Oh by the way, after I deleted my earlier post I realized this whole thing might look kind of strange. I don’t mean to be taking over this thread with silly melodrama, but I had posted something about my views on AMCAS vis a vis privacy rights in the United States and people’s chances to make a new start in life, especially when the previous start might not have been marred by anything bigger than a few bad grades. It didn’t relate at all to my own personal experience. I just sometimes feel wierd posting my opinions about premed issues on the internet where they can be so wildly interpreted, which is why I deleted it. Sometimes it is hard, as a premed, to feel like I’m supposed to identify with the achievers and great students, when I often find myself getting along better with folks who are more laid back! They are often JUST as smart and capable. So the emphasis on grades and stuff gets me down from time to time and that’s where the post was coming from. My post wasn’t about honesty, that’s a different issue.
Ok, enough from me already!
I think you guys are giving AMCAS, and AdComs, more power than they actually have, and you’re letting them rob you of way too much energy - far more than the situation deserves. When you are submitting 120 credits or more (in the case of most OPMs, it’s definitely more), the random bad grade in something like music is NOT going to make a difference. First of all, it’s computed into your “AO” (all other) GPA which is most assuredly less important than the BCPM (bio, chem, physics, math) GPA. Obviously the AO GPA shouldn’t be, say, 1.5. But if you’ve got 90 credits of AO grades, one 3-credit F is not going to change your GPA much at all (I just did the math to prove this to myself.)
Secondly, give the folks who are looking at these apps just a little credit! While there may be schools that rigorously screen for GPA, such that you would miss a cut-off if your GPA is .01 lower than their magic number, I have to tell you that I’ve never heard of one. Someone quickly scanning your transcript is going to see the A’s in O-chem and Bio (hopefully) and will barely pause at the F in music or journalism or whatever turned out to be a bad idea way back when.
(And let me just say that I was on the AdCom for a school with a HUGE number of applications - well over 8000 - and saw GPAs ranging from 4.0 to, hmmmmm, I can’t think of an exact number but definitely below 3.0. If GWU could afford to take the time to look at apps with low GPAs, so can lots of other schools.)
I appreciate the view that it seems stupid to have to account for grades that aren’t relevant to one’s current career choice. On the other hand, I don’t particularly want AMCAS or AACOMAS to get any more complicated than they are already. If we start letting them decide that some grades are worth counting, but others don’t need to be, well, that would be quite sad. What about my classmates who were music majors? (there were THREE of them in my class) or foreign language majors? What would they have to show for their college careers if someone decided that they only wanted to see science courses? (ugh, horrible thought)
I also don’t see how you can impose any sort of arbitrary time limit to the grades included on the application. I understand the frustration that an individual school may decree that prereqs can’t be more than X years old, but you really can’t look at those two situations as two sides of the same coin: in the one case, a school wants to see a more complete picture of you insofar as it can be painted by transcripts showing the coursework you’ve gotten; in the other case, a school wants to be sure that your science knowledge is up to date. Different agendas. And don’t forget, while some folks have some bad old grades they wish could be forgotten, others have really stellar, but aged, college careers that are going to speak well for them. There just is no way to fairly decide what to keep and what to throw out - so the current setup, where you keep everything and let it just be PART of the picture, seems by far the most fair.
Bottom line is that the random, occasional bad grade is not the deal-breaker you seem to think it could be, and neither AMCAS/AACOMAS nor individual schools really look at applications quite the way you’re imagining. Relax, save your energy for a different fight - truly.
Mary
This subject is near to my heart as I send off transcripts from four universities to my pre-med program. Undergrad, grad, plus a few night courses in computer science. I’m not proud of some of them; I think I walked out of one compsci class at BU when the teacher proved to be utterly incompetent (figures that BU charges the most money for transcripts, like they have to beat Harvard at everything).
Thinking back, maybe I should have just taken classes at my state university for easy A’s, majored in something easier than Chinese, and now I could be waving around this excellent undergrad GPA instead of the spotty all over the place record I do have. Of course, I’d have missed out on my education, both the academic kind and all the hard knocks, too.
I hope that graduate/medical schools take this stuff into consideration. Not just for my benefit, but because I’d rather that physicians be people who boldly forged their own paths and took a few chances, and maybe made a few mistakes. How else do you achieve wisdom?
Cheers,
Mary, I totally agree with what you’re saying. AMCAS is not all powerful, and I know real people read those applications. The rant I was going off on I think comes from the fact that I feel like a sheep right now! Someone posts about how they are thinking of trying to cheat, and people chime in saying, “cheating is wrong!” Well, yeah, cheating is wrong. But being a sheep gets annoying after awhile too. I am writing these secondary essays thinking, when do I get to STOP talking about what a Person of Integrity and Commitment I Am? So here in this thread I just wanted to discuss things from another side, maybe turn the criticism in a different direction, say in the direction of AMCAS, for one second or so. Sheep are not that threatening and that’s proably about the most I can manage.
But yes, I am a sheep, and I’m proud to be one. Baahhhh!
One more issue with reporting all grades: you will be asked to account for all time periods after you graduated highschool to the time you applied for med school. Large unexplained gaps raise red flags. I used to interview candidates for my medical school, and this issue came up frequently for nontrad applicants.
If you do not report all your grades (a lie by omission according to AMCAS standards), you may end up having to lie explicitly during an interview to explain the gaps in the time periods.
Look, I had an “F” and 3-4 “Cs” in my transcripts, and seriously they never even came up in any specific detail. Mostly, they wanted to know about my most recent grades (which were good from a post bacc classes) and activites. The only references made to past grades was a general inquiry about why I did not apply to med school earlier in my life (the ans: my grades were not good enough).
AMCAS is not omnipotent though, and as long as your omissions do not produce large unexplained gaps, then I suspect they would not know about it – but you have to decide for yourself whether it is worth compromising your integrity to do that.
Quote:
Mary, I totally agree with what you’re saying. AMCAS is not all powerful, and I know real people read those applications. The rant I was going off on I think comes from the fact that I feel like a sheep right now! Someone posts about how they are thinking of trying to cheat, and people chime in saying, “cheating is wrong!” Well, yeah, cheating is wrong. But being a sheep gets annoying after awhile too. I am writing these secondary essays thinking, when do I get to STOP talking about what a Person of Integrity and Commitment I Am? So here in this thread I just wanted to discuss things from another side, maybe turn the criticism in a different direction, say in the direction of AMCAS, for one second or so. Sheep are not that threatening and that’s proably about the most I can manage.
But yes, I am a sheep, and I’m proud to be one. Baahhhh!
Yeah, I get what you’re saying. The application process is grueling, unnerving, and certainly has the potential to be dehumanizing. I only did TWO secondaries and felt like a complete fraud and liar in writing about myself and my aspirations - not because I was actually making any misrepresentations, but because it just felt so uncomfortable to be talking about myself in the way that seemed best suited for the secondaries. I definitely was not used to extolling my own good qualities nor was I terrifically comfortable with emphasizing my strengths in such a way that it would help others notice them.
The other thing about the application process is that even as it seems extremely personal - after all, it is your accomplishments, your qualities, even your personality that are coming under scrutiny in the process - we are all going to sit here and tell you not to take it personally. That when your application is turned down somewhere, Remember, They Are Not Rejecting You. Yeah, right! Heck I got waitlisted, which is definitely better than rejected, and still felt rejected and personally humiliated - why didn’t they appreciate me for the wonderful person I am, and admit me on the spot?
Any way you slice it, it’s a fairly ghastly ritual and there really isn’t anything you can do except play along, unfortunately. Been there, done that, got the sheepskin to prove it
Mary