Any hope after getting a bad GPA freshman year?

[NerdGirl]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/72251/

I seriously considered posting a comment, but my comments never get approved anymore so I just came over here. But I had a 2.1 GPA after my first semester at BYU and I suffered from severe OCD that interfered with school and life and everything else and required medication and several years of counseling. I failed 6 classes in my major over the time I was at BYU and it took me 5 years to graduate including 3 summers. I subsequently got into grad school, got a master's and a PhD, and I am in med school. There is always still hope. If the questioner is reading this, please feel free to ask me anything about my experience either in this thread or PM me and we can talk over email.

[Digit]

Interesting, though not applied to the undergraduate level, is the Yale System used at Yale medical school.

In the first two years, there are no grades and there is no class ranking.

[Portia]

I had straight As my freshman year, subsequently got a string of Es my fourth year, came back, got A-minuses and B-plusses last semester (hooray!) with one exception: a C in Tech Writing. My job offer? Tech writer.

Also, my ex's father (PhD in Chemistry) and brother (computer scientist who interned with HP) both bombed their freshmen years. My ex himself had excellent grades: such are the standards I set for myself. B-)

[Portia]

Just read the actual question. And my response to Laser Jock was: "what the?" I feel like everyone could see my breakdown coming, but I truly had no idea. Considering both his longevity and the quality of responses, I think we can all agree that grades are not necessarily a great reflection of intelligence or maturity. I'm glad he shared: makes me feel somewhat better about my own shortcomings (and chances at an advanced degree).

[Whistler]

yeah, I had no idea LJ (hi!) had a terrible year! Glad that you found ways to cope, LJ!

[Laser Jock]

Thanks! Yeah, it was kind of rough, but it turns out that even after screwing things up you can still turn them around!

[Portia]

It turns out that even after screwing things up you can still turn them around!

Cross stitch/ title bar me.

[No Dice]

I totally didn't want to be the Debbie Downer on this question, so I stayed out. But it turns out that for law school (which the asker mentioned), one terrible semester actually can have pretty lasting effects. It's not uncommon for good law schools to have hard GPA floors, and sadly, a lot of people miss those floors because of a bad semester/year. I think any admission's office is going to be understanding about medical conditions, but there are just some GPAs that don't get into the top schools. And interestingly, law schools have to average the GPA from all your grades, including pre-retakes at BYU (back when the retake erased the original grade). So that didn't help people out.

Happily, that doesn't seem to be the case broadly, and it was encouraging reading about people who got into awesome grad programs despite a rough stretch. I wish that were true more often.