For those who have done post-baccs or Masters

I was curious how your gpa shows up. If I'm correct, aadsas calculates your cum, sci, bcp, and non-sci gpa's w/ and w/o quality points. If you have done post bacc work, how does it figure into everything? I took some upper level undergrad courses before applying to master's programs. Now I am taking graduate level courses. So would all of those grades be together as post-bacc or would the upper level undergrad courses go to my undergrad gpa and the grad courses to a graduate gpa? I'm clueless!😱 I've done several searches but couldn't find anything that answered my specific question. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks...

forum search is your friend.

to answer your question:

AADSAS does not distinguish post bac from degree seeking work. ALL UNDERGRAD work will be grouped together. To the upper division courses you took just prior to your masters will be grouped with your undergrad work.

You'll then have a separate category for graduate work. I had 3 years of post bac work, however they didn't really count for much because the grades got muddied by my previous work as an undergrad.

However my graduate work was its own GPA.

Your AADSAS GPA will will be broken down to show undergrad, grad, and cumulative sections.

According to the AADSAS instructions you must make a classification of your courses:
"Indicate if this session (of classes) was completed for credit as an Undergraduate, Graduate, Post BA/BS Undergraduate, or Professional course of study."

For your situation you would pick "Post BA/BS Undergraduate." This leads me to agree that it will show up with the rest of your undergrad work, but because I was not in this situation, I cannot confirm for sure.

I did both a Masters (M.S. Mech Eng, 2001), and a Post-bacc (B.S. Bio, 2007). AADSAS will give a summary of your grades in tabular form by:
- overall averages (cum and sci)
- by institution
- by degree

Therefore, if your cum and sci gpa from 4 years of undergrad is low (hi 2's), a year of post-bacc or Masters will only move up your scores marginally.

However, schools will notice if your post-bacc / masters is significantly higher than your undergrad. What is important is how well you do in upper level Bio & chem classes under a full-load at a 4-year university.

From undergrad, my cum gpa was 2.9, but my post-bac & masters gpa was 3.4, raising my overall cum to 3.1. With a DAT of 21/21/21, those numbers were good enough for me to get 3 interviews (UIC, UMich, USC) and an acceptance at UIC. I'm still waiting for an answer from the other two.

If you decide to go the post-bacc route, I highly recommend taking all of the classes at one university. That way, there will only be one transcript, and your application looks concise. I have been told by several ADCOMS that taking post-bacc classes at numerous schools looks bad.

I agree with Lopyswine:

From what I've seen, after speaking with an admin director, is ALL undergrad course work is in it's own category (post bac, first bac degree). Then, in the next column is your graduate work. If you have none, then it will show as zeros. Finally, in the third column, is your DAT scores.

If your undergrad work is muddied like mine, you can begin a fresh start with your GPA by taking graduate level courses. I'm beginning to take grad courses this semester because I'm almost finished my post bac in Biology and there is only so high I can bring my undergrad GPA.

Thanks everyone. Your responses have been really helpful. I have actually asked this question before and searched this on sdn numerous times and could never get a clear answer.

Another question to anyone that doesn't mind answering, how many units of grad work did you complete or are planning on completing? I ask this because I wonder whether adcoms take into consideration the number of units that actually contribute to the grad gpa.

I'd say take as many as possible. I'm thinking about only taking one with a couple of undergrad courses (genetics & histology). After that, all I have is some university courses before graduation... so, instead of wasting my time with those, I'll do some grad work in public health and slowly finish my post-bacc degree in Bio. Plus, i can get some grad work in before '08 cycle begins. I just recently got my GPA over 3.0 (after 2 1/2 years of solid grades) and with all the credits I have, it's not going much higher.

I'm sure they look at the number of hours completed, if I could do more I would. I will do more in future semsters. It all depends on your situation. You can only do as much as time and finances will let you.