What he is referring to is NOT the AMCAS GPA calculation, but the schools individual policy for how they review their applicants. AMCAS does seperate ugrad and grad GPA's as you've stated. But when I talked to an adcom from UVA she directly stated that they take the AMCAS calculated grad GPA and the AMCAS calculated ugrad GPA and sum them together to come up with a new cGPA and sGPA to evaluate their prospective students by for admissions purposes. It sounds to me as if the school he has spoken with does the same thing.
EDIT: Edlongshanks - just noticed your follow up post to natty so you can disregard my comment for the most part but UVA does the samething as CO as an fyi.
Well, I'm not sure if there isn't some miscomprehension going on on this thread. While I agree with folks actually talking to schools to learn how specific places handle things, bear in mind that what they do as adcoms behind closed doors may not be exactly what they tell you and bear in mind that any school could be an unusual outlier. As mentioned above in this threads, grad GPAs are problematic for adcoms because (1) most undergrad applicants won't have any, so you are doing an apples and oranges comparison if you weigh these in, and (2) there's often very substantial grade inflation in grad school, and (3) for some applicants the number of course hours taken for a lengthy graduate degree can dwarf the undergrad hours and change a GPA pretty handilly.
I also think there are folks on this thread who don't get that when you talk about "grad school grades" we aren't talking about SMPs. SMPs are looked at differently because that's not so much of a terminal degree program as it is a "prove you are able to handle med school" type endeavor. So for SMPs, yes grades matter. That's more of a post-bac/pre-health path than a graduate degree although they do give you a parchment at the end. Put that one aside -- it's really not what we are talking about here.
What we are talking about here is whether your MPH or MBA or JD or non-SMP MS or PhD is going to be factored in and pump up your undergrad GPA, or whether those degrees are simply used otherwise, as a nice "EC" type credential.
When you fill out AMCAS, there are two different GPAs calculated, one that includes undergrad plus undergrad level postbac, and the other that includes all grades including graduate. The former is what most adcoms use as your GPA, and in fact they pretty much
have to use that one because it's the only one that's an apples and apples comparison when looking at everyone who applied, when most only have undergrad coursework history. It would be unfair to do otherwise. Should that dude who did pretty average in undergrad get a big boost because A's are easier to come by in grad school?
However sometimes after they accept you, when they want to print out the recruitment brochure or fill out data for US News, etc stating their average GPA, they will use the higher average that includes the graduate GPA. Makes them look more competitive. But if a place is truly telling you yeah, you can average up a low undergrad GPA with A's in (a non-SMP) grad school, that school is a rare outlier.
