gpa calculated

Nontraditional Premed Discussion
1

I’ve seen diff. takes on this, but just to check and feel free to give me a quick answer. my undergrad gpa was 3.39, Masters 3.85 and so far making A’s in my pre-reqs. 16 hrs so far and if I add the gpa quality points to my undergrad it comes to a 3.47. am I adding this right and is it safe to assume that I just add all the grades together taken as an undergrad with the pre-req courses? thanks

2

Hard to tell for sure without knowing the number of hours and quality points from your original undergrad, but it seems about right.


I don’t know how the Texas application service calculates GPAs, but AMCAS calculates each year and post bacc separately, along with separate calculations for BCPM and all others in each of those categories and then they calculate a combined ugrad GPA.


Hope that helps.

3

When I talked to the director of admissions at Indiana University, I asked how undergrad and grad grades are used to calculate your gpa. AMCAS does report undergrad work as one gpa, and grad work as a separate gpa. At IU, they then average the two together to get an overall gpa. Obviously though they see and consider the undergrad/grad gpa’s as separate measures.


Not sure how other schools do it - that’s just how IU does it. Best to ask at the schools you are interested in.

4

Miller, if you want, PM me an email address you’d like it sent to and I’ll send you this AMCAS GPA calculator (it’s an excel spreadsheet) I’ve been using…does all the work for you and tells you exactly what GPA is what. I didn’t make it, so I don’t claim credit for it, but it works great!

5
  • 3rdtimer Said:
When I talked to the director of admissions at Indiana University, I asked how undergrad and grad grades are used to calculate your gpa. AMCAS does report undergrad work as one gpa, and grad work as a separate gpa. At IU, they then average the two together to get an overall gpa. Obviously though they see and consider the undergrad/grad gpa's as separate measures.

Not sure how other schools do it - that's just how IU does it. Best to ask at the schools you are interested in.



Most schools don't average the ugrad and grad gpas. Most place more emphasis on the ugrad gpa inasmuch as one is expected to do extremely well in a master's program. (C's are considered near failing grades.)

Cheers,

Judy
6

ok so the short answer is all undergrad credits that you took for your undergrad degree will be averaged in with your post bacc pre-reqs for a combined GPA ?

7

yes, and also broken out separately.

8

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words . This is how your GPA calculation looks on the AMCAS app - without the green boxes, of course.





edit: it didn’t come out so well - check out http://www.oldpremeds.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?f… and click on the image for a full-size view.

9

thanks- I have a question with the chart. it says High school then goes through fresh, soph, etc. does that just mean that you put your total high school gpa in there and then the fresh, soph, etc is for the undergrad years ? just confused totally

10

it’s been a long time since I did this so hopefully someone with more recent experience will correct my mistakes:

  1. You don’t post your h.s. GPA. This is for any college classes you took in h.s. - there are h.s. students taking college courses and that’s what that place is for

  2. YOU don’t calculate anything. You enter all your grades every single one and AMCAS/AACOMAS does the rest. The application program prompts you: you enter the year of college, the course name/number, and the grade. The grid posted by Adam illustrates the end product but the information that goes into producing that end product is much more detailed and tedious.


    Again, details of how this works may have changed but the key thing is that you put in the specifics and THEY come up with the GPA.


    Mary
11

thanks, Mary…I was wondering how grades were entered.


I was curious of how a withdrawal will show up.


Kris

12

dunno, but I’m sure there’s someone on here who’s had to deal with that.


Mary

13

Mary may not have done this in a while, but she’s 100% correct.


You get all of your transcripts from every place you’ve ever earned a college credit. You sit down at your desk with a nice glass of (insert hot or cold beverage here), and you input them, one by one.


What school? What year? What semester? What’s the name of the course? What category (e.g. Biology, Math, Philosphy, etc)? (AMCAS gives you guidelines for what category a course goes into). How many credits? What grade?


You input all of this yourself, for each course.


After you submit, AMCAS - who has all of your transcripts, and they’ve had them for a while, because you were astute enough to get them sent early - confirms everything. They validate the number of credits, the grade, the classification of the course, etc. This could take them up to 2 months.


Once AMCAS is done - and no sooner - they do all of the calculations that result in the above table. At no point do you calculate anything; you only transcribe.


Hope this clarifies . If not, I wouldn’t worry about it - just know that, in the end, each school will see everything and make their own decision. And if you could see what’s behind those green boxes, you’d probably worry even less …

14

thanks, Adam!

15

Withdraws go in as a “W.” And to augment the commentary already given, if you repeated a course, BOTH grades must be inserted into the AMCAS transcript form, EVEN IF THE ORIGINAL GRADE IS NO LONGER ON YOUR FORMAL TRANSCRIPT.


Cheers,


Judy