My problem Fixed life marching towards Med/Grad School - possible?

yayagogo
Mon, 26 May 2014 14:24:58 +0000

Hello everyone,

This is my first post so hope somebody reads this and replies. So here is how my life went…

Finished Highschool in Toronto with a mark of 84% and HATED THE EXPERIENCE to almost a SCARING level.
I was isolated and detested thus was a huge blow to my self esteem. (long story short here). I participated in few clubs such as the Air Cadets (4 year service), Badminton Club, and U of T’s Health Innovation program.

wanting to fix my social life, I accepted U of Toronto Life science without thinking through on what i wanted to do. You can almost say i was living in my own dream world. And just as anyone would expect, I suffered a HUGE consequence: GPA of 1.95 after completing 3.5 courses and going part time in the second semester (i.e. 4 .5-courses in first sem and 2 .5-courses in second sem)

I spent the summer taking .5 course (psychology, which i enjoyed) and looked back at my life and fixed almost all problems (prioritize my goals and setting my life straight). Parents were scared and forced me to drop out and go to a community college to fix my GPA.

I went to a community college in Alberta for University studies (which allows student to take 2 years of university course and transfer to a preferred university to finish a degree). I spent 1 year there and got a gpa of 4.0/4.0 and transfered to U of Lethbridge since they are known for their neuroscience program. There I (in my 4th year) have a CGPA of 3.85 (and predict it to remain the same) and have 2 academic papers published (together with profs and other students). I also played Chess daily and am working to get a recognizable rating from a club (prob get by the summer). I am part of few other clubs related mostly to Neuroscience (yeah, I love neuroscience.)

In the recent MCAT, i got a score of 40 (so happy (T-T)!!!)

My goal is to do MD in Neurosurgery and Phd in Neuroscience (memory related) in M.D./P.hd program. My question is how do I stand for TOP Canadian Universities and prob Ivy League too. I have my eye on two universities McGill and U of T in Canada, and John Hopkins University in USA.

Here are few questions I have (in detail):


Will my 1.95 gpa in U of T affect admission process in ANY med school (not only the ones i mentioned)?
How will the universities look at my performance in U of T (i.e. will it factor in?)
I head community collages are not as reputable. So will my 1st year in Community college affect admission process?
How is U of Lethbridge in Ivy League school’s perspective?