 is still the average for someone who doesn’t get into medical school but once again, nothing says you can’t overcome that. Simply starting working to overcome whatever’s in your way. You also seem to be overestimating the MD vs. DO issue. DO=MD. There really is no difference and, to be honest, even if there were, you can’t afford to consider it at this point. It’d be like some HS sophomore with a 2.9 asking which is better – Stanford or Johns Hopkins?</p>
<p>Dude, seriously, stop talking about Pizza Hut and use even a smidgen of imagination. Look around your room right now. Almost everything you see was produced as a result of somebody’s job. Doing this in my case right now has:</p>
<p>A yogurt cup. Sure, the yogurt had to get made, and that was somebody’s job – designing the machine, working through the process. But the yogurt also had to get branded: what were the slogans? logos? Somebody had to think up all of these, had to run them through testing. Somebody approved them. Somebody took part in the focus groups. Somebody looked over the television ads, which had actors and directors and producers and sound studios and editors. Somebody tested the flavor; somebody decided what the proper peach ratio was. Somebody delivered it, figured out how to design the grocery aisle, figured out the proper pricing. Somebody wrote the nutrition label, which somebody else double checked. The printer, too, has its own industry: who makes the printing presses? Who maintains them? Who advertises for them? Who supervises that process?</p>
<p>And this is from the cup of yogurt I’m snacking on. You can do this exercise with computers, websites, posters, televisions, refrigerators, the pattern of trees outside your hard, your watch, your clothes, the colorful paperclips you have on your desk.</p>
<p>If you apply to a job you hate, it won’t be a failure of discipline. It will be a failure, chiefly, of imagination.</p>
<p>Many apparently qualified applicants do not get in the first time around
We hear about the 4.0/40 who does not get in
Maybe you will, maybe you won’t
Do all the right things
Be sincerely interested and research the field with shadowing & volunteer work, do it for you not for your resume
My Dd had a sub 30 MCAT and only a 3.6/3.7…she raised it from 3.5 with a 4.0 senior year in science.
Are you in a state with high or low stats? CA, it will be rough, TX/KS/OK etc gives you more flexibility.
The scariest thing now for you should be whether or not you are ready to get down to business of if you are still unready for the commitment to do your best every single day. For a non-genius, the difference between an A and a B is that little bit of extra effort every day. Are you ready?</p>
<p>Maybe you don’t get into med school, 20,000+ applicants don’t each year.
Make yourself the best applicant you can including an interest in life and a passion and a spark that makes some one want to interview you.</p>
<p>@ bdm: well i guess it would be some consolation if I applied to Pizza Hut and imagined myself doing an operation as I made the pizza lol, the pizza could be like my patient. hows that for imagination? </p>
<p>sorry to sound bitter, but im still trying to swallow the whole i can never get into an MD school thing. DO is an option but I would feel too guilty, and feel like I missed out on an opportunity to be an MD.</p>
<p>its gonna take a miracle for me to get into to a US or Canadian MD school, so im thinking Caribbean MD and see where that goes. I guess I just have to tackle the remaining two years by pretending that the first two years of school never happened. Im not sure whether or not i want to do an SMP or a Master’s or something after I graduate, Im not even sure how any of that would help at this point lol …</p>
<p>Just relax and focus on getting better grades. Freaking out about DO/MD/Caribb is pretty pointless when you still have 4 semesters of classes left to take. </p>
<p>If you can get your GPA up into the 3.2-3.4ish range, you’d be a reasonable SMP candidate and have a shot at some DO schools. If that’s where you wind up you have some options… but making that big of a turn around is pretty unusual and definitely not a cakewalk. But who knows, pull it off, go to an SMP, rock it, get into medical school and prove us wrong.</p>
<p>Still, DO isn’t a bad way to go, and maybe somewhere in the next 2 years you’ll find something you’re more interested in (not uncommon for a junior/senior pre-med to find something else). There are plenty of other interesting careers inside health/science beside being a physician. Just don’t go to the carribean.</p>