<p>hey ya’ll. i’ve decided to return to school and i just stumbled upon this forum whilst frantically scouring the internet to help me decide which route to take. this is a good thing goin on here, and ill be mighty grateful for any advice or opinions. i went to University of Tennessee for two years out of high school working on a biochem degree. in the last semester i became really disenchanted with college and stopped going to most of my classes, then left and traveled for a few years and cultivated a lot of life experience; i don’t regret my decision, except that i wish i would have dropped some of those classes before it was too late! that semester i ended up with 3 D’s and an F, dropping my GPA from a 3.85 to a 3.0.</p>
<p>it has been 4 years since then. i am going on 25 now and i have a strong resolve and desire to attend university and apply to med school - something that was missing originally during my first sojourn through the academic realm. back then i was on cruise control, doing what i thought i was supposed to and trying to please my parents. i didn’t really care all that much, you know? i didn’t have the perspective that allowed me to care and appreciate the opportunity in the way that i can now. </p>
<p>so this is my situation: i was originally thinking of attending CSU - Chico, but it seems that might put a hamper on my med school ambitions. i would really like to attend a school in the University of California system - ideally Berkeley or Davis. i reckon there is no chance of me transferring into either of those universities right now having a 3.0 and no recent classwork. what is it gonna take to get into one of these schools? right now my plan is to attend a community college in cali for a year or two and maintain upwards of a 3.8, fluff up my extracurricular resume, and give UC a shot. i dont mind sacrificing the 50 credits i received originally and re doing a full four years. is this my best option?</p>
<p>also, say i am able to get into UC and graduate with a nice GPA and an impressive MCAT score and the works. is that 3.0 i got in my first go around going to weigh heavily on my chances of getting into med school? for what its worth, i am hoping to specialize in psychiatry, which i hear is one of the easier concentrations as far as acceptance into med school goes.</p>
<p>thanks for reading. cheers!</p>
<p>I don’t know the full answer to your scenario but the grades from your first go around will have to be reported to med schools and will be averaged in as such. The apps are read by people and they will certainly acknowledge that you have probably grown from then to now. I imagine a full starting over would probably improve your chances the most since you would have more classes to dilute your bad ones with.</p>
<p>What area of medicine you think you are going to go into has no bearing on your odds of being accepted into medical school (except for example if you apply to a research intense med school touting your desire to work in a rural community hospital or vice versa). You are thinking of the stat that shows that psychiatry residencies have the lowest average Step 1 score of all specialties, a fact that won’t come into play until your 4th year of med school.</p>
<p>Most important question re: UC acceptances–are you a Cali resident?</p>
<p>I can see 2 disadvantages with your plan:</p>
<p>1) neither Berkeley nor Davis has particularly good pre-med advising. (Not a knock on the schools, just something you should know going in. I’d imagine for non-trad med school applicants the advising will be even worse since you’re not what they’re used to.)</p>
<p>2) as a transfer from a CC (and likely to apply at end of your junior year since you’re older and probably in hurry to get to your goal), you’ll only have 1 year to make critical connections with your profs for those all important LORs.</p>
<p>Since you already have credits that will mostly apply towards a degree, you might look for a college that will accept you without the going to a CC first. Many colleges are more lenient towards older, returning students than you’d might think. If you can write a really good personal statement that basically says “Look, I’ve grown-up and now have goals and discipline I didn’t have the first time I went to college so I can now be an strong student” then you might have a pretty good chance at admission somewhere. (But not to Berkeley…)</p>
<p>While you say you’re willing to “sacrifice” your 50 credits, it’s really not necessary to do so. (Besides you’re going to have to report all those credits on your med school applications anyway…) Do you really want to re-take all those GEs? Not even sure a college will let you earn ‘excess’ credits towards a BA/BS when you have transferrable credits already.</p>
<p>While CSU-Chico isn’t an ideal school, if you live nearby, you might try taking a couple non-degree courses there part-time just to get your head back in the game and see how well you do. You can then use your fresh grades plus your “I’ve grown up” statement to leverage your way into a school will fit your goals and finish your degree in much less than 4 years.</p>
<p>Your first round grades will always count–in both your cGPA and sGPA, but with fresher good grades, a strong MCAT and a good explanation addressed as part of your personal statement, if you make thru the first round cut in admissions (which are pretty much GPA/MCAT driven), you have as good a chance as anyone.</p>
<p>thank you both for the replies, much appreciated and very helpful! what im taking from this is that the folks reviewing the applications might be flexible to my situation, and i might be able to transfer to a better college than i might think. i certainly think it is worth trying and applying to a variety of colleges. i would really like to stay in california for the in state tuition, or at the least remain on the west coast. i reckon i need to do some research and figure out what colleges have good pre med programs and give me a realistic shot at transferring over. there aren’t a lot of options as far as public schools go though. i doubt i could get into any UC right now, but maybe cal poly is worth a shot? maybe Chico for a year then try to transfer to UC for two?</p>
<p>the more i read about this the more things im discovering that i need to think about. if i went to a more competitive school like UC Berkley or Davis it would be harder to keep up a good GPA as opposed to attending somewhere like Chico. what looks better in the eyes of an adcom, a 4.0 from CSU or a 3.5 from UC? is there maybe some middle ground to be found at Cal Poly? im not sure how important the prestige of a college is and how much i should be concerning myself with it. really i would be happy to go to Chico but if graduating from a UC college would make a huge difference then id certainly like to give it a shot.</p>
<p>also i just read that D.O. institutions have a grade replacement program; if one retakes a course they take the most recent grade instead of averaging the two. so it looks like ill be able to remedy that terrible semester if i go for a D.O. instead of an MD, which is exciting news indeed!</p>
<p>mom is correct. In general, the UCs are not good at advising. OTOH, UC meds love non-traditional students. Berkeley has a joint program with UCSF worth looking into in a couple of years.</p>
<p>Yes, DO does complete grade replacement. But if you rock the mcat, an allopathic med school is not out of reach.</p>
<p>But another thing to consider today. It’s been 4+ years since you took Frosh Chem at Tenn. How much do you really remember? Even if you aced it (which I’m assuming that you did since you had a 3.85), are you ready to tackle Organic without a Gen Chem ‘refresher’? It’s been 4+ years since Calc/math. Are you ready for physics?</p>
<p>You might not have much choice but to repeat to brush up on the sciences. But keep your Tenn non-science credits. </p>
<p>Totally out-of-the box thinking – consider UC Merced. It is still small, so obtaining recs would be easier, and a non-traditional student with your life experiences would stand out in a good way. Merced’s Profs might love to work with someone like you.</p>
<p>bb-- good point about the gap between Gen Chem and OChem. </p>
<p>One thing you’ll need to check is how long it will be between the time you took your original science credits at UTenn and when you’re likely to start med school. Some med schools have time limits on how long pre-req coursework is good for. I checked the policies at D1’s school (she’s a non-trad and MS1), it’s 7 years–all pre-reqs have to have been completed within 7 years of the date of matriculation. But that will vary by school.</p>
<p>great advice ya’ll, i have a lot to think about! i want to take a pre med curriculum, and i was thinking of minoring in Electrical Engineering since i am a musician and very much into analog signal processing, but as i read about one’s major not being too much of an issue as far as med school acceptance, i think im going to go for a full major in EE and supplement it with pre med biology classes and such to prep for the MCAT. unfortunately it doesn’t seem Merced has an EE program, but otherwise i appreciate the reference as it seems like a good option.</p>
<p>im certainly a bit rusty on the chemistry and math, despite originally acing the gen ed classes. i will either refresh my knowledge on my own time or take gen chem II and calc II again. and thanks for the heads up about the potential time limits for pre reqs. </p>
<p>after reading about this for the past couple of days and getting some sage advice from you folks and others, right now i am thinking i will attend either a CC or CSU and spend 1 year re taking the classes that i dropped the ball in and then try to transfer out to a UC or Cal Poly for 2 more years. a concern of mine is, would it make much of a difference for my transfer aspirations if i completed the first year at a CC, or would attending CSU look appreciably better in the eyes of the admissions people, enough to justify spending the extra money?</p>
<p>i just want to reiterate how grateful i am that ya’ll are taking the time to mentor me through these tough decisions. it is really helping me tremendously. many, many thanks.</p>
<p>* the folks reviewing the applications might be flexible to my situation,*</p>
<p>Others can correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think human eyes actually see applications that go thru the first down-select. I think the first round of filters are stats driven with some built-in lee-ways for URMs.</p>
<p>So, if that’s true, then you need to make sure that your GPA is strong enough that you don’t get rejected during those “blind” filters.</p>
<p>I doubt that a few CC classes for a returning student who’s easing back into the academic pool will hurt your eventual application. Just make sure that your important pre-reqs (i.e. OChem) are done at a 4 -year.</p>
<p>And one other thing–make sure you keep in contact with the pre-health career advisors wherever you end up since the MCAT is being updated and will have a new format starting in Jan. 2015. (It will include genetics, cellular & molecular bio, stats, biochem, plus everything already currently required, and have a whole new section devoted to human behavior/social sciences.) Because the MCAT is changing, med schools will be revising their admission requirements.</p>
<p>ok, i think im going to go to a CC for a year then try to transfer out to a UC or Cal Poly for the final two, utilize the D.O. grade replacement policy, and try my best to make it into a D.O. or M.D. program. here’s to hoping it all works out! thanks again ya’ll, cheers.</p>
<p>*One thing you’ll need to check is how long it will be between the time you took your original science credits at UTenn and when you’re likely to start med school. Some med schools have time limits on how long pre-req coursework is good for. I checked the policies at D1’s school (she’s a non-trad and MS1), it’s 7 years–all pre-reqs have to have been completed within 7 years of the date of matriculation. But that will vary by school.
*</p>
<p>So, if schools have a time limit for how long a pre-req is good for, does that mean that if you have an old bad grade, that won’t get counted in the GPA?</p>
<p>No, it gets counted regardless of how long ago you took the class. (Except maybe in Texas.)</p>
<p>But since STEM fields continue to advance and update, the belief is that a course that was taken too long ago is hopelessly out-of-date. Also since the curricula and grading policies may have changed in the interim, it’s also an attempt to put all applicants on a more even footing. </p>
<p>(Besides, after 7+ years, the applicant probably doesn’t remember any of the material and will need to re-learn it from scratch in med school. Which could be recipe for the student dropping out/failing out–something med schools want to avoid at all costs.)</p>
<p>“a course that was taken too long ago is hopelessly out-of-date”
-Very true. D. used the same textbook for Freshman Bio in HS and college (4 years in between). The difference - different Edition. Huge difference!</p>