During my first year at a community college, I received one F and four As my first semester and all Ws my second semester. My concern is that I've sabotagued my chances for med school(and grad school, for that matter). Should I just apply as a freshman to my state's four year school and pretend I never went to college?
Well, this was quite a first year of community college, huh?
I would recommend serious introspection as to why your experience turned out as it did. Do you need more discipline or maturity before you continue school? (No offense, it is a serious question about a serious topic). Were you just not as motivated as you might have been? Were you working full-time while attending school full-time? What is up? Once you figure that out, you can go on from there, and hopefully kick butt in school down the road.
When it comes to getting into medical school -- getting an F and a bunch of Ws was a really bad idea. Med admissions are competitive, and you now have to work extra hard to show just how competitive you can be. Would time off from school (medical volunteerism, travel, military service, or some other acitivity) help you out? That is something only you can answer.
If you determine that you DO want to go to medical school, and you can overcome whatever it was that caused your bad set of grades, then get after it with a vengeance. Bad grades from the early CC years CAN be overcome over the next 3-5 years, if you are willing to put in the work and dedication to make it happen.
Regardless, I would definitely NOT recommend being dishonest about having attended school before... that is the wrong approach to take when trying to enter a profession that is supposed to be based on ethics and honesty.
Good luck. As a former CC grad and current medical student, I am pulling for you! 🙂
Curtis Nordstrom
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"Unum nihil, duos plurimum posse..."
Interesting question - and one that comes up here fairly often. If you are sure that you want to go to medical school, and you are sure that you are smart enough to get good grades if and when you apply yourself, then you have a few options.
First, you can still get into medical school, although it won't be easy.
You'll need a very good explanation of why you got an F your first year, and why you had to withdraw from all of your courses second semester.
Assuming you have a reasonable explanation, and whatever that reason was is now behind you, and you are smart enough, then you'll have to do well the rest of your college years.
I want to make it clear that you could potentially still get into medical school, but I think it is extremely important to figure out the reason why you failed a class and why you had to withdraw from classes - if you don't have a very good explanation that would be reasonable to tell someone in interviews, you should explore if perhaps being a doctor is not the right career for you.
I also agree that you should NOT lie when applying for either medical school, residency, or any other professional program / job.
[ Edited by Admin on 2004/7/5 20:17 ]
I agree with the two previous responses that !0 med school is still possible but you'll have to work very hard and explain the past and 2) figuring out why this happened is essential to your own process of managing it and changing what follows. I also can add a vignette: I was not prepared to be in college when I entered freshman year. I had been a 4.0 high school student with 99th percentile boards. I was burned out and really wanted to socialize, not study. It was a rude awakening to get a D in honors biology first semester. I limped through the year ending with around a 2.88 average. I took off a semester to regroup, did a little better, but then took organic chem over the summer (at 8 AM, when to this day I am brain-dead) and got an C first half and an F the second.
Now I recognized that I had to act if I wished to preserve the chances of going to med school (which it was not yet clear I intended to do). I did get my focus, and got 4.0's the rest of college, graduated cum laude, and went to med school. The rest is history. So it can be done.
I am the original poster. Thank you for your responses earlier.
Does it look like i have also ruined my chances of transferring to a "good" university?
Not necessarily, although you may need to demonstrate good academic performance prior to acceptance. It will be crucial that you can provide an explanation for what happened freshman year.
I am reminded of a piece of wisdom a teacher of mine offered, albeit in another context, specifically when attempting to iron out a failure of empathy or other breach in a therapeutic relationship: It's not what you said, its what you say next. In your case, to paraphrase, it may not be just what you did, but what you do next that counts the most.