Thanks everyone for help with my previous posts. I received more information from the 4yr univ that I am applying to for the pre-med and once again the mind started inquiring!
Background: My undergrad and postgrad are from outside of US. I have taken many credits to enhance my skills over the past 6 years as a non-degree student in various 4 yr universities across US.
I am starting with pre-med coursework at another 4 yr university in spring-2011. I have applied for a 2nd undergrad degree with Major = Undecided. I am transferring credits from my previous endeavours.
The tentative evaluation done by the university summed up credits to about 100, which will be mentioned on my 2nd undergrad transcript. The university will also calculate GPA for these credits. (Tentative evaluation gpa for 100 credits = 3.6)
I do not see a point in getting a 2nd undergrad degree. My purpose is to build my application for med school with previous credits and other variables.
So, I am trying to understand how will this be reported on med school application, so I can begin to work on other variables to make my profile stronger?
Questions:
Will my pre-med coursework be reported separately on my application?
How will the previous 100 credits, reported on my application?
What will be the cumulative GPA in my case?
Any thoughts, ideas, or insight into this will be extremely helpful.
Also, is there a website/book that can give detailed information on how scores are reported on med school app? This will be extremely helpful to me.
Will my pre-med coursework be reported separately on my application?
On AMCAS - your prereqs will not be reported separately. They are reported as part of your entire academic record. However, your postbacc GPA will be reported separately.
On AACOMAS, your prereqs are reported under a prerequisite report, allowing adcoms to specifically see your prereq grades without looking through your entire academic record.
How will the previous 100 credits, reported on my application?
The previous 100 credits will be reported as part of your academic record by semester in both AACOMAS and AMCAS. Again, in AACOMAS, there will be a separate prerequisite report that will show any prereqs.
What will be the cumulative GPA in my case?
AMCAS - your GPA will be the average of ALL of your undergraduate work, regardless of whether or not it was taken before or after you earned your BS/BA.
AACOMAS - this system uses grade replacement, in that the most recent retake is used in calculating your GPA. When you input all of your coursework, you can designate what was retaken and what was the most recent retake.
amcas.org and aacom.org both specifically outline the ways in which GPAs are calculated and specific reporting policies.
Most med schools like to see your prerequisites completed at an accredited school within the US, so while you may be able to apply previously taken courses toward your program at the new university, med schools may not be particularly receptive. Unfortunately, your best bet may be to retake any prereqs you have already taken and show a solid, current academic record. Then, you may want to consider taking upper level science coursework to show your ability. You may want to contact the med schools in which you are interested to determine how they view your foreign degree/coursework.
One more piece that wasn’t said specifically. when you fill out the AMCAS or AACOMAS applications (or both), they will require a transcript from EACH institution where you took courses. In other words, the fact that you transferred 100 credits to your current school will not matter - those transfer credits will not be an acceptable “record” of those courses. The application will require original transcripts from each place you took courses.
For me that was 7 undergrad institutions and it was a bit of an effort to pull them together and it sounds like you have a similar situation. I’d suggest a folder with the forms or contact info for each institution to get the trascripts (and your own copy of the transcripts) - so you can knock this out in an afternoon when submitting the application. You also have to enter the course and credits, etc onto the on-line forms for the application and having the transcripts in front of you makes that a LOT simpler.
While AMCAS doesn’t calculate just pre-reqs, they do calculate a GPA for the BCPM courses (biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics). If all you took was the pre-reqs, then this category is essentially your pre-req GPA. If you took additional sciences beyond the pre-req, then they will be included in this category.
Till now I only have physics, math, and comp. sc. What I need to find out is if I need to re-take Physics and Math for med school pre-reqs or can I use my previous credits (about 12 years old and from outside of US)?
Just wanted to let you know that I got my answer: the pre-requisites have to be from US and have to be atmost 5-7 years old atleast at the school I am most interested in!
A little more increase in the incline, my lungs at the mile high city will have to work harder! Just using an analogy from running!
Just using an analogy from running!