Hi all! Apologies for the long post in advance. I did some searches here and other site and think the HSC assumption is fine. I’m more concerned about the others. I’m trying to determine what my sGPA looks like to DO schools at the moment. For referece, my cGPA is 2.983 according to my school but 2.99 based on AACOMAS & AMCAS. That’s on 136 graded undergrad credits. I also have a worthless 91 credits from the Community College of the Air Force that were “satisfactory.”
Longtime lurker here and over at the other sites forums sporadically for several years. Got the Pre-med bug a long time ago but life happened again and again and I allowed it to derail plans. But that’s on me. Did time in the Air Force & Air Guard and now a govt contractor overseas for the second time. My professional experience is as a Meteorological Technician (16 years-enlisted and civilian) and as an Insurance sales rep (as well as retail sales part-time several different times). I have a BS in Health Services Administration from the University of Central Florida and an MBA from Liberty University. I’m married and have 4 kids ages 4 thru 15. Still need to complete all pre-reqs (I do have 2 pre-req F’s from 11 years ago) hopefully some upper level sciences, and get clinical/shadowing exposure as well. Hoping I might be able to do some of that at the clinic at my base overseas. I’ll be 36 This May and really trying to evaluate whether medicine is worth pursuing at this point. I know there are many who have done this at an older age but I’m not positive I can make it happen too long from now. We’ll see. I’ve been reading all the hoopla over the removal of grade replacement by AACOM. That would’ve probably helped me tremendously. But such is life.
The following are courses are directly from my transcript and I’m wondering if they may count as “Other Science” for DO Science GPA purposes:
HSC 3157 Introduction to Pharmacology 3 hrs
HSC 3640 Health Law
HSC 4652 Health Law and Ethics
HSC 3537 Medical Terminology 3 hrs
HSC 3593 HIV Disease: A Human Concern 3 hrs
HSC 4201 Community Health 3 hrs
HSC 4500 Epidemiology 3 hrs
HSC 4564 Health Care Needs of the Elderly 3 hrs
HSA 3430 Health Care Economics 3 hrs
HSA 3111 U.S. Health Care Systems 3 hrs
HSA 4109 Principles of Managed Care 3 hrs
HSA 4180 Organization & Management for Health Agencies I 3 hrs
HSA 4702 Health Sciences Research Methods 3 hrs
HSA 4191 Health Care Automation 3 hrs
HSA 3222 Long Term Care and Administration 3 hrs
HSA 4184 Organization & Management for Health Agencies II 3 hrs
HSA 3170 Health Care Finance 3 hrs
HSA 4939 Health Services Administration Capstone
My thinking is most with the HSC prefix would probably count. Now, the HSA has me more unsure. Per the AACOM guidelines, Health Science and Health Service fall under Other Science. Health “Science” Administration fall under Other Non-Science. So I’m unsure where my HSA (Health Services Administration) courses are likely to fall under. Additionally, Community Health is listed under Behavioral Science but my transcript shows it as a Health Science course. Health Law and Ethics fall under Other Non-Science as well but I have them as Health Science courses. Any thoughts on how these would fair?
Huge fan of this site, btw. Starting to listen to the podcasts as well. Great Stuff.
Thanks for any thoughts/advice!
In my opinion, the content of the course is more applicable to it’s classification than the name/course number. That being said, the “best” you can do at this point is classify them according to your best judgment. If the person reviewing your transcripts disagrees, they’ll just change them during the verification process anyway (I know they changed some on mine, and I don’t think they’ll actually kick the app back to you unless it’s pretty egregious). In that light, you could calculate your “what if” GPA based on how you classify them with the knowledge that they may change it to reflect their classification scheme based on course title. That probably doesn’t help at all.
For your HSCs listed, i would only put “science” for pharm and maybe med terminology and epidemiology. Maybe also HIV unless it was only discussed on societal implications.
For your HSAs listed, I might call research methods science. Just my opinion having no frame of reference as to what those courses actually entailed.
Just as a heads up, you may have to request “transcripts” from your professional military education programs as well (like ALS, Course 14/15, etc). I had to submit official transcripts of taking/passing the Lt/Capt/Maj PME because for some reason they were registered with the national clearinghouse of higher education. AMCAS cared so much that they held my app pending receipt of them, then didn’t even add them to my application before sending it out.
Oh yeah, and welcome to the site (from a guy who has gotten many briefs from OWS bros)!
Thanks for the response, sir. And thanks for the OWS love lol. I apologize if you got any crap products at some point. I ran the briefing cell at the 26th for the bulk of three years. I tried to make sure we put out useful quality products.
Your thoughts make a lot of sense. I ran the numbers on my spreadsheet with a diy post-bacc assumption of 4.0 for the bare min 8 science courses (because lets be honest, anything much lower would make my efforts pointless barring an amazing MCAT) and I got the following sGPA numbers: 3.240 best case, 3.108 mid case, and 2.960 worst case. With the 4.0 diy post-bacc my cGPA would be 3.191. Not great numbers by any stretch. I’m guessing I’d have to stick a pretty decent MCAT to have a shot. Ideally, I could get in a couple of upper level science courses to kick it up a notch too and show that significant upward trend I keep hearing about. I guess now I need to come up with a plan to make that all happen lol. Thanks again for your thoughts on my classes!
Kennymac,
What is up with the exercise of inputting grades manually for the application if they just retrieve them separately from the clearinghouse? Do many schools not participate in the clearinghouse program?
As far as classifying them on the application, do you think it would work in reverse? As in, if I put something in non-science but they thought it was other-science, would they switch it for me? I really hate how subjective this is. I prefer to have things known versus so up in the air.
They ask you to put in all of your grades to save them time of transcribing everything over themselves. The way I understand it, the clearinghouse is just cross-checked to make sure you included all of your transcripts/courses (ie you didn’t conveniently leave off that F in that one course you took at school X).
Again, I think classifying it yourself saves them time when they try to calculate your separate GPAs (science vs non-science). I would imagine that if there was a questionable course they haven’t seen before, they would default to what you put. The ones they corrected for me were military-specific courses that I tried to classify according to their scheme, but they changed it to some generic subject area. After all the work, it didn’t actually shift my GPAs at all.
Honestly though, I think the time it has been since your undergrad and the fact that you have done seemingly well with life will make your undergrad have a little less pull IF you do well in your post-bacc classes. Academic success and recency, combined with maturity, I’ve been told by a dean at a DO school, are looked upon favorably. There is always the risk that a school does pure-computer screening for round 1 of the application process and you may be overlooked depending on their GPA cutoff. I don’t know where the data are on what school screens in what method though.