Bummer. W/o engr. courses, my BPCM falls from 3.37 to 3.268

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uphillBattle

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So it looks like the Comparative Literature course I thought would fulfill the English requirement falls under FLAN instead, according to Amcas.

the Engineering courses I thought would fall under BCPM fall under ENGR. Without counting upper division Engineering coursework, my BCPM falls from 3.37 to 3.268.

This is rather unfortunate because these courses are purely based off of physics and math.

Questions

1. Should I wait and take more pure BCPM courses?
2. Will CompLit not being considered english prevent me from hearing back from certain schools or will they just ask that I take it before entering? My MCAT writing was an S and the english course I did, I received an A in.
 
uphillBattle said:
So it looks like the Comparative Literature course I thought would fulfill the English requirement falls under FLAN instead, according to Amcas.

the Engineering courses I thought would fall under BCPM fall under ENGR. Without counting upper division Engineering coursework, my BCPM falls from 3.37 to 3.268.

This is rather unfortunate because these courses are purely based off of physics and math.

Questions

1. Should I wait and take more pure BCPM courses?
2. Will CompLit not being considered english prevent me from hearing back from certain schools or will they just ask that I take it before entering? My MCAT writing was an S and the english course I did, I received an A in.
Click to expand...

Most schools will either not bother you about the english or will ask you to take it before matriculating. Many will even let you take the english course online, but not all. For the most part, this conversation wouldn't come up until after you are accepted. Applying while missing that one class should not cause your application to be looked down upon. A few schools ask that your pre-reqs be done the winter before matriculating so be careful with these few exception schools.

If you don't mid sharing, what is your Cum. GPA? I would say that anything below a 3.5 is going to cause problems for MD applications. You would probably have to take a lot of extra science and math courses to bring the BCPM up to par. How are your math courses effecting this GPA? Some schools re-calculate it with only their own pre-reqs included (a.k.a. no math). How is your MCAT?

A lot is going to go into answering your first question. Finances, how many classes you have left, what classes brought your grades down, etc.
 
EnginrTheFuture said:
Most schools will either not bother you about the english or will ask you to take it before matriculating. Many will even let you take the english course online, but not all. For the most part, this conversation wouldn't come up until after you are accepted. Applying while missing that one class should not cause your application to be looked down upon. A few schools ask that your pre-reqs be done the winter before matriculating so be careful with these few exception schools.

If you don't mid sharing, what is your Cum. GPA? I would say that anything below a 3.5 is going to cause problems for MD applications. You would probably have to take a lot of extra science and math courses to bring the BCPM up to par. How are your math courses effecting this GPA? Some schools re-calculate it with only their own pre-reqs included (a.k.a. no math). How is your MCAT?

A lot is going to go into answering your first question. Finances, how many classes you have left, what classes brought your grades down, etc.
Click to expand...

Thank you for taking the time to look at my post.

I listed my stats here: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=998149. It is below a 3.5 because of poor performance my 2nd-4th semesters. My upward trend kicked in based solely off of upper division coursework starting my junior year.

The 3.267 I listed is based off of all the courses listed under amcas as bcpm excluding any engineering courses and including my post-bacc courses. The classes that brought my gpa down were lower division biology, physics and statistics courses and the classes that brought my gpa up were upper division engineering/post-bacc courses based ON those lower division courses.

Finances aren't a big concern for me. I can probably cover the cost of medical school by the time I apply.

Just a little frustrated by this point but thats the way of the game and I'll do what I gotta do.
 
uphillBattle said:
Thank you for taking the time to look at my post.

I listed my stats here: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=998149. It is below a 3.5 because of poor performance my 2nd-4th semesters. My upward trend kicked in based solely off of upper division coursework starting my junior year.

The 3.267 I listed is based off of all the courses listed under amcas as bcpm excluding any engineering courses and including my post-bacc courses. The classes that brought my gpa down were lower division biology, physics and statistics courses and the classes that brought my gpa up were upper division engineering/post-bacc courses based ON those lower division courses.

Finances aren't a big concern for me. I can probably cover the cost of medical school by the time I apply.

Just a little frustrated by this point but thats the way of the game and I'll do what I gotta do.
Click to expand...

With the number of credits you have... waiting a year for the reason of raising your GPA is not the right decision in my opinion. I think you would probably agree. What's done is done there, and you're going to have to look past that issue for now. If you do not get in this cycle, you may have to reassess your opinion of the DO option. Trust me, many years of extra pre-med schoolwork and other heartaches may not be worth it for attaining an MD as opposed to a DO after your name. You seem like a smart person though, so I will let you research that yourself and reassess if the time comes.

You may also try to set up meetings with people that may have an influence on the interest of your application the following year (places you interview this cycle or are rejected from after a small pool). Essentially anywhere there was even the smallest interest on their end.

Another avenue you might be able to take is attracting personal attention to your application at a medical school interest fair. Any contact with the director of admissions (the deans are usually too busy) could help you if you are truly interested in a school. This is sort of non-traditional, and I have not heard of anyone doing this... but after having sit-down conversations with directors of admissions and deans of admissions this year, I can see this possibly working in your situation. SDN tends to ignore the fact that the admissions staff is comprised of real people. They want people who are determined, smart, have had life experiences like your own, will succeed at their school and want to be there. I have yet to meet a director of admissions that wasn't, honestly, one of the nicest people I have ever met. They seem like they actually care.

Your application is fairly unique and pretty strong other than this GPA hiccup. If you can write well (AMCAS Primary and Secondary essays) I think you will get bites. It really is a tad bit of luck at this point. I do think you should shoot for applying this cycle. If you can squeeze in a bit more shadowing before the end of may, I would try to do that.

I would suggest applying to a couple reach schools that are more inclined to look at your entire app. Schools that get fewer applicants may take a little more time to read about you. Again, this process is stochastic. One of the schools I was accepted to has so many applicants it makes me dizzy... yet they clearly saw something beyond my stats, somehow.

The GPA thing is going to be an issue. Luckily you killed your MCAT and you were in a tough major. People that consider the whole application may bite. Let me just tell you this... take a lot of time writing your essays. Research the living hell out of these schools and find ones that fit you for VERY SPECIFIC reasons (within competitive reason). Your ticket to getting in at this point is not only the "numerical screen" but someone seeing your app and saying, "yeah, I think this person fits here so well that I want to look past the hiccups". Give them reasons to forget they even saw the GPA or reasons to think through the GPA issue when they get to it.

Good luck. :luck:
 
I'm not on a med school adcom or anything, so take my words for what they're worth (which is absolutely nothing), but I do think it's ridiculous for engineering courses to not count as part of your math/science GPA. Engineering is not strictly one of biology, chemistry, physics, or math, but all the engineering classes I took fit under the general BCPM umbrella.
 
EnginrTheFuture said:
With the number of credits you have... waiting a year for the reason of raising your GPA is not the right decision in my opinion. I think you would probably agree. What's done is done there, and you're going to have to look past that issue for now. If you do not get in this cycle, you may have to reassess your opinion of the DO option. Trust me, many years of extra pre-med schoolwork and other heartaches may not be worth it for attaining an MD as opposed to a DO after your name. You seem like a smart person though, so I will let you research that yourself and reassess if the time comes.

You may also try to set up meetings with people that may have an influence on the interest of your application the following year (places you interview this cycle or are rejected from after a small pool). Essentially anywhere there was even the smallest interest on their end.

Another avenue you might be able to take is attracting personal attention to your application at a medical school interest fair. Any contact with the director of admissions (the deans are usually too busy) could help you if you are truly interested in a school. This is sort of non-traditional, and I have not heard of anyone doing this... but after having sit-down conversations with directors of admissions and deans of admissions this year, I can see this possibly working in your situation. SDN tends to ignore the fact that the admissions staff is comprised of real people. They want people who are determined, smart, have had life experiences like your own, will succeed at their school and want to be there. I have yet to meet a director of admissions that wasn't, honestly, one of the nicest people I have ever met. They seem like they actually care.

Your application is fairly unique and pretty strong other than this GPA hiccup. If you can write well (AMCAS Primary and Secondary essays) I think you will get bites. It really is a tad bit of luck at this point. I do think you should shoot for applying this cycle. If you can squeeze in a bit more shadowing before the end of may, I would try to do that.

I would suggest applying to a couple reach schools that are more inclined to look at your entire app. Schools that get fewer applicants may take a little more time to read about you. Again, this process is stochastic. One of the schools I was accepted to has so many applicants it makes me dizzy... yet they clearly saw something beyond my stats, somehow.

The GPA thing is going to be an issue. Luckily you killed your MCAT and you were in a tough major. People that consider the whole application may bite. Let me just tell you this... take a lot of time writing your essays. Research the living hell out of these schools and find ones that fit you for VERY SPECIFIC reasons (within competitive reason). Your ticket to getting in at this point is not only the "numerical screen" but someone seeing your app and saying, "yeah, I think this person fits here so well that I want to look past the hiccups". Give them reasons to forget they even saw the GPA or reasons to think through the GPA issue when they get to it.

Good luck. :luck:
Click to expand...

Greatly appreciate the advice. You hinted at this in your post, but would it be worth it to mark courses as I think they're supposed to be classified, submit amcas to my school list (lot of "low tiers" which I'm not too worried about) and see who responds to my application?

Or would this be detrimental to future efforts? My thoughts right now are to do just that while having a contingency plan in place where I take classes anyway until next year in the event that I don't hear back from anyone this time around.

I've been spending a lot of time on my ps trying to highlight a strong interest in working with low income kids which is what a lot of my extracurriculars are geared around.

rain4venus said:
I'm not on a med school adcom or anything, so take my words for what they're worth (which is absolutely nothing), but I do think it's ridiculous for engineering courses to not count as part of your math/science GPA. Engineering is not strictly one of biology, chemistry, physics, or math, but all the engineering classes I took fit under the general BCPM umbrella.
Click to expand...

amen. frustrating beyond belief.
 
Just to add, i don't think I can get any more shadowing in. The clinic I shadowed at was a very difficult clinic to get into at a very famous hospital.

I'm sweeping the low to mid tier list for applications though and sprinkling in a few reaches.
 
rain4venus said:
I'm not on a med school adcom or anything, so take my words for what they're worth (which is absolutely nothing), but I do think it's ridiculous for engineering courses to not count as part of your math/science GPA. Engineering is not strictly one of biology, chemistry, physics, or math, but all the engineering classes I took fit under the general BCPM umbrella.
Click to expand...

A large chunk of courses I took were almost identical to a version in the bio or physics department but were taught by an engineering professor within an engineering department. Fluid dynamics, modern physics, statics/dynamics... you name it. These are hard science classes, with maybe a tinge of engineering mixed into the practice problems. We aren't even allowed to take the other version of the class for credit after taking the engineering version because they are cross-listed I believe. AMCAS can be picky about this and not allow you to count even the cross listed classes as BCPM if ENG shows up on the transcript. I think that's pretty silly but things could be worse.
 
uphillBattle said:
Greatly appreciate the advice. You hinted at this in your post, but would it be worth it to mark courses as I think they're supposed to be classified, submit amcas to my school list (lot of "low tiers" which I'm not too worried about) and see who responds to my application?

Or would this be detrimental to future efforts? My thoughts right now are to do just that while having a contingency plan in place where I take classes anyway until next year in the event that I don't hear back from anyone this time around.

I've been spending a lot of time on my ps trying to highlight a strong interest in working with low income kids which is what a lot of my extracurriculars are geared around.



amen. frustrating beyond belief.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if I understand your question, could you re-phrase it for me? AMCAS will make sure your application is correct. They will verify everything and change what they think needs changing. They will send you a corrected version (verified) and you can appeal it if you want. You cannot send the app out to schools until it is verified.

Categorizing classes completely incorrectly may slow the verification down slightly (by a few days at most would be my guess). They will show very clearly what you mis-categorized, and do not be alarmed, these markings will not be seen by the schools you apply to (I know this for a fact).
 
EnginrTheFuture said:
A large chunk of courses I took were almost identical to a version in the bio or physics department but were taught by an engineering professor within an engineering department. Fluid dynamics, modern physics, statics/dynamics... you name it. These are hard science classes, with maybe a tinge of engineering mixed into the practice problems. We aren't even allowed to take the other version of the class for credit after taking the engineering version because they are cross-listed I believe. AMCAS can be picky about this and not allow you to count even the cross listed classes as BCPM if ENG shows up on the transcript.
Click to expand...
Yeah I was an engineering major, and statics, fluids, circuits - those things are all some application of science and/or math. My anatomy/physiology class that took place at the med school, half in the cadaver lab? Yeah I can't see how that would be relevant to a med school application. It just seems like outdated thinking that leads to them not being included in the sGPA.
"No one goes to med school except for bio majors so who cares how other courses are classified?" 🙄 Actually almost half my BME class applied to med school. At my school at least, engineers were at least as prepared for med school as "science" majors.

EnginrTheFuture said:
I think that's pretty silly but things could be worse.
Click to expand...
true enough
 
I successfully classified tons of my engineering courses as BCPM. Doesn't hurt to try. Worst that can happen is they change it to engineering and you're back to where you would have been anyway.
 
I agree that it seems like your best course of action is to review each of your engineering courses and classify ONLY the most convincing ones under the appropriate bcpm category. It might be easier to get some of your eng courses reclassified that way than if you just listed them all as math. At the very least be honest with yourself about where you would place the course. Statics could possibly fall under physics. Material science is probably not math.
 
EnginrTheFuture said:
I'm not sure if I understand your question, could you re-phrase it for me? AMCAS will make sure your application is correct. They will verify everything and change what they think needs changing. They will send you a corrected version (verified) and you can appeal it if you want. You cannot send the app out to schools until it is verified.

Categorizing classes completely incorrectly may slow the verification down slightly (by a few days at most would be my guess). They will show very clearly what you mis-categorized, and do not be alarmed, these markings will not be seen by the schools you apply to (I know this for a fact).
Click to expand...

Sorry let me rephrase. My questions are:

1. Should I just go ahead and apply anyway after classifying the courses as I see fit? As a contingency plan I would start taking classes immediately after applying just in case I don't hear back from anybody this cycle. Given my situation, if I were to be a reapplicant, I would assume that strengthening my sGPA would be the factor that would play the biggest role in whether schools see a change from this cycle to next since its not as if I have some other serious flaw in my app.
2. In your experience how long would the entire process of submitting amcas whenever it opens, amcas disagrees with course classification, I dispute amcas and re-submit, amcas returns with their response, I re-submit after seeing their response, take?
3. If these courses are cross-listed with bcpm courses, in a classification dispute, would it make sense for me to send amcas that information as well?

rain4venus said:
I agree that it seems like your best course of action is to review each of your engineering courses and classify ONLY the most convincing ones under the appropriate bcpm category. It might be easier to get some of your eng courses reclassified that way than if you just listed them all as math. At the very least be honest with yourself about where you would place the course. Statics could possibly fall under physics. Material science is probably not math.
Click to expand...

BigBlueBear said:
I successfully classified tons of my engineering courses as BCPM. Doesn't hurt to try. Worst that can happen is they change it to engineering and you're back to where you would have been anyway.
Click to expand...

If you don't mind me asking how would you folks classify the following courses?

- Biological transport phenomenon (micro fluidics)
- Property of materials
- Biomechanics
- intro to Electrical engineering
- BioMedical instrumentation
- Biomedical physiology
- Neural and nonlinear processing (electrical engineering)
- Biological performance of materials
- cell biology for engineers
- dynamic systems and feedback
- data structures and programming methodology

I also did 2 bioeng. research classes. Helped in my poster abstract but I doubt amcas would let me classify them as bcpm.
 
If you don't mind me asking how would you folks classify the following courses?

- Biological transport phenomenon (micro fluidics) -- Physics or Math
- Property of materials -- Physics
- Biomechanics -- Physics
- intro to Electrical engineering -- Physics
- BioMedical instrumentation -- Biology
- Biomedical physiology -- Biology
- Neural and nonlinear processing (electrical engineering) -- Biology or Physics
- Biological performance of materials -- Biology
- cell biology for engineers -- Biology
- dynamic systems and feedback -- Math
- data structures and programming methodology -- Math

Just going off the names that's probably what I would do. I'd bet you could get away with most of those, if not all. I made similar stretches and didn't get any overturned.
 
uphillBattle said:
Sorry let me rephrase. My questions are:

1. Should I just go ahead and apply anyway after classifying the courses as I see fit? As a contingency plan I would start taking classes immediately after applying just in case I don't hear back from anybody this cycle. Given my situation, if I were to be a reapplicant, I would assume that strengthening my sGPA would be the factor that would play the biggest role in whether schools see a change from this cycle to next since its not as if I have some other serious flaw in my app.

I would apply this cycle if I were you. Apply broadly, but pick places that fit you for specific reasons. I am not sure taking any classes over the next year will bring your GPA up a noticeable amount. If we are talking bringing it up from a ~3.3 to a 3.35... it's not going to be worth the time or money. You're better off trying to turns heads another way.
2. In your experience how long would the entire process of submitting amcas whenever it opens, amcas disagrees with course classification, I dispute amcas and re-submit, amcas returns with their response, I re-submit after seeing their response, take?

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=944252
3. If these courses are cross-listed with bcpm courses, in a classification dispute, would it make sense for me to send amcas that information as well?
I believe this is going to depend on who processes your app. I did not appeal anything because the change in GPA would have been negligible for me. I would classify things as you see fair, and if you have to appeal be ready to call them to figure out the process and be ready to gather information you may need.





If you don't mind me asking how would you folks classify the following courses?

- Biological transport phenomenon (micro fluidics) - mayyybe physics (it sounds like biophysics)
- Property of materials - chem
- Biomechanics - bio or physics
- intro to Electrical engineering -not bcpm
- BioMedical instrumentation -not bcpm
- Biomedical physiology - bio
- Neural and nonlinear processing (electrical engineering) -not bcpm
- Biological performance of materials - mayyybe bio or chem
- cell biology for engineers - bio for sure
- dynamic systems and feedback - would need to know more
- data structures and programming methodology -not bcpm

I also did 2 bioeng. research classes. Helped in my poster abstract but I doubt amcas would let me classify them as bcpm.
Click to expand...

.
 
To be honest, I think it is somewhat of a moot point because you are kind of in that "low GPA" category regardless and the .05 or so won't ever be the deciding factor in whether you are invited to interview. Hopefully everything else about your application is stellar (especially MCAT) and you get a reasonable adcom that understands not all majors are created equally. That said, there is some solid advice here about just putting it as one of the BCPM categories and see if it flies.
Good luck.

.1, not .05 GPA points, sorry.
 
Thanks for everyone's responses on this thread.

The consensus and what I had in mind seems to be: apply anyway and mark the courses as what I would expect them to fall under and see what amcas does.

My contingency plan is essentially to start taking classes again once I submit this cycle until my sGPA hits a 3.4 or so.

Its frustrating but I'll make it through.
 
EnginrTheFuture said:
If you don't mind me asking how would you folks classify the following courses?

- Biological transport phenomenon (micro fluidics) - mayyybe physics (it sounds like biophysics)
- Property of materials - chem
- Biomechanics - bio or physics
- intro to Electrical engineering -not bcpm
- BioMedical instrumentation -not bcpm
- Biomedical physiology - bio
- Neural and nonlinear processing (electrical engineering) -not bcpm
- Biological performance of materials - mayyybe bio or chem
- cell biology for engineers - bio for sure
- dynamic systems and feedback - would need to know more
- data structures and programming methodology -not bcpm
Click to expand...

I would agree with most of this list. Some of it depends on your class. My biomechanics class was really just physics, yours might have been more heavily bio. Your biomed phys and cell bio classes should both be pretty easy to get classified as bio. And I pretty much agree that the ones marked "not bcpm" will probably be tough to get counted in your sGPA, but maybe it's worth a shot anyway? I dunno.
 
uphillBattle said:
Sorry let me rephrase. My questions are:

1. Should I just go ahead and apply anyway after classifying the courses as I see fit? As a contingency plan I would start taking classes immediately after applying just in case I don't hear back from anybody this cycle. Given my situation, if I were to be a reapplicant, I would assume that strengthening my sGPA would be the factor that would play the biggest role in whether schools see a change from this cycle to next since its not as if I have some other serious flaw in my app.
2. In your experience how long would the entire process of submitting amcas whenever it opens, amcas disagrees with course classification, I dispute amcas and re-submit, amcas returns with their response, I re-submit after seeing their response, take?
3. If these courses are cross-listed with bcpm courses, in a classification dispute, would it make sense for me to send amcas that information as well?





If you don't mind me asking how would you folks classify the following courses?

- Biological transport phenomenon (micro fluidics)
- Property of materials
- Biomechanics
- intro to Electrical engineering
- BioMedical instrumentation
- Biomedical physiology
- Neural and nonlinear processing (electrical engineering)
- Biological performance of materials
- cell biology for engineers
- dynamic systems and feedback
- data structures and programming methodology

I also did 2 bioeng. research classes. Helped in my poster abstract but I doubt amcas would let me classify them as bcpm.
Click to expand...

All of the ones with bio in the title and the neural one should fall under BCPM if you classify them that way. Most likely they won't be changed by AMCAS. You don't get in trouble for marking these sections wrong as it isn't always black and white, there's some grey area. I did exactly this to boost my BCPM by marking class as not BCPM that had low grades
 
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