<p>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. </p>
<p>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.)</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Osteopathic medical schools (DO) do allow grade replacement. AACOM policies for DO schools permit only the replacement grade to be reported.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>Some unsolicted advice from the mother of 1 med student and UR grad applying to medical school this year:</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But it is possible to recover and still get accepted into med school.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>@CK-- Was the course OChem by any chance? It’s a killer class… and one of the principal ‘weeder’ classes for pre-meds everywhere.</p>