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I just finished my second year at a well-respected public university. Both semesters I took Orgo and Physics simultaneously, which was honestly terrible, especially because I was also enrolled in their respective labs. In addition, I took a statistics course my first semester and a biopsychology course my second semester. I can't say I've been happy with most of my grades this year.
In Orgo 1 I got a B-, which is actually better than the C I had most of the semester as I struggled to figure out how to study. Halfway through the semester I joined a study group and attended tutoring twice a week, which helped bring me up to that B-. I also got an A- in Physics 1 that semester. So those balance out around a B/B+; not the worst. Second semester I got a good start in Orgo 2 and beat the average by quite a bit on all the midterms, with a roughly average score on the final to earn a B+, which was disappointing since I had been expecting an A- based on the curve. But the worst thing is my grade in Physics 2. I watched Khan Academy videos about the topics we went over, but I had absolutely no clue how to be successful on the exams, which are all multiple choice and only 20 questions so every question wrong has the potential to kill your grade. I think I will get a low B in the class.
The grades themselves aren't the worst, and I had all A's my first year (though I didn't take any hard science courses, just things like Intro Psych and Calc 1 and 2) so my GPA will be around 3.6 and my science GPA just a touch lower than that. But I'm worried that this downward grade trend will reflect negatively on me. I did better in Orgo 2 than Orgo 1, but not as well as I'd have liked. And I somehow managed to do quite a bit worse in Physics 2 than Physics 1, so my second semester GPA will be lower than my first! Will med schools frown upon that, or will they likely see that I went from taking 0-1 college science courses first year to taking 3 all at once and struggled because of it? How can I make it better?
(Next year my schedule will be more balanced and have fewer credits as I study for the MCAT, so hopefully it's uphill from here.)
In Orgo 1 I got a B-, which is actually better than the C I had most of the semester as I struggled to figure out how to study. Halfway through the semester I joined a study group and attended tutoring twice a week, which helped bring me up to that B-. I also got an A- in Physics 1 that semester. So those balance out around a B/B+; not the worst. Second semester I got a good start in Orgo 2 and beat the average by quite a bit on all the midterms, with a roughly average score on the final to earn a B+, which was disappointing since I had been expecting an A- based on the curve. But the worst thing is my grade in Physics 2. I watched Khan Academy videos about the topics we went over, but I had absolutely no clue how to be successful on the exams, which are all multiple choice and only 20 questions so every question wrong has the potential to kill your grade. I think I will get a low B in the class.
The grades themselves aren't the worst, and I had all A's my first year (though I didn't take any hard science courses, just things like Intro Psych and Calc 1 and 2) so my GPA will be around 3.6 and my science GPA just a touch lower than that. But I'm worried that this downward grade trend will reflect negatively on me. I did better in Orgo 2 than Orgo 1, but not as well as I'd have liked. And I somehow managed to do quite a bit worse in Physics 2 than Physics 1, so my second semester GPA will be lower than my first! Will med schools frown upon that, or will they likely see that I went from taking 0-1 college science courses first year to taking 3 all at once and struggled because of it? How can I make it better?
(Next year my schedule will be more balanced and have fewer credits as I study for the MCAT, so hopefully it's uphill from here.)
