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Investment Banking Studies After Flunking Out of Pre-Med Track?

Written by Sally Rubenstone | Feb. 15, 2011

Question: I flunked out of a college, while being on the pre-med track. I want to get back to college and go in the investment banking route. Is this a possibility?

You can certainly do this, but you will have to report your past record when reapplying to college. As much as you might like to start over with a "clean slate," if you do not include your previous courses and grades in your applications, you run the risk of being expelled, should you first get admitted to a new college but your omission later surfaces.

Because of your weak start as a pre-med student, you are likely to find that you will not be accepted to many colleges that might have accepted you right out of high school, based on a good high school record. Yet there are definitely many places that will welcome you ... lousy record and all. :)

You may want to use your essay, a supplemental letter, or the "Additional Information" section that you'll find on most applications to explain why you think you did so poorly the first time around (and why you're convinced you'll do better in the future).

If you are indeed successful in your new classes, you will position yourself to transfer to a more selective school, should you decide that you wish to do so.

There are many people in your shoes ... those who screwed up initially and came back stronger ... so don't feel that you have been permanently thwarted by past failures, but do try to determine what caused them in the first place so that you don't repeat your old mistakes.

(posted 2/15/2011)

Sally Rubenstone

Sally Rubenstone knows the competitive and often convoluted college admission process inside out: From the first time the topic of college comes up at the dinner table until the last duffel bag is unloaded on a dorm room floor. She is the co-author of Panicked Parents' Guide to College Admissions; The Transfer Student's Guide to Changing Colleges and The International Student's Guide to Going to College in America. Sally has appeared on NBC's Today program and has been quoted in countless publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Weekend, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, People and Seventeen. Sally has viewed the admissions world from many angles: As a Smith College admission counselor for 15 years, an independent college counselor serving students from a wide range of backgrounds and the author of College Confidential's "Ask the Dean" column. She also taught language arts, social studies, study skills and test preparation in 10 schools, including American international schools in London, Paris, Geneva, Athens and Tel Aviv. As senior advisor to College Confidential since 2002, Sally has helped hundreds of students and parents navigate the college admissions maze. In 2008, she co-founded College Karma, a private college consulting firm, with her College Confidential colleague Dave Berry, and she continues to serve as a College Confidential advisor. Sally and her husband, Chris Petrides, became first-time parents in 1997 at the ripe-old age of 45. So Sally was nearly an official senior citizen when her son Jack began the college selection process, and when she was finally able to practice what she had preached for more than three decades.