Your grades play an essential role in college acceptance. Your GPA reflects your academic performance in high school, and college admissions committees use it to determine whether or not you can handle the challenges of their program. A bad GPA shows these committees you cannot, which torpedoes your chances of acceptance. But what is a bad GPA? And what’s the lowest GPA you can get?
In this post, we break down what it means to have a bad GPA, how GPAs are calculated, and what you can do if you currently have poor grades.
What Is a Bad GPA?
A GPA (Grade Point Average) is a number from 0.0 to 4.0 that tracks how high or low you scored in each of your courses on average. It’s used by universities, individual education programs, and scholarship programs to evaluate whether or not you meet their standards and qualifications. It also helps schools determine if you will be able to handle the coursework.
Typically, a good GPA is between 3.0 and 4.0, and a low GPA is between 1.5 and 2.0.
Universities may start tracking your GPA as early as your freshman year of high school, and this will continue into your college career. While getting good grades right from the start is certainly to your benefit, universities are also looking for steady improvement. If you struggled in grade 9 but showed gradual and consistent improvement each year, universities will certainly take note.
The flip side is also true. If you score well in high school, but your GPA tracks downward in college, this will reflect badly on you.
Also, keep in mind that your GPA is the average of each class you take. If you get great marks in math but consistently bomb your English classes, your GPA will suffer, and so will your chances of acceptance.
The academic standards and GPA cutoffs will vary, depending on the institution or financial aid opportunity, so it’s vital you pay close attention to the requirements of any you hope to apply to.
How Are GPAs Calculated?
GPAs are calculated by averaging the grades you received in each of your courses. However, there are two kinds of GPAs, and they are each calculated in different ways.
There are two main differences in how your GPA is calculated—weighted vs. unweighted.
An unweighted GPA is calculated the same way for every student in every course. You must first convert your grade into a grade point, which is a number on a scale from 0.0 to 4.0. If your school uses letter grades, a 4.0 is an A or A+. If your school uses percentage grades, a 4.0 is 93% or higher.
Once you have determined your grade points for every course, add all of your points together, then divide by the total number of courses, and you will have your unweighted GPA.
A weighted GPA takes the difficulty of the course into account. Courses that are considered more challenging, such as honors level or advanced placement courses, are given more “weight” in the weighted GPA calculation. There are many different ways to calculate a weighted GPA, and each high school may do it a little differently.
That said, generally, the most common way to calculate a weighted GPA is by increasing the grade you received in a more difficult class by a full grade point. This means the maximum grade point and grade point average is 5.0, and the lowest is 1.0. After that, the average is calculated just the same as an unweighted GPA.
For more detailed information, as well as weighted and unweighted GPA calculators, read our guide: How to Calculate Weighted vs. Unweighted GPA).
What’s the Lowest GPA You Can Get?
Technically speaking, the lowest GPA you can receive is 0.0, which is a complete fail. You can only score a 0.0 for an unweighted GPA.
That said, a 1.0 is considered the lowest GPA you can get. A 1.0 means, overall, you have received a D average in high school or college.
Some colleges have GPA cutoffs where if you score lower than their requirements, they will not consider your application. These cutoffs usually fall between 2.0 and 2.5, but every college is different. Look at the details of each specific program you’re considering applying to in order to determine if they have GPA cutoffs or not.
What Are the Lowest GPAs Accepted for Medical School?
In the past, many medical schools had a 3.5 GPA threshold, meaning that if you scored a 3.0, your application would not be considered, no matter how strong your letters of recommendation were or how convincing your personal statement was. These factors would not come into play because admissions committees wouldn’t even look at your primary application if you did not have a GPA of 3.5 or above.
However, more and more medical school programs across the US are recognizing that there are a large number of strong applicants who do not meet the 3.5 GPA threshold.
It’s actually the mission of many medical schools to give opportunities to people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and this includes accepting students with lower than average GPAs. Some examples are Tulane University School of Medicine, Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.
Many schools are also not totally upfront about what their GPA thresholds are or if they even have them. For example, Harvard states they don’t have a minimum GPA requirement, but the average GPA of students accepted to Harvard is 3.9, and the average MCAT score is 520.59. While Harvard says they take the complete background of each applicant into account, high grades are clearly a critical factor.
If you have a low GPA, gaining acceptance to medical school will be a challenge, but it’s not impossible.
Can You Get Into Medical School With a Low GPA?
Yes, you can get into medical school with a low GPA but know that it’s an uphill battle. It is absolutely essential that every other aspect of your application is of the utmost quality.
The other hard metric of your application is your MCAT score, so the best thing you can do with a low GPA is to perform well on the MCAT.
However, this won’t just happen. To perform well on the MCAT, you’ll need to completely rethink and restructure your study strategies. It’s also important to seek out MCAT tutoring with top scorers so that you can learn from people who aced their own MCAT.
Learn more about customized, one-on-one MCAT Tutoring with Med School Insiders.
A high MCAT score can offset a low GPA, but not if another aspect of your application is weak. Decide if you need to retake any courses, strengthen your experiences and extracurriculars, secure strong letters of recommendation, craft a compelling personal statement, and develop a cohesive narrative for your entire application.
Read our guide to getting into medical school with a low GPA.
Build a Strong and Well-Rounded Application
While important, your GPA is only one aspect of your primary application, and it should not take all of your attention. Matriculating to medical school is about balance. Not only do you need to maintain your GPA, you must also excel at the MCAT, write compelling and convincing essays, make strong connections, and gain a wide range of medical experience through extracurriculars and volunteering efforts.
To help you stay on top of upcoming deadlines, save and utilize our Medical School Application Timeline and Monthly Schedule. It outlines everything you should prepare and work on each month leading up to medical school.
Med School Insiders offers one-on-one advising, essay editing, application editing, mock interviews, and more based on key tactics only the top-performing physicians know about. We’ll provide you with a clear roadmap of how to optimize your chances of medical school acceptance.
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If you’re considering applying to medical school, start here:
- Understanding the Medical School Application Process
- Medical School Application Timeline and Monthly Schedule
- MCAT Study Guide — Everything You Need to Prepare
- How to Write a Medical School Personal Statement (11 Steps)
