Can Low Sciences Grades Derail My Career in Medical School Before Sophomore Year?

When you begin your coursework to complete your Bachelor's degree, you may be experiencing a lot of "firsts."  

This could be the first time you are away from your family and friends, the first time you have to live independently, and the first time you have taken a class with 300 other students packed into the auditorium.

It can be a very difficult time for any student. It's objectively hard to adjust to this radically new way of life, and if you are too ambitious and take difficult classes at the start of your studies, you can find yourself drowning in coursework and potentially struggling to complete the assignments on time.  

There is a strong possibility that you may not have fine-tuned the study strategies that carried you through high school for college. It may be difficult for you to keep up with classes that do not come with a structured schedule like the one you were accustomed to in high school.

Number 1:  Ask the Professor for a Chance to Increase Your Grade or Repeat the Class 

Professors understand the importance of doing well in your first semester to propel you to greater heights further on in your studies. So, there is a chance they may be understanding about a specific circumstance that may have prevented you from doing better.  

In reality, most professors will not be so understanding — so another option that you can consider is to retake the course and score a higher grade. If you took biology your first semester and ended up receiving a "C," it will be unrealistic to assume the professor is going to give you a "B."  

If you repeat a course, however, you have a real chance to score much higher, especially considering the fact that you will already have seen the material and may know the style of exam questions that you may face.  

Retaking a course does not look great on your application to Medical School, but Medical Schools are much more understanding if this is an option you consider in your first year of studying because you are adjusting to a new style. Any Medical School you apply to in future will ask you what caused you to retake a course during the interview, but the important thing is you are able to even still get that interview.  

Two Other Strategies to Keep Yourself on Track Even After a Low Grade 

Number 2:  Build Up the Rest of Your Resume and Score Highly on the MCAT 

This is a strategy that you should already should be implementing if you have a high GPA, but it is especially important if you cannot rely on a strong GPA to push you into an Admissions Board's consideration.  

If you show a lot of experience volunteering, impressive involvement with research studies, and other extracurricular activities, you can alleviate some of the sting of a low grade in one science course.  

The key point to remember is to evaluate what caused the low score in the first place. You want to be able to objectively view the situation and determine if you did not dedicate enough time to studying, or perhaps chose to sleep in instead of going to class and changing your habits.  

You need to make sure that the rest of your science grades are high, because multiple low grades suggest that you may just not be able to comprehend higher levels of science which, will put a red flag on your application.  

Do not spread yourself too thin, and make sure you do not let any of your extracurricular commitments interfere with your studying. A respectable GPA can still be achieved with a low score, but make sure you dedicate a large quantity of time to perfecting your MCAT preparation.

A high MCAT score can be considered to be your safety net to prevent your dreams of becoming a physician from crashing down from the cosmos. Ideally, you don't push that extra pressure onto yourself but in reality, you need to be aware of the circumstances that you have dug yourself into and use that as motivation to push you to study longer hours and prepare as hard as you can to ensure that you will dazzle on the MCAT to conceal a low GPA.  

Number 3:  Make Sure You Are Improving Your Grades 

A key fact that a lot of Medical Admissions' Boards do consider when they are determining which candidates to invite for interviews is if there was trend of improvement during their 4 years of studying.  

Medical Schools are tough to get into but they are realistic in their expectations as well. The Admissions Board team is not looking for robots that know all the answers already, and they actively expect students to have some type of a learning curve when they come in a new environment.  

A school will overlook a low science score in most cases as long as you show obvious signs of improvement. These signs of improvement over the course of your studies go a long way toward demonstrating that you have critiqued your studying habits and can keep up with the pace of classes as you progress to higher subjects.  

Showing improvement in the face of challenges is very important, because it demonstrates what every student will experience when they get into Medical School.  There will be a big learning curve and the techniques that you used to study effectively in college will become useless as you try to adjust to the even faster pace of Medical School.