I have been an all honors /AP student through out high school with my transcript being A’s and a few B’s. This year I took on more that I could handle and have ended with a a C+ in honors math and APUSH. How badly is those going to hurt my chances for T30. Ive been thinking of premed what would I do? I feel like I’ve screwed my chances to get into any T20-30 colleges
Your C+’s in HS will not have any impact on whether you go to medical school. You also have no idea whether or not you will get into a “top 30” school, with or without C+’s.
And….you do not need a “top 30” school to be premed.
My recommended strategy is to apply to a mix of affordable schools that you would be happy to attend…and forget about premed for now. Try to relax!
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Welcome to College Confidential.
Can you share a little more? What year are you in high school? What is your unweighted GPA. What is your home state?
Im a rising senior My SAT is 1530 and I have decent extra curricular… My cumulative GPA is 5.1 weighted on a 5.0 scale. Im from NY
You appear to be a good student. Apply to a mix of affordable schools that you like…including top 30’s if you want….and see what happens.
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Each school weights courses differently. Do you know your unweighted GPA?
Our school doesn’t give unweighted
You should calculate that yourself because that’s what some colleges will do…on a 4 point scale where any A = 4, B = 3 and so on, core courses only.
I don’t think T20/30s are reasonable reaches with several Bs and two Cs (based on what we know right now.) That’s not saying you can’t apply to a couple. Just make sure to have a balanced list including at least one affordable safety you would be happy to attend.
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Calculating an unweighted grade point average should be a simple math problem.
For all academic courses (generally excluding stuff like health and PE), count each semester grade as A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0. Add up the values, and divide by the number of grades.
Keep in mind that that CC tends to err on the side of cautious. 
However - with med school in mind look for:
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Something affordable for undergrad. Med school isn’t cheap, and having minimal student loans (or ideally none) going into the process will help a lot. I’ve seen students hamstringed from even applying to MD/DO programs by the burden of student loans.
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What kind of schools are you looking for? T30 suggest prestige but doesn’t indicate much else --but what do YOU want in a school? Big, small, medium overall size? Small class sizes? Lots of research opportunities? Which states or regions?
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You want to find schools with good admission rates to MD/DO programs. These aren’t always T30 because some of those schools have ‘weed out’ classes for Biology/Chem/Physics. You want a school that WANTS students to succeed in STEM - not stop them from progressing in the field. This might be T30 but it might also be lower ranked schools that really focus on student learning rather than prestige.
When it comes down to it — We are just random folks on the internet. Do you have a school college counselor that is any good? Maybe check with them to see where students with your profile have gone. It’s hard to compare grades at one school to another.
ALSO – if it makes you feel any better, I got a “D” in college in my freshman year. Oh and also a “C” that year! I ended up with a really high GPA and got accepted to 8 of the 9 professional degree programs (same level of competition as MD/DO programs) that I applied to. One (or two) ‘bad’ (whatever you use to define that) grades isn’t a make or break kind of thing despite it feeling that way at the time.
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You might think of “top 30” universities as very high reaches at this point. However…
There are hundreds of colleges and universities that are very good for premed students. You do not need to attend a “top 30” university for your bachelor’s degree to get accepted and do well at a very good medical school. You are still solidly on track to get accepted to many universities that would be very good for a premed student.
You might want to think of these two C’s as a lesson. There are some classes that you are not yet ready to take. All students need to take classes at the pace and in the order that makes sense for them personally.
Let me give you an example. Occasionally we hear from students here on this web site that are taking organic chemistry as a freshman in university and who are suffering. I know a couple of students who postponed organic chemistry until their junior year of university. One called it “the hardest B- that I ever had in my life”, but still got accepted to multiple very good DVM programs (and is currently doing well in one of those DVM programs). The other breezed through it relatively easily (and is about to start a PhD). Neither would have been ready to handle it when they were a freshman in university. Waiting and first taking the appropriate prerequisites helped both of them.
If you look at the students in a very good MD program, you will find that they got their bachelor’s degrees at a very, very wide range of universities.
Whenever I see “premed”, two other things come to mind. One is that medical school is expensive. Even doctors do not make enough money to make it easy to pay off their education debt. The other is that most students who start university thinking “premed” end up doing something else. Some end up for example in biotech. Some end up as software engineers, or lawyers, or something completely different. For students who are thinking of medical school, it pays to also consider other options.
You are a strong student (1530 SAT is for example impressive). You are coming from a state that has multiple very good in-state public universities. To me it looks like you are solidly on track to attend a very good university that will both allow you to be well prepared for medical school, and that will also be very good for multiple majors that can put you on track for other possible careers. Your in-state public schools also are likely to be relatively affordable and might (depending upon your budget) allow you to save some $$ in the bank for medical school or graduate school, or might at least allow you to avoid or minimize debt.
I am reluctant to repeat myself too often from other threads, but I have known a LOT of students who attended universities ranked anywhere from 50 to 150 for their bachelor’s degree, and who then got some type of graduate degree (masters, or MD, or DVM, or PhD) in programs that were ranked anywhere from 1 to perhaps 20 or 30. What you do as an undergraduate student is going to matter a LOT more than where you do it.
One note about GPA: Different high schools in the US calculate weighted GPA in wildly different ways. This makes it very hard to compare. This is why several have asked for an unweighted GPA on an “A=4, B=3, C=2” scale.
Other comments have given the same main point: Getting two C’s is a lesson, but is something similar to what a lot of us have gone through and still done very well.
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However, if the student is a biology or chemistry major, it may not be possible to delay organic chemistry until third year. Also, some universities’ normal chemistry sequencing starts organic chemistry in the second semester or third quarter of first year.
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Your record is your record.
It doesn’t matter if it hurts you or not.
It matters that you have a balanced list of schools, with at least two assured that are affordable and assured admission.
You can study pre med and math anywhere.
You’ll apply to schools that interest you - and if you get in, great - and if not, guess what you’ll go somewhere else.
I was just at Vanderbilt the other day for a Dr. Appt - and they had a resident in the room (and graduating med student) - and I got to wonder, where did he (the resident) go undergrad.
I think the pre-med I have to go to a top school thing is overrated.
They have:
Arizona
Colorado
Kansas State
Kenyon
Pitt
UF
U of St. Thomas
Yes, they have top shelf names too. And for med school - the K State went to Kansas and yet got a residency at Vandy - and there’s other similar.
Control what you can - but no need to panic.
No matter where you go - you’ll have every chance to be a Dr., same as what you deem a top 30.
But panicking will do you nothing - your GPA is a part of your record, a main part - but there’s other parts.
You realize you bit off more than you can chew, you’ll adapt, and frankly, it might make a great essay…I was overwhelmed and here’s how I learned from it so I can do better in the future.
Good luck.
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This might depend upon the university. Also, there is at least one frequent contributor to CC whose son did take organic chemistry freshman year, and did very well in the course.
One thing that I have wondered about might be called the “MIT Freshman Dilemma”, but most likely also applies to premed students, and some other students. Basically if you are arriving as a freshman at MIT, you are probably pretty close to being the top student in your high school either in math, or science, or overall. You might expect to at least be in the top half of you class at MIT. However, half of the class won’t be. How do you know the extent to which you can challenge yourself with courses that are tougher than what might be expected for the average incoming MIT freshman, or for the average incoming premed student? I do not think that it is in general possible to know. Some students might just jump ahead a bit too far, and get a C or two. They will survive. They will learn from the experience. It might not help their medical school applications, but probably won’t be a total deal breaker either. Edit to add: Medical school and graduate school applications will not include high school grades, so a couple of C’s in high school will have no impact at all on medical school or graduate school applications. C’s in university might have some impact, but also are likely not a deal breaker.
Perhaps this is a place to cautious, rather than a clear rule.
And yes, students do need to follow the curriculum that is expected at whatever university they attend.
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IMHO MIT’s pass/fail option for freshman is designed to do exactly what you posit as a problem- help students get a handle on what they can reasonably do now that they are swimming in a deeper pond with a LOT more hard-working, talented kids than they may be used to.
I don’t know of any college which sets its students up for failure. But I know dozens and dozens of college kids (and grads) who were pretty resistant to doing the tried and true ways of being successful in challenging courses. The Writing Center- it’s there to be used. Tutoring Center- ditto. Office Hours- why do you think the professor sits there week after week?
Nobody smart enough to get into college- any college- has to be told that getting a good night’s sleep before an exam is a better strategy than staying up for a midnight and beyond poker championship. And yet…
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Plan for a SUNY, maybe stonybrook, unless you come from a low income household.
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As others have said, people get to med school from all sorts of colleges. It’s an endless source of debate, on CC and elsewhere, whether an “elite” college does anything at all to boost your chances, or whether the higher numbers of successful med school applicants at elite schools merely reflect the strength of the students admitted to those schools, such that those same students would have been equally successful if they’d attended elsewhere. In fact, it can work the other way - there’s no way to know how many students at top schools give up their premed aspirations (either because it’s too hard to compete for the necessary high grades, or because other more-enticing opportunities present themselves), when they might have ended up as doctors if they’d attended a less-selective school where they might have been at the top of the class. Of course, these are unanswerable “multiverse” questions. But the point is that the kind of undergraduate “trophy” acceptance you have hoped for is in no way a necessary step on the path to med school, if that’s your goal, nor even a proven shortcut.
The reality is that you might not have gotten a T30 acceptance, even without the C’s. And there’s no way around the fact that those grades weaken your application; that simply is what it is. You made the admirable choice to challenge yourself in the proving ground of junior year, and you stumbled. It’s okay; it isn’t the end of the world! But are elite colleges going to choose you over comparable applicants who didn’t stumble? Most likely not, barring some other truly compelling reason.
Nonetheless, there are many excellent colleges that would be happy to have you, and those colleges will give you all the opportunities you need. And if you learn from this year’s setback, you’ll be several lessons ahead of many young people who are saving their first big stumble until they are in college!
My first question is, how well do you understand this past year’s math? Math is cumulative, and if you have gaps in the foundation from your honors math class, it could cause you problems for years to come. What math are you taking next year? (I can’t tell what level of math you mean by “honors math.”) You may want to do some review or even tutoring this summer, to make sure you’re on track.
How much of taking on too much was academic, and how much was in the realm of extracurricular commitments? Are you rebalancing your commitments overall?
What does your college budget look like? Were you hoping for T30’s, in part, because you need generous financial aid? As others have said, you have a great array of public university options in your home state, which will hopefully be affordable whether you need financial aid or not; your financial situation will be a big factor in what other private and OOS public schools may work for you. Keep in mind that med school is very expensive, so if that’s your goal, you’ll need to be conserving financial resources for the long haul. Your solid cumulative weighted GPA and strong SAT score put you in a good position for schools with automatic merit, so that’s something to consider.
I would encourage you to take your focus off of college rank. The USNews rankings are a dubious measure of educational quality, and create a positive feedback loop of inflated demand for a few over-popular schools. If you want to apply to a few of those, certainly shoot your shot; but it’s far more important to establish a foundation of well-matched and affordable schools that you would be happy to attend. (And this would be true without the C’s, too.)
If you want help building that list, tell us more about yourself. What are your academic interests (not “med school” - what do you enjoy studying?) and extracurricular pursuits? What kinds of learning environments work best for you? What kind of social environment would you be happiest in, in college? And of course, as already mentioned, what does your financial situation look like? I’m sure there are many good options for you, but we don’t yet know enough about you to narrow down what those may be. Having some “reach” schools on your list is fine, but everyone should build their list “from the bottom up,” and it’s time for you to focus on that.
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Many of these T20-30 colleges have very low acceptance rates. If you don’t get accepted at one of these colleges when the time comes…you will never know why.
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I hope you are looking at the characteristics you want in a college and not just the rankings.
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You can take the required courses for medical school admissions at just about every four year college in this country…arts conservatories excluded. So…no matter what college you attend, you can still do great, have significant shadowing and volunteer experiences, and patient facing work of some kind…and get a great MCAT score. IOW, you don’t have to go to a T30 or better college to get accepted to medical school.
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A few questions:
What is your budget?
What is your major?
What are you looking for in a school?
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You should look into Stony Brook. Being in state especially, it is a great (affordable) school, and will offer you great opportunities should you desire to pursue any sort of career in a STEM field.
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