Session 24

In today’s episode, we discuss how an academic dismissal in undergrad can hurt your chances of getting into medical school!

Listen to this podcast episode with the player above, or keep reading for the highlights and takeaway points.

OldPreMeds Question of the Week

As usual on the OldPreMeds Podcast, our question is taken from the Nontrad Premed Forum. Today’s poster is a student who will be 35 years old by the time they apply to medical school. This student is thinking about transferring to finish their bachelor’s degree.

To start with, they were academically dismissed from undergrad, then they transferred credits to community college, and now they want to finish at another four-year institution. How is this going to hurt their chances of going to medical school?

Does Academic Dismissal Rule Out Medical School?

Being academically dismissed is a major issue and needs to be disclosed.

A few considerations:

• When was the student dismissed?
  • Was it during freshman year when they got wild and got thrown out?
  • Or was this somebody who spent three years struggling and got thrown out?
• How far in your undergraduate career have you gone?
• How long ago was that?

It’s not impossible to recover from academic dismissal. Listen to Session 174 of The Premed Years, an interview with Cain, who was academically dismissed and eventually was accepted to medical school.

Keys to Recovering from Academic Dismissal as a Premed

There are medical schools that like “redemption”—people who have shown they’ve climbed out of an academic hole and changed things. So it’s not hopeless. You can turn things around. The keys for you will be to:

• Write a concise and compelling narrative explaining your journey from failure to success.
  • Your ability to tell this story in your personal statement and your medical school interviews will be key!
• Consider the DO route and using grade replacement to improve your undergrad GPA.
  • Update: Unfortunately, DO schools no longer offer grade replacement.
  • But look into the 32-hour rule and medical schools that determine GPA based solely on your most recent credit hours.
  • Advocate for yourself.

I also recommend listening to Session 35 of The Premed Years about fixing an application after starting premed poorly.

You can only go forward. There is nothing else you can do in a case like this. You have to do your best to establish a new pattern, put your best foot forward, and deal with whatever questions the interviewers will bring up about this.

Major takeaway from this episode:

Keep on and don’t think it’s impossible. Own up to your mistakes as you go forward, and be able to talk about them.

For more insight on how to recover from major red flags on your medical school application, listen to Session 296 of The Premed Years.

Links and Other Resources

• Check out my Premed Playbook series of books (available on Amazon), with installments on the personal statement, the medical school interview, and the MCAT.
• Related episode: If I Can’t Get a 3.0 GPA, What Should I Do Next?
• Related episode: What MCAT Score Do I Need If I Have a Low GPA?
• Need MCAT Prep? Save on tutoring, classes, and full-length practice tests by using promo code “MSHQ” at Blueprint MCAT (formerly Next Step Test Prep)!