I want to become a doctor, and I usually achieved fairly good grades in the past but this year I was advised to make some commitments during the summer that would last a bit through school. I knew I shouldn't have made them but I did so anyway - maybe because I actually believed I could for a bit, but the summer ended shortly, and I ended up consuming a large amount of time. For the first two months of school I have received six to three hours of sleep on most days. Sometimes I feel insane. I am barely maintaining a 90 average in one class, the rest of my marks all over the place with the others except math - it is probably in the 70s. I have never fallen so low in my life. My grades had been my pride. But I guess my commitment hadn't the sense to give up on any promises I made. The commitment I made have made time unmanageable and unsustainable, I knew something had to be sacrifice since there wasn't enough time in my life but I was to stubborn to sacrifice anything. Before I knew it, I ended sacrificing my grades.

I have gone through a lot of pain and suffering, but I still want to become a doctor. Now I am faced with a question I never thought I would have to face - Should I drop a course to reduce the damages to my grades? Will it matter that I have a couple of courses with average grades? Is there anything you would do in my place? Any other recommendations that I could consider?

Why did you not stop your other "things" when school started. It is a matter of rating importance. On your high school transcripts it shows classes dropped. So even that can look bad depends on how far back they look.

For high school, it is not what medical school thinks, it is what colleges on what scholarships you are hoping or praying for.

I am sorry, school starts at a set time, on the last day of school, you knew the first day of school.

You need to stop anything but your study, and bring the grades up, and keep focused on them, not give up if you are having trouble.

Guess what, I have seen straight A students try to kill theirself, when they left high school and went to college, because in college all of a sudden they were B and C students, not A students.

So first understand, that you may not always be the best, but at times you will have to adjust and change.

I would stop things making you lose sleep, and to be honest your parents are doing a poor job, since they should make you have time to sleep