16-18 credits with a 4.0GPA or 21 credits with a 3.7 GPA

[timothyiv]

This is for all 4 years. I'm the latter.

I go to a rigorous school on the East coast.

In my case, would adcoms look at my courseload and give me a leg up?
They are a classes for my Bio major, including some graduate classes. I am also pursuing an History minor and taking some French classes because... college.

Any input welcome. Thank you

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[Long Way to Go]

Why worry about it? There's nothing you can do now.

 

[Vain Brother]

a 3.7 with 20+ credits a semester is better than a 3.7 at 16-18 credits a semester, sure. but it's not better than a 4.0 at 16-18 credits a semester

bite off as much as you can chew

 

[GrapesofRath]

Higher the GPA the better regardless. No one's giving you bonus points for taking a harder schedule or taking harder professors. Get the highest grades possible. No one will look at your 3.7 with 21 credits and say "oh well he took a hard courseload I'm sure if he just took a regular 15 credit courseload he would have done a lot better".

 

[cloudmurder1]

As you see from your post here and on reddit, contrary to popular belief, sdn and premeddit have similar information and mindsets.

 

[resiroth]

Nope no one cares, all that matters is GPA/MCAT + ECs. Could be 12 credits and a 4.0 adcoms just don't have the time to care since variance between professors and institutions make accounting for differences in rigor largely impossible (some institutions add +.1 or .2 for a top 20 undergrad or whatever, but that's it)

 

[DrShephardWannabe]

Dear Lord how did you even do life at 21 credits and a 3.7?

 

[altblue]

Dear Lord how did you even do life at 21 credits and a 3.7?

About what I was wondering.

The worst I've done is 17 credits + 17-20 hr. of work, and even that was pretty crazy.

 

[cloudmurder1]

This past semester, I had 17 hrs along with about 15 hours of EC's and work, but I had an excellent diffEq professor who taught well and was not demanding and had 3 credit hours of research that wasn't able to get up and running due to lab unavailability, so it felt like so much lot less.

Perhaps OP did something like that.

 

[deleted577188]

How many of your classes were online?

 

[GrapesofRath]

You're just setting yourself up for the inevitable med school student or guy in residency to come on here and say "well if you think 21 credits is bad....just wait what your in for later on....".

 

[altblue]

I don't see what the big deal is anyway. Isn't a 3.7 still pretty good?

 

[efle]

Just to counter the early responses a bit, Mimelim has repeatedly said that GPA is all about context, including what school you're at, what major you're in, how heavy your credit load is, if you also have to work part time to support yourself, etc.

But in this case with a difference of 1 class/3-4 credits probably doesn't make up for a 0.3 difference

 

[Deranged Medic]

I never took more than 15 credits, and this was never mentioned during my interviews. I did work a whole lot during school, so maybe they do actually look at that as well. Bottom line, get good grades, and if you need to decrease your work load, then do it. I wouldn't be freaking out with a 3.7 though...

 

[moisne]

This is for all 4 years. I'm the latter.

I go to a rigorous school on the East coast.

In my case, would adcoms look at my courseload and give me a leg up?
They are a classes for my Bio major, including some graduate classes. I am also pursuing an History minor and taking some French classes because... college.

Any input welcome. Thank you

No lol not at all.

My school has an avg of 3.8-3.9,... They don't care about your course load.

 

[NorthOfBroad]

How do you know you will get a 4.o with 16-18 and a 3.7 with 21 credits? what's stopping you from getting a 3.7 with 16-18 credits? or a 4.0 with 21 credits?