Grad School GPA - does it actually matter?

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For the 20th time, I am merely responding to your post regarding your statement that grad school is a joke, in which I disagree - have you not realized this by now??

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I wish I would have known about these places last year...I didn't apply to any of them. Although I'd be OOS for all of them anyways.

Are you a med student now or reapplying? If reapplying, perhaps you can gain some use from it yet.
 
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Are you a med student now or reapplying? If reapplying, perhaps you can gain some use from it yet.

By the way what happened to that list of schools that do value grad work, was that latest addition of schools confirmed?
 
Well, I found my graduate school science courses to be MUCH MORE conceptually difficult than my MD courses. My doctorate is in one of the hard physical sciences, and no med school course compared to those course I took in my graduate program. I also took a grad level course in biochemistry, and the med school biochem was not as difficult.

Although I can't speak from experience, since I have never been to med school, I can say that one of my grad biochem professors (we had like 4 in 1 class) also taught the biochem class in med school to med students, and he had commented that our biochem class was harder than the version med students are taught. Which I guess goes with what you are saying.
 
By the way what happened to that list of schools that do value grad work, was that latest addition of schools confirmed?
Most await further verification.

List so far:

UNewMexico
UColorado three independent confirmations
UVirginia
EVMS
Georgetown (not sure how much it weighs in however, I was just told it does)
UMinnesota UCentral Florida
Arizona (initially screened only with uGPA, but then postbac and grad GPA considered).
UCalifornia-Irvine-adds an additional point to your "score"
UConn-includes gGPA in their GPA calculation
Albany-"includes all coursework"
 
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Most await further verification.
List so far:

UNewMexico
UColorado three independent confirmations
UVirginia
EVMS
Georgetown (not sure how much it weighs in however, I was just told it does)
UMinnesota UCentral Florida
Arizona (initially screened only with uGPA, but then postbac and grad GPA considered).
UCalifornia-Irvine-adds an additional point to your "score"
UConn-includes gGPA in their GPA calculation
Albany-"includes all coursework"

EVMS and UVA take a good number of out of state students, although VA residents have a slight advantage. I believe New Mexico doesn't take out of state students, do you know which if any of the others are OOS friendly?
 
So it's,


UNewMexico - Not OOS friendly
UColorado three independent confirmations
UVirginia - OOS friendly
EVMS - OOS friendly
Georgetown (not sure how much it weighs in however, I was just told it does) - Private - OOS friendly
UMinnesota UCentral Florida
Arizona (initially screened only with uGPA, but then postbac and grad GPA considered). - Not OOS friendly
UCalifornia-Irvine-adds an additional point to your "score" - Not OOS friendly
UConn-includes gGPA in their GPA calculation
Albany-"includes all coursework
 
U of North Dakota - Not OOS friendly (MN and WICHE friendly), creates one total GPA with everything included
UNewMexico - Not OOS friendly
UColorado three independent confirmations
UVirginia - OOS friendly
EVMS - OOS friendly
Georgetown (not sure how much it weighs in however, I was just told it does) - Private - OOS friendly
UMinnesota UCentral Florida
Arizona (initially screened only with uGPA, but then postbac and grad GPA considered). - Not OOS friendly
UCalifornia-Irvine-adds an additional point to your "score" - Not OOS friendly
UConn-includes gGPA in their GPA calculation
Albany-"includes all coursework
 
fahimaz7 said:
QQ above had a valid point when he said that everyone gets at least a 3.0 GPA in graduate classroom work, and that most of the students don't have to work very hard to do it.
I have nothing further to contribute to this discussion either, except to object to the involuntary sex change to which I have apparently been subjected. :scared:
 
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Although I can't speak from experience, since I have never been to med school, I can say that one of my grad biochem professors (we had like 4 in 1 class) also taught the biochem class in med school to med students, and he had commented that our biochem class was harder than the version med students are taught. Which I guess goes with what you are saying.

Apples and oranges tbh. In undergrad you have 4 months to leisurely stroll through biochemistry and memorize about 10 different pathways. You don't have to apply the information, learn any real diseases, or understand any of it, as long as you can regurgitate glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, glycogenolysis, TCA, ETC, Ketogenesis, nucleic acid synthesis, etc.

In medical school, we learn all of this again, except this time we have to relate it to medicine, disease state, in-born metabolic disorders, storage diseases, etc.

If you ever wonder which one is more difficult, pick up First Aid for USMLE Step 1 and take a look in the biochemistry section. We had several biochemistry majors make B's and C's in our biochemistry module here at my medical school, which attests to it's difficulty and speed.
 
Adding OOS matriculant rate ( %) as we all define "friendly" differently (hope you don't mind).

U of North Dakota - (30% not OOS friendly except for MN and WICHE), creates one total GPA with everything included
UNewMexico - (5.2%)
UColorado (25%) three independent confirmations
UVirginia - (40.6%)
EVMS - (39%)
Georgetown (98%) (not sure how much it weighs in however, I was just told it does) - Private
UMinnesota (21%)
UCentral Florida (24.4%)
Arizona (1.8% now but plans to take up to 25%))-initially screened only with uGPA, but then postbac and grad GPA considered.
UCalifornia-Irvine-(1%) adds an additional point to your "score" -
UConn-(17.6%) includes gGPA in their GPA calculation
Albany-(61%) "includes all coursework"
 
Apples and oranges tbh. In undergrad you have 4 months to leisurely stroll through biochemistry and memorize about 10 different pathways. You don't have to apply the information, learn any real diseases, or understand any of it, as long as you can regurgitate glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, glycogenolysis, TCA, ETC, Ketogenesis, nucleic acid synthesis, etc.

In medical school, we learn all of this again, except this time we have to relate it to medicine, disease state, in-born metabolic disorders, storage diseases, etc.

If you ever wonder which one is more difficult, pick up First Aid for USMLE Step 1 and take a look in the biochemistry section. We had several biochemistry majors make B's and C's in our biochemistry module here at my medical school, which attests to it's difficulty and speed.


No one is talking about undergrad biochem here.
 
I would like to think that we are already friends, nothing wrong with a little healthy debate amongst future colleagues right?

Just joshing with you two. The ability to have a healthy back-and-forth is what all of these forums need more of, to be honest. I'll still take advantage of the odd chance in non-trad to goof around, though.
 
No one is talking about undergrad biochem here.

Ah..I read undergrad instead of grad biochem. Either way, I doubt that graduate school covers 3-4 inches of biochemistry notes in 3 weeks, which is what we do here in medical school. You'll see next year. The material isn't really "all that hard", but the speed at which we have to digest it and memorize it is very difficult. There's a reason that out of 200 kids in my class about 25 have a 4.0 after two years, and it's not because we're doing astrophysics or learning Chinese.
 
Adding OOS matriculant rate ( %) as we all define "friendly" differently (hope you don't mind).

U of North Dakota - (30% not OOS friendly except for MN and WICHE), creates one total GPA with everything included
UNewMexico - (5.2%)
UColorado (25%) three independent confirmations
UVirginia - (40.6%)
EVMS - (39%)
Georgetown (98%) (not sure how much it weighs in however, I was just told it does) - Private
UMinnesota (21%)
UCentral Florida (24.4%)
Arizona (1.8% now but plans to take up to 25%))-initially screened only with uGPA, but then postbac and grad GPA considered.
UCalifornia-Irvine-(1%) adds an additional point to your "score" -
UConn-(17.6%) includes gGPA in their GPA calculation
Albany-(61%) "includes all coursework"

This list is getting more and more helpful- thanks for adding more info! Could you expand on the bolded? This is great news, but I haven't heard anything about it.
 
Arizona (1.8% now but plans to take up to 25%)
This list is getting more and more helpful- thanks for adding more info! Could you expand on the bolded? This is great news, but I haven't heard anything about it.
I read that in someone's SDN post awhile back. I don't know the planned timeframe for implementation.
 
Ah..I read undergrad instead of grad biochem. Either way, I doubt that graduate school covers 3-4 inches of biochemistry notes in 3 weeks, which is what we do here in medical school. You'll see next year. The material isn't really "all that hard", but the speed at which we have to digest it and memorize it is very difficult. There's a reason that out of 200 kids in my class about 25 have a 4.0 after two years, and it's not because we're doing astrophysics or learning Chinese.

I am sure your right, I have no doubt that covering that much in that short a time-frame will be rigorous, I think the professor that made that comment was commenting on the depth of the subject matter in our course, as our biochemistry class was heavily thermodynamics and physical chemistry based, in which he said the medical version was not.

However, people have different styles and different perceptions of what is hard, personally, I was an electrical engineering major about 15 years ago and the hardest class I have ever taken was a class on electrodynamics. For me, I would find it easier to squeeze all of biochemistry into 3 weeks as opposed to sitting in that electrodynamics class for 4 months.
 
However, people have different styles and different perceptions of what is hard, personally, I was an electrical engineering major about 15 years ago and the hardest class I have ever taken was a class on electrodynamics. For me, I would find it easier to squeeze all of biochemistry into 3 weeks as opposed to sitting in that electrodynamics class for 4 months.

It's a different type of learning for sure. We have a lot of Ga Tech grads in my medical school class, and most of them had a rough first semester of medical school. They all agreed that they had to think differently, study differently, and they realized that they "couldn't just walk in and work the problem out." I guess in their engineering class, it was a lot more thinking and a lot less memorization, something that might take a while to get used to.

Either or, good luck with your cycle. Are you accepted yet?
 
It's a different type of learning for sure. We have a lot of Ga Tech grads in my medical school class, and most of them had a rough first semester of medical school. They all agreed that they had to think differently, study differently, and they realized that they "couldn't just walk in and work the problem out." I guess in their engineering class, it was a lot more thinking and a lot less memorization, something that might take a while to get used to.

Either or, good luck with your cycle. Are you accepted yet?


Yeah, it's definitely a different style of learning, I would imagine that it would take practically everyone in the class a while to get adjusted.

As for med school - I didn't apply this cycle, I am going to be applying this coming June for the next cycle so hopefully all will go well. I was going to apply last cycle but got too bogged down with my masters and put things off a year. I figure it might serve me well to take the time with my apps and do things right as opposed to rushing things.
 
I think it all depends on the grad program, and that's why med schools typically don't weigh the grad grades that heavily. To do that, they need to distinguish between a 1-2 year MA in philosophy student and a doctoral student in a hard science. It's just not the same thing and every program is different.

In my doctoral program, here are the rules:
-Everyone gets a B. EVERYONE. Unless....

You want an A. Ok, then you need to 98% or higher on each exam. Not kidding.

If you get below a 50%, you get a C and hence fail the course. Our courses are difficult so you have to get a couple of C's before they put you on probation.

That's just how it is. On our first day in the program, the professor (now my research advisor) came in and said, "Just try not to get a C. If you try to shoot for an A, you will fail. I have not given an A in this class for over 5 years. My advice is to dedicate your efforts to your research; that is why you are here, not for coursework." We lost 50% of our class the first year because the coursework was so difficult. I pulled off ONE A in my course work and was happy to do so! I got A's in my research rotations, which is what my program wants to see. That said, I will have my advisor explain this in his LOR.

I think it's a lot harder for Adcoms to distinguish how each grad program works. The material covered in pre-reqs for med school tends to be fairly uniform, so it's easier for adcoms to judge between candidates.
 
I read through most of the posts on this, and I felt like many people were venting their frustrations.

I cannot speak about the averaging of the GPAs. I came in to the medical school application process with a weak GPA. After sitting on a waitlist last year, I contacted the schools I was most interested and asked for specific things to strengthen my candidacy. They obviously asked me to focus on taking courses and getting good grades.

Armed with specific classes that they would be interested in seeing me take, I took a variety of graduate level immunology and neurophysiology classes. I received all As. I kept each committee up-to-date on grade changes, and I ultimately received admittance to the medical school I had hoped would let me in.

I think this is a slightly different perspective from a lot of answers. My grad classes were not part of a program, something that many people might have trouble finagling. By taking classes that my top programs were directly interested in seeing me score well in, I can attest that my grad GPA was very important for my success.
 
Not sure if anyone has brought this up yet. What about a physician assistant with a master's degree (MPAS)? Obviously the classes required to earn this degree and the work experience that comes along with it are highly applicable to the "medical/patient care experience" requirements all med. schools are looking for in their applicants.

Would their GPA might be of more value than the GPA of other graduate degrees? It seems intuitive to me that performance in those courses would serve as a more accurate predictor of success in medical school than how someone did in gen. chem/bio/etc. Maybe not...

Just a thought.
 
Not sure if anyone has brought this up yet. What about a physician assistant with a master's degree (MPAS)? Obviously the classes required to earn this degree and the work experience that comes along with it are highly applicable to the "medical/patient care experience" requirements all med. schools are looking for in their applicants.

Would their GPA might be of more value than the GPA of other graduate degrees? It seems intuitive to me that performance in those courses would serve as a more accurate predictor of success in medical school than how someone did in gen. chem/bio/etc. Maybe not...

Just a thought.

I don't really know much about that degree. If it has hard science courses, then I think it would probably count as much as a bio/chem masters, but probably not more.

Having said that, the "value" is sort of what we've been debating in this thread, and the only consensus seems to be that hard science masters are best, soft science not so much. It's up to you to figure out where the MPAS fits in - sorry just not familiar with it.
 
Not sure if anyone has brought this up yet. What about a physician assistant with a master's degree (MPAS)? Obviously the classes required to earn this degree and the work experience that comes along with it are highly applicable to the "medical/patient care experience" requirements all med. schools are looking for in their applicants.

Would their GPA might be of more value than the GPA of other graduate degrees? It seems intuitive to me that performance in those courses would serve as a more accurate predictor of success in medical school than how someone did in gen. chem/bio/etc. Maybe not...

Just a thought.

I've noticed that a lot of schools are pushing their students to get more degrees. I don't know why this is (speculation, the school can get more money per student), but I fail to see the value in all of these multiple degrees. I think that I will just be happy with my DO and a good job.
 
To answer your question 0919mmk, an MPAS is the master's degree required to become a physician assistant. While it is not equivalent to an MD/DO, it is to my knowledge probably the closest one can come to being one as far as clinical knowledge, skills, and responsibility are concerned. I'm in my 2nd year so when I'm done I'll have my own medical license (under a supervising physician of course). It is most definitely a "hard science" as it's curriculum consists of classes such as pathophysiology, pharmacology, clinical medicine, patient assessment and physical exam, etc. so it is far more applicable to practicing medicine (because you can/do practice medicine, prescribe medications, etc.) than a biochem master's degree in my opinion.

I was only asking because I'm not even done with PA school and am already contemplating applying to med. school within the next few years. I was just wondering if my degree might be of interest to an admissions committee because as I understand it, there are not too many midlevels applying to medical school. It would be nice if it did but I remain doubtful. Just wanted to see if anyone else had any input.
 
...it is to my knowledge probably the closest one can come to being one as far as clinical knowledge, skills, and responsibility are concerned. I'm in my 2nd year...

1. I sense the selection bias is strong in you.

2. If you go to medical school post PA, assuming you are using loans to fund that education, you will graduate with a metric ****-ton of debt.
 
I think it all depends on the grad program, and that's why med schools typically don't weigh the grad grades that heavily. To do that, they need to distinguish between a 1-2 year MA in philosophy student and a doctoral student in a hard science. It's just not the same thing and every program is different.

In my doctoral program, here are the rules:
-Everyone gets a B. EVERYONE. Unless....

You want an A. Ok, then you need to 98% or higher on each exam. Not kidding.

If you get below a 50%, you get a C and hence fail the course. Our courses are difficult so you have to get a couple of C's before they put you on probation.

That's just how it is. On our first day in the program, the professor (now my research advisor) came in and said, "Just try not to get a C. If you try to shoot for an A, you will fail. I have not given an A in this class for over 5 years. My advice is to dedicate your efforts to your research; that is why you are here, not for coursework." We lost 50% of our class the first year because the coursework was so difficult. I pulled off ONE A in my course work and was happy to do so! I got A's in my research rotations, which is what my program wants to see. That said, I will have my advisor explain this in his LOR.

I think it's a lot harder for Adcoms to distinguish how each grad program works. The material covered in pre-reqs for med school tends to be fairly uniform, so it's easier for adcoms to judge between candidates.

Graduate school grading policies can vary greatly. In my Ph.D. program all the core courses were graded on a bell curve. Most of the class earns a B and there are just as many A's as C's. The students that just "show up" and put minimal effort into the class earn D's. I've seen a few students flunk out because their GPA dropped below a 3.0. Some students that earn C's have to struggle to get an A in other courses in order to keep their GPA above 3.0

On the issue of grade inflation. Typically this would occur through seminar/lab grades but at my school seminars and labs are graded using the pass fail system. Thus, the graduate GPA is essentially locked once the core courses are complete.

There are exceptions to every rule. I think this highlights some of the difficulty of considering Grad GPA's for medical school admission.
 
Pons Asinorum -
1. Selection bias? Provide to me a better example... otherwise I was simply stating a fact. Relax.

2. Thank you very much for the financial analysis. Loans? Debt? You mean I actually have to pay for school? That hadn't occurred to me whatsoever. That changes everything...
 
Pons Asinorum -
1. Selection bias? Provide to me a better example... otherwise I was simply stating a fact. Relax.

2. Thank you very much for the financial analysis. Loans? Debt? You mean I actually have to pay for school? That hadn't occurred to me whatsoever. That changes everything...

The reason midlevels don't apply to medical school is #2 above. Since few of them do, no one has great data to say how your grades in that program will be received by medical school adcoms. If I had to guess, they are no more predictive, and valued about the same, than any other graduate program's grades, i.e. not very much.
 
I was just wondering if my degree might be of interest to an admissions committee because as I understand it, there are not too many midlevels applying to medical school. It would be nice if it did but I remain doubtful. Just wanted to see if anyone else had any input.

Thank you for essentially agreeing with me. Your input is appreciated.
 
Hold the line brave soldiers. Do not let up. KEEP THIS THREAD ALIVE!
 
UNewMexico
UColorado three independent confirmations
UVirginia
EVMS
Georgetown (not sure how much it weighs in however, I was just told it does)
UMinnesota UCentral Florida
Arizona (initially screened only with uGPA, but then postbac and grad GPA considered).
UCalifornia-Irvine-adds an additional point to your "score"
UConn-includes gGPA in their GPA calculation
Albany-"includes all coursework"
VCU - Post-bacc, Masters or Ph.D., GPA>3.5 expected


http://www.medschool.vcu.edu/admissions/md/faq.html
Statement below taken from VCU website

I did not do well during my undergraduate college years. How can I prepare for medical school?
Generally, a student whose undergraduate education resulted in a non-competitive GPA will need to do a graduate program in the sciences. There are a number of ways to do this, either through a post-baccalaureate program, Master’s or Ph.D. Our admissions committee expects applicants to perform well academically in these programs (GPA>3.5) for favorable admission decisions.
 
UNewMexico
UColorado three independent confirmations
UVirginia
EVMS
Georgetown (not sure how much it weighs in however, I was just told it does)
UMinnesota UCentral Florida
Arizona (initially screened only with uGPA, but then postbac and grad GPA considered).
UCalifornia-Irvine-adds an additional point to your "score"
UConn-includes gGPA in their GPA calculation
Albany-"includes all coursework"
VCU - Post-bacc, Masters or Ph.D., GPA>3.5 expected


http://www.medschool.vcu.edu/admissions/md/faq.html
Statement below taken from VCU website

I did not do well during my undergraduate college years. How can I prepare for medical school?
Generally, a student whose undergraduate education resulted in a non-competitive GPA will need to do a graduate program in the sciences. There are a number of ways to do this, either through a post-baccalaureate program, Master’s or Ph.D. Our admissions committee expects applicants to perform well academically in these programs (GPA>3.5) for favorable admission decisions.

Nice find jissho! This is exactly what we are looking for. To the "dead horse beating" contingent, I see where you are coming from, but this info is actually pretty/very useful to those of us in this low-UG-gpa-high-grad-GPA situation. If you are not in this situation, then please feel free to ignore the thread, you know?
 
Actually I'm really really excited about this find because it's OOS friendly too! And my gf got in to UVA this cycle... epic win.
 
UNewMexico
UColorado three independent confirmations
UVirginia
EVMS
Georgetown (not sure how much it weighs in however, I was just told it does)
UMinnesota UCentral Florida
Arizona (initially screened only with uGPA, but then postbac and grad GPA considered).
UCalifornia-Irvine-adds an additional point to your "score"
UConn-includes gGPA in their GPA calculation
Albany-"includes all coursework"
VCU - Post-bacc, Masters or Ph.D., GPA>3.5 expected

Hey guys,

So by popular demand, I'm bumping this thread. There is definitely some important info here, particularly this list of schools who have stated, explicitly or implicitly, that they DO consider grad school GPA with some weight when making admissions decisions. To this list, I suppose I ought to add the schools that have given me interviews this cycle, since I have a crap ugGPA and a good gradGPA:

OUWB
BU
Drexel
Hofstra

Any other schools that people with low ug GPAs have had success with?
 
Wayne State supposedly replaces your undergrad science GPA with your graduate science GPA, provided you've completed 20 or more credits in a traditional didactic science graduate program.
 
As others have pointed out, a graduate degree will not change or affect your uGPA. There is a separate section on the AMCAS for it but as others stated, it really will only show that you have some life experiences and were able to do slightly harder more intellectual work at the graduate level.

Depending on what your uGPA and sGPA are, if they are only a little less competitive, I know friends who did a M.S. and M.P.H program who are now in M.D. programs. Basically, they told me that the adcoms took an interest in their graduate programs, b/c it was highly related to medicine as unique experiences which made them stand out from the vast majority of applicants who do not have that experience.

Also, the people I know in med school told me that more and more med schools are accepting older non-trad applicants (late 20s and early to mid 30s) that have graduate degrees and/or other work experience more than they were 10-20 years ago b/c a lot of medical schools are looking for applicants that stand out with more life experience then students right out of college with no experience and super high stats. I mean, I'm not talking top 15 or top 20 schools here but at least mid-level M.D. programs with some good reputations.

Interesting. I've noticed the same thing.
 
Thanks for the heads up! :)

Do you know of any other schools that do this by chance?

University of Pittsburgh, SUNY Upstate, St. Louis University, New York Medical College (especially for re-applicants,) Dartmouth, Northwestern University.

I have no websites or sources to cite; rather, I have spoken directly with deans and directors of admissions at these schools. Emphasis for non-trad applicants (in coursework and EC**) is "what have you done lately?"

Good Luck.
 
so, do they matter?

Can a person with a 3.0 in grad school get in to a MD program? Would the adcoms just look at it as a unique experience that can help him/her in medical school?
 
so, do they matter?

Can a person with a 3.0 in grad school get in to a MD program? Would the adcoms just look at it as a unique experience that can help him/her in medical school?

Who knows? I wouldn't rule it out. Some will claim that a 3.0 in grad school will work against you, citing the stereo type that A's are given out in grad school like candy on Halloween and that a 3.0 is a red flag. It is not always the case. The same people will claim that the grades don't matter.

Apply when you think you are the best applicant you can be.
 
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