Help!!

[LMed08]

Hey everyone,

I'm kinda new to this. But I just finished my first year at u of t and I got a cGPA of 3.59- math killed me I'm just hoping someone can point me in the right direction about types of EC I should be trying to get involved in and tips on how I can improve my cGPA in the coming years. Much appreciated.

[Jamer]

ECs: Something you enjoy that will help you as a doctor (leadership, hospital related, whatever you want)
GPA: Do well. No more math.

I know, fascinating input.

[Rock*]

Here's something that has never failed to get me above average grades: for any assignments, essays, projects or lab reports, get a feel for what your graders expect and always try to exceed that standard by a bit.

Eg. if you're doing a lab report, instead of paraphrasing your introduction from the lab manual, do a quick literature search and pull some quotes from some review articles regarding your experiment and insert them into your report with proper citations. It's guaranteed to give you extra points and takes very little extra effort.

With enough of these, your marks will easily start climbing.

[medisforme]

for EC's
psychiatry is where to volunteer. most people who aren't in med school are a little freaked out by it. it will look good on your applications

[Dante]

hey LMed,

What program are you in? I assume just arts and sciences? First year can be tough on a lot of people, so don't let it get you down. You need to figure out what you were doing wrong and fix it fast! Forget about EC's forget about everything until you've got the gpa. Because as long as you're below ~3.7 gpa nobody cares if you're an olympic athlete who spends 3 nights a week feeding the homeless in calcutta. Your lousy gpa will be all they see, and that puts you out of the running completely. You can always improve on your EC's, but gpa is a difficult thing to pull up. The good news? I had an even lower gpa than yours, and still managed to make it. Your gpa is just on the border that if you improve A LOT you can still consider yourself in the running at most schools by the end of your 4th year. And many of the schools will care more about your more recent (and hopefully better) years anyways. You might look into some tutoring if you're having difficulties (UofT Peer Tutors is free and can be quite helpful). It's hard to give any particular advice, since you haven't really elaborated upon what you felt the problems were. Feel free to PM me if you feel more comfortable that way!

Cheers

[LMed08]

Hey
Thanks for the feedback guys. Thanks for the tips on writing better labs and essays. About the psychiatry vounteering, where should I be looking into that at?