Will a hardship withdrawal and a failed quarter ruin my prospects at med school?

[mudcutie]

I'm a college junior who is planning on doing premed + a behavioral neuroscience major / linguistics minor. Freshman year I made mostly A's, a couple B's, all mostly from covering GURs. Come first quarter of sophomore year, I faced some serious mental health struggles and made mediocre grades that dropped my GPA to approx 3.4. I then had to do a hardship withdrawal the next quarter, and THEN returned to school too soon the following spring quarter and wound up failing all of my classes out of negligence. None of these classes were major-related or STEM, though I still anticipate that they'll haunt the rest of my 20s. I've taken a quarter off to heal and reorient myself and am looking to return this winter, though my GPA has pummeled to a 2.83 out of 76 hours. Yikes!

Have I screwed myself beyond redemption to expect to get into a good med school? I've ran the numbers; if I literally never make anything lower than an A again i'll graduate with about a 3.7. Is it still worth trying or what? Will my withdrawn quarter count negatively towards my cGPA? Even if I make it 100% from here on out, will those grades and withdraws still make my application particularly ugly? Any insight/advice/whatever is appreciated, thanks. Partially just looking for consolation.

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[LizzyM]

Sometimes people ask if they should address a single bad grade on their application or a semester of 3.3 in a transcript that was otherwise 3.9 every term. I call those "pimples" and recommend not drawing attention to them just as you wouldn't draw attention to one on your chin while on a first date.

You, my friend, do not have a pimple. You have a scar running from your earlobe to your chin. It is very obvious but, in the end, if you do well going forward, may not detract from your overall acceptability as a medical student. However, anyone seeing it (on your application) will be curious and want to know how this happened and how you recovered.

You get to craft the story. You are not required to provide your medical records. If you were placed on academic probation you will be required to disclose that as it is considered an institutional action (IA).

If you regain your health and do well going forward, you do have a shot at medical school in the US. You may have a better shot at DO than MD and you should shadow both and take that under consideration. If you are "top 20 or bust" you may want to consider why you want to go to medical school and what your end goal is; the fact is, you can do it if you are healthy and manage to stay ahead of your chronic illness.

And when it comes to explaining your academic record, you can say "chronic illness" or "a flare-up of a chronic illness that left me debilitated." and there is no requirement to go more deeply into what that illness was. Some people will tell you to be circumspect in med applications about your medical history and that's what I'm helping you to do with this language.

Good luck!