Pre-med advice

[Nookus]

Hello SDN, Thank you in advance for any responses. After highschool I had a bad few years at a Community College. I was not ready for school, nor did I realize the permanency of CC grades. As it stands my Overall GPA is a 2.38 with 56 credits total. My science GPA is a 2.32 with 26 credits. Its all in the past though.

I am starting a degree at 4 year university next fall I will be taking pre-med classes as well. I am aware that ALL grades are looked at by allopathic med school so that leads me here.

Assuming I am able to perform and bring my GPA up will med schools over look my CC blunders?
*Are alot of credits (180+) a huge red flag?*
I am fluent in Spanish, does this help at all?
Any honest assessment/advice is appreciated
Is there any such thing as a turn around at this point?

Thanks! :mrgreen:

[CaribMD]

Welcome
WOW you say you know it will count but then ask if the new college work will kinda Erase it away

MD schools and DO schools look at all grades
DO schools do tend ( Its not a Hard fast Rule) to look at the work you have done in the last couple years then
come up with idea of your GPA

But the AMCAS GPA stands

56 credits is a significant amount of work to overcome with retakes, in this case you are telling us you plan on retaking---Everything?
Or will you transfer in some?
Bad idea to retake everything

Also did you repeat science courses at the CC? If so
YOu would then be stuck with averaging 3 grades

If so like this
f=0
c=2
A=4
6/3= 2

You really do not want a mess that AMCAS takes a 4.0 from a new degree attempt and make it a 2.0 deal

[crazyasian]

A low GPA is a red flag at many schools, and retakes are averaged at most schools. If you do well in the required courses, and can get it up to a good gpa >3.5 I wouldn't worry to much. Few premeds have perfect recorods. Just do well on your mcat, and build a well rounded app. Use this as a learning experience and just do really well from here forward. I knew some classmates that got into MD schools with 3.2 w/ an average mcat, but judging by the numbers of interviews each recieved I would wager they were the lucky ones. If your GPA is really bad and your Mcat is just average, think about a SMP and if your competitive enough, try DO as well. I spoke with an adcom about my application and he just looked at my overall GPA's (for science and non-science) when he evalutated my app. Many schools recieve thousands and thousands of apps, I'm not sure if it is possible for them to scrutinize every course you took with the # of apps they recieve. Just relax and do better in the future. Oh and when I applied I had 200+ credits and no graduate degrees so I wouldn't worry about that too much

[CaribMD]

While the schools receive the apps its through AMCAS who does the work of what the GPA is.

If a DO school wants to they will reevaluate the GPA but its if they want to.

[Nookus]

I haven't repeated any science courses. The plan was to transfer what would transfer and complete the required coursework. Alot of these are Gen-Ed courses / filler courses. I haven't taken many of the Pre-reqs, just 1 semester of Bio and Gen chem 1+2 which I did well in. The chem was done at a state university (for what its worth).

If I were to Finish a bachelors degree at a different school I would still need quite a few classes; most of the science classes don't transfer from my CC.

Thanks for the responses.