Getting a low grade and pre-med

WayOutWestMom
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:33:08 +0000

A D is never a good thing to have on your application to medical school. It raises your a red flag about your ability to be successful during the academic challenges of medical school.

Any D must be retaken. Medical schools will not consider any grade below a C as acceptable for admission consideration. (That means a C- in a pre-req must be retaken.)

AMCAS policy for allopathic medical schools (MD) requires that ALL grades–including the original grade for any re-taken class-- be reported and included in your GPA/sGPA calculations. Even if your transcript does not show the original grade. Failure to do so is considered academic fraud and will get your application cancelled and blacklisted.

Osteopathic medical schools (DO) do allow grade replacement. AACOM policies for DO schools permit only the replacement grade to be reported.

Ws are also not looked favorably on by med schools. One or 2 over the course of 4 years is acceptable. More than that are not. (It looks like you cannot handle a full challenging academic courseload or it suggests you’re playing ‘protect my GPA’ games—both of which are red flags to admission committees.) Taking a W and dropping below 4 courses/semester is another thing that med schools don’t look kindly on for the same reasons.

BTW, a WF (withdraw, failing) is treated exactly the same as F for GPA purposes by both AMCAS and AACOM. A W or WP (withdraw, passing) have no effect on your GPA.

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Some unsolicted advice from the mother of 1 med student and UR grad applying to medical school this year:

You need to consider why you got such a poor grade in a co-requisite for your major and take steps to prevent a repeat of this. Find a study group. Go to office hours. Seek tutoring. (It free at CAS!) Talk to your SI/TA. Go to class faithfully --no skipping! Go to recitation faithfully. And above all else do your homework! In fact, do extra homework sets–as many as possible until you are confident of your mastery of the material.

You’ve put yourself into a deep hole w/r/t your sGPA (science GPA). It is going to take time and effort (and lots of As) on your part to get yourself out.

But it is possible to recover and still get accepted into med school.

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@CK-- Was the course OChem by any chance? It’s a killer class… and one of the principal ‘weeder’ classes for pre-meds everywhere.