Help me strategize.. I have 2 C's :(

aquapt
Tue, 25 Jun 2024 20:45:43 +0000

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.