Science GPA?

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[Future]DrPrincess

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Hi! I'm a psychology major (a little different from the typical Bio major), so i'm having some trouble determining what can and can't be included in the calculation for my science GPA. For example, obviously my Chem, Physics and Bio classes will be included. However, I have some psych classes that I feel like may be included. These include: Experimental Psychology (Stats), Applications of Stats in Psychology (Stats again), and Brain and Behavior. These are more "science/math" than typical psychology classes, and for my BS degree, they count as "science" classes. Thoughts?

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You can try and classify them as Mathematics courses on AMCAS, however, I highly doubt a class like "Experimental Psychology" would pass AMCAS' second look. I can see how the Applications class could be approved as a math course, and Brain & Behavior as a biology course.
 
Yeah...AMCAS only accepted my hardcore Neuroscience courses as BIO. You might be able to fight them and see what happens but it could hold up your app from getting processed.
 
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Yeah...AMCAS only accepted my hardcore Neuroscience courses as BIO. You might be able to fight them and see what happens but it could hold up your app from getting processed.
Very good point, a friend of mine had her AMCAS processed, and then fought their decision to classify one of her psych courses as non-science. So now, she is still not complete even though she submitted her application on the first day. It can create major nightmares and push back one's plans an entire year. Not worth the inconsequential boost to sGPA.

Also, keep in mind the woes of all the engineering students. They, too, took very rigorous upper-level math & science coursework that is NOT considered in their sGPA. Tis' life, or...Tis' AMCAS haha.
 
It's all about what department the classes were in that your school offered. Any class fhat was a bio dept one or neuroscience counts as science gpa
 
For my school, the rule generally was if it had Neuroscience in the name, it counted for BCPM GPA. If not, sorry, out of luck. The only exception to this rule was statistics (even if it had a funky name). Of the ones you listed, the first is dubious, the second is definitely BCMP, and the third is most likely not.
 
For my school, the rule generally was if it had Neuroscience in the name, it counted for BCPM GPA. If not, sorry, out of luck. The only exception to this rule was statistics (even if it had a funky name). Of the ones you listed, the first is dubious, the second is definitely BCMP, and the third is most likely not.

This seems to be the general rule in the large majority of cases. I can't imagine a neuroscience course not counting for science GPA in any situation(they are listed under the guidelines officially as science courses). Psych classes often don't count for science GPA.
 
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Thank you for your input everyone! Even without those classes, I have a pretty decent science GPA, I believe, at a 3.69 (I'm open to input on the goodness/badness of this btw), with a cumulative GPA of 3.897 and I haven't finished my physics course yet, so I still have 9 more credit hours, but there is so much information out there, I don't know what to think sometimes.

I actually have another question (which may sound dumb, because I haven't started applying or anything yet), but do I calculate & report my science GPA on applications, or does my school, or will it be on my transcript or something?
 
Thank you for your input everyone! Even without those classes, I have a pretty decent science GPA, I believe, at a 3.69 (I'm open to input on the goodness/badness of this btw), with a cumulative GPA of 3.897 and I haven't finished my physics course yet, so I still have 9 more credit hours, but there is so much information out there, I don't know what to think sometimes.

I actually have another question (which may sound dumb, because I haven't started applying or anything yet), but do I calculate & report my science GPA on applications, or does my school, or will it be on my transcript or something?

Your GPAs are both great, don't stress about them.

When you open AMCAS, there will be a section for you to input your classes and grades and assign them a category based on AMCAS's designations. Once you submit and are verified, you'll get an email with your application and your calculated cGPA and sGPA on there, but if you categorize everything correctly and do the math beforehand, your own calculations and AMCAS's calculations should be identical.
 
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Thank you for your help, and for not thinking I'm a dunce! Inputting all of those classes sounds like a lot of work, but it's just the beginning of the end of this long process. I'm weirdly excited for the massive amounts of stress that I'll be experiencing in the next year. :)
 
You could try listing all 3 of them as BCPM and seeing what AMCAS says. Worst case scenario they reject all 3 in which case they won't go into your BCPM GPA. The second class should count, as statistics falls under the math category. I also took a stats class offered by the psychology department that counted, although the title of the course was "Statistics I" so it was clear-cut.
 
AMCAS was ok with my marking "Intro to the Human Brain" under a cog sci heading as biology and it counted for my sGPA. YMMV
 
Biological Psychology, listed under the Psych department, counted as bio for me.
 
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