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The Perfect GPA - no matter what your grades! Sound ridiculous?
Episode 5: Retaking and dropping classes? Learn when and how to objectively assess your undergraduate academic record to determine what, if anything, you can do to have the best medical school application possible! ==================================================== In this episode: ANNOUNCEMENTS YOUR PATTERN OF GRADES COMMON PROBLEMS COMMON SOLUTIONS DROPPING & REPEATING CLASSES TO SAVE THE GPA CHANGING MAJORS LISTENER Q & A’S QUICK TIP: When to assess your academic record! ==================================================== ANNOUNCEMENTS: 1. I’m now on the Admissions Committee of my alma mater. 2. Over 1,000 listeners and growing! 3. The FREE email series has been revised, so sign up with your new, professional-sounding email address and archive the content. 4. The CD of the Month Club is exciting and fun. I’m enjoying the private, one-on-one PreMed consulting and application advising and am surprised with the collection of the MindMap materials. Visit www.MedicalMastery.com/lectureseries to learn more. ==================================================== YOUR PATTERN OF GRADES I have received a substantial percentage of listener questions about their academic record. It makes sense that I spend most of my academic advising doing counseling on that very subject - people with 4.0 GPA’s don’t have that to worry about. They have other problems that need equal attention so let’s not be jealous. From here on, we will discuss the subject of PreMed GPA and your medical school application in the context of your overall application. The Perfect GPA is your GPA that is nestled within a succinct description (application) that tells your story. The goal of the Perfect Application and GPA is really to say in one sentence exactly who your are and what you want in life (and a career). If you can do that, they you only have to tweak a few details in your application to let that shine through. The numbers only substantiate who you say you are! Well, I’m going to help you do just that… There are patterns to everything, and human behavior is no different. Let’s start by a series of questions that you should write down as brainstorming ideas for your personal essay and prepared statements for the interview: 1. When did you decide to pursue a career in medicine? 2. What is the overall pattern of your college grades? (spiraling up, solid throughout, unpredictable) 3. What excites you? (In general and in specific terms - don’t just mention career aspirations - use hobbies, interests, etc.) 4. Do you like a fast-paced life or slower, country-style? 5. Where do you want to work when your training is complete? 6. Can you put all of these answers together into one sentence that summarizes you and where you are going in your life? If so, put it in writing. Once you have done this objective assessment of your academic record, you are beginning to get insight into how the admissions committee sees your application. There are almost infinite patters of grades and reasons for them. Is there a drop in your grades for a period of time? Did you take time off from school? Do your grades suddenly get better at a point in time? I hope so, because you can explain it as you weave together the overall medical school application. I was fortunate to have a string of 2 years of straight A’s while in the Army, beginning right as I decided to pursue medicine. See if there’s a point in time that you can point to that matches up with major event or decision in your life. If so, use that subtly in your personal essay. Don’t exaggerate it, but it is important and often overlooked. See, the admissions committee looks for this trend, but not everyone knows to explain it. This takes out guesswork and makes you more transparent - all good things that support you being the genuine article. COMMON PROBLEMS 1. Bad grades, failed classes (especially prerequisites) 2. Fear of retaking classes and the appearance of a cover-up 3. Transferring between schools 4. Doing poorly in a series of courses (such as PreMed prerequisites or courses in your chosen major) COMMON SOLUTIONS 1. Repeating classes - In general, you only want to do this to get a better grasp of the material - not to just improve the GPA. The admissions committees see the scores for both attempts. It can and is often done by your competitors but applications with more than 2-3 cover-up attempts are flagged. We want the application to be an accurate reflection of your undergraduate work and attempts to inflate GPA’s make us do the 2 seconds of extra, unnecessary thinking to required to estimate the original GPA. So if there’s a principle here, don’t make the admissions committee’s job more difficult! 2. Dropping classes - This is actually more acceptable than repeating because we have no way of knowing how you were doing in the class when you dropped out (or why you did it). Again, if a pattern develops and there are 5 or more drops (especially to below full time) it stands out. So consider yourself as having about 3 safe DROP PASSES if you need them. Be prepared to explain why you dropped the classes when on your interview. And definitely drop with the registrar’s office before the deadline. Many a heartache have happened because of this oversight - the result is an F. A good number of questions I have received about these issues are from freshman. Let me just say that college and PreMed life is different than high school and requires an adjustment period. So, if you get into college and have some bad grades early on, don’t sweat it. Many people do. Just overcome your obstacles and as you approach your junior year, objectively assess your strengths and weaknesses. It may not (and usually isn’t) as bad as you think. 3. Changing majors - An increasing number of people have been getting interested in medicine later in life. Age and career choices are not barriers to entry. The only argument against advanced age is the number of practice years you may serve weighed against the greater good of giving your coveted seat to someone who can devote 20+ more years to helping mankind. A valid argument. But if you’re sure you want to do this, don’t let that stop you. People get in over the age of 40 ever year, and occasionally beyond that. Changing major may indicate indecision, which is expected among young people (<33). So, don’t worry about how that will look either. Some people that write me are worried about every little decision they make and live in fear. STOP! Live your life and shape your application accordingly, not the other way around. If you want to study basket weaving - go for it. Many an impoverished community has been economically blessed by learning to sell its wares. The better question is, what are you already doing to make the world a better place? If you can clearly communicate that, many other details won’t matter. So, don’t lose site of the big picture. One last piece of advice on switching is program-hopping. There is a general shortage of seats in many technical and medical training programs. With the exponential population growth curve and the United States grossly failing in its public education system, an awareness has been fostered among many graduate program directors to try to conserve resources. They want people trained in a given field to stay in it for their entire career. If you spend 4 years in a nursing program, and then switch to PreMed you wasted a seat in their nursing program. They had to refuse an applicant to allow you in, which would otherwise be working in the field. State supported schools feel this crunch the most and it is part of their mission statement and therefore their doctrine for admission. Some people can get away with program-hopping, but it is frowned upon. You just have to be that much more determined and clearly state why you did it. For example, say that you want to combine medical technology with pathology to engineer better point of care tests. 4. Transferring schools - No problem, just have a reason for doing it and be prepared to discuss it during the interview. LISTENER Q & A’S: Thank you for submitting your questions on the 1-minute survey at MedicalMastery.com! ==================================================== QUICK TIP: If you’re early in your undergraduate education (more than 1.5 years from your application), don’t worry about a bad grade yet. Focus your effort on doing the best you can in the classes you’re taking. It may be that you can survive one to three bad grades if you ace everything else, or that you have a long string of bad grades by the time you’re done and there’s no use in repeating just one or two. Closer to application time you can better evaluate the efficacy of repeating a class. Keep in mind that the admissions committees see all attempts at courses. ==================================================== Mission Statement “Medical Mastery seeks to podcast meaning into medical education by combining faith, high-quality lectures, and charity.”
