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Introduction: There are many quantitative studies on academic failure in the medical faculty. This study aimed to investigate the opinions of students who were having an academic failure in the medical school and to reveal the underlying causes.Methods: The study was designed as a qualitative research. The population of the study comprised of students failed while they were studying at the İzmir Katip Çelebi University Faculty of Medicine during the 2014- 2015 academic year. Failure was defined as the repetition of a study year. Thus, phase 4 and 5 students were not included. The study sample was composed of medical students who failed at phase 1, 2, or 3, chosen by quota sampling. Data was collected using semi-structured questions asked by face-to-face interviews. The interviews were done between April-May 2016. A personal information form was used to collect data related to the students’ socio-demographic, individual, and academic characteristics. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis.Results: After the interpretation was made by four researchers, the following themes were created: Opinions and beliefs of the students about the effects of faculty on academic success; attitudes, beliefs, and opinions on study behaviors; feelings and believes on becoming a medical doctor; and views about the impact of the social environment. It was determined that the most frequently mentioned factor by the students as the leading cause of their repetition of the class was an insufficient academic effort. Other remarkable topics were; students not benefiting from counseling services and not attending the lectures of instructors of whom they didn’t like the way of presentation and lecturing. Conclusions: Introducing students about advisory services given by lecturers and providing advice from their experienced advisors especially to the students who repeat classes, can contribute to academic success. Training of lecturers on effective lecturing can contribute to academic achievement by increasing the attendance of students. Giving due importance to introduce the occupation from the early days of education can improve the motivation to learning.