Weird GPA situation

[heartsink]

When i was first in college, i did a B.A. which required only a paltry quarter each of "non-major intended" bio and chemistry (i tested out of math required).

I began my postbac winter quarter assuming it would have no bearing on my science prereqs because i was just going to take the full year of chem and bio anyway for mcat preparation and to have my premed classes fully fleshed out. When i spoke briefly with an advisor a month ago, however, she mentioned off-hand that my chemistry and biology from my first round of college will be relevant to med school applications.

Luckily for me, those classes were easy and i aced both of them back then -- but now im wondering how this will look when i apply: is this going to inadvertently pad my sGPA? If i take a full year of chem and bio at this new school,will adcoms just discount the old chem and bio?

I dont really have anything to worry about but im genuinely curious how they handle postbac gpas and coursework when some of it is redundant. Has anyone come across this?

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[bearded frog]

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[QuentinT88]

When i was first in college, i did a B.A. which required only a paltry quarter each of "non-major intended" bio and chemistry (i tested out of math required).

I began my postbac winter quarter assuming it would have no bearing on my science prereqs because i was just going to take the full year of chem and bio anyway for mcat preparation and to have my premed classes fully fleshed out. When i spoke briefly with an advisor a month ago, however, she mentioned off-hand that my chemistry and biology from my first round of college will be relevant to med school applications.

Luckily for me, those classes were easy and i aced both of them back then -- but now im wondering how this will look when i apply: is this going to inadvertently pad my sGPA? If i take a full year of chem and bio at this new school,will adcoms just discount the old chem and bio?

I dont really have anything to worry about but im genuinely curious how they handle postbac gpas and coursework when some of it is redundant. Has anyone come across this?

From my understanding, if you old grades in Bio and Chem were not intended for Bio/Chem majors, then they would not count as a pre med req classes. Thus they should not be counted into you sgpa.

Can any one else help to clarify this?

 

[QuentinT88]

Wow, looks like my adviser was wrong. Thanks for clarifying @gonnif

 

[heartsink]

All Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Math courses will count towards the "science" as part of the GPA calculation on AMCAS. It does not matter if they were majors, non majors, etc.

However, a non majors biology or chemistry class may not be considered fulfilling a prerequisite by a specific school, as most will not.

Course Classification and GPA Calculation are AMCAS functions
Prerequisite Course Requirements are a specific medical school function

This does occasionally cause for interesting classification. I had a student last term who took a class for flowering arranging, which was taught under the Natural Resources Dept which was considered a Biology classification by AMCAS. The student thus had a flower arranging course under a science GPA

This is effectively what i was told as well, which came as a happy surprise to me.