I'm in a similar situation as OP, and I just wanted to know what you meant by saying "you can select the grade you want to go into your pre-req GPA or BCPM GPA."? Is it possible to not include the C's in our application if we retook the classes and aced them?
So to clarify, both grades do go into your overall application. You must report all grades.
However, on the application, you get to select the grades you want to go into certain GPA calculations such as pre-reqs. I made an error and said BCPM, this is not true, it’ll calculate all of them. They can see all your grades but on the section it’ll show the one you put.
I don’t know what grades you got low grades in, but if it is a pre-req, you’ll be asked to select the class you took for the pre-req. If you took two, just select the one that you did better on. The lower one will still be included in your overall, but now your pre-req looks better.
That said, the choice of masters vs retaking classes depends on multiple things. Firstly, depends on what your current GPA is and how many classes you need to take to get a good GPA. IMO a 3.3 with 90 credits completed warrants just taking more and retaking bad classes. If you get a 3.8 by graduation (120 credits) you could get a 3.4+ and if you then retake your worst classes and take more science credits and get another 3.7-3.8, you’ll potentially get a overall 3.45+ which is enough to land you into dental school with a 21+ DAT. That’s not the greatest GPA, but it’s not bad. I would retake the bad pre-req classes and do really well so my prereq GPA looks better. Anything lower than a 3.3 GPA and I would consider a masters because it would take too many credits to get your GPA into a competitive range.
Secondly, if your GPA isnt under a 3.3, you should calculate how much it costs to up your GPA to a competitive range. 3.45+ is decently competitive. Compare the prices with a masters which is another 40k-50k+ living expenses to the retaking classes method could potentially be under 30k at a state school (no community colleges!) so it just really depends. Yes I admit that a masters is better in all situation but it’s unnecessary in certain cases. For example. If you had a 3.4, why would you waste 50k+ to do a masters when you can take two semesters of classes, get a 3.8, and then get a decently competitive GPA. Like I said before, the number to decide this IMO is a 3.3. Anything lower, do a masters. Between 3.3-3.4, consider undergrad courses depending on price. Anything above 3.4 just take some undergrad classes.
So TL;DR, take into the account those two things (your application GPA and how many classes to get to 3.4+, and the cost of a masters vs cost of non-degree classes).
