32-hr Policy?

[ILOVEMED123]

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I was just reading on this med school's website http://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/admissions/Requirements.aspx

that they have a 32-hr policy where they will use those 32 hours as someone's science GPA. Does anyone know anything about this? Also, is the only school that does this? I've never heard of such a thing. And I assume it needs to be done before application time?

 

[mimelim]

To be honest, this looks like what most medical schools do informally. They just wrote it down explicitly.

 

[jqueb29]

I've never seen that before, that's pretty cool. It would definitely have to be done before application time.

 

[Spirit of the Student Doc]

I was just reading on this med school's website http://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/admissions/Requirements.aspx

that they have a 32-hr policy where they will use those 32 hours as someone's science GPA. Does anyone know anything about this? Also, is the only school that does this? I've never heard of such a thing. And I assume it needs to be done before application time?

That seems interesting, but requires one to take a post-bacc as well.
I would say it's fair, it's more representative of who you are now and includes harder courses anyways.

 

[ILOVEMED123]

huh? No med schools do his. None of them literally REPLACE your weak undergrad science GPA with a post-bac one.
Also, its interesting. Bec even if someone had a lowish science GPA and wanted it badly to be replaced, this is only a plus for an applicant who 100% wants to go to this school. Bec for other schools, the norm is that the GPAs just get combined.
So I guess the moral of the story is that if you wanna do a post-bacc, do a post-bacc, and it will be HUGE PLUS for this particular med school.

 

[ILOVEMED123]

To be honest, this looks like what most medical schools do informally. They just wrote it down explicitly.

What do you mean by what most med schools do informally? No one replaces the GPA like that...

 

[Goro]

Concur. it's basically saying "we want to see excellence in a year's worth of coursework from you, not a single semester."

To be honest, this looks like what most medical schools do informally. They just wrote it down explicitly.

 

[ILOVEMED123]

Concur. it's basically saying "we want to see excellence in a year's worth of coursework from you, not a single semester."

Right. But from a strictly numerical perspective, your GPA is not going to be replaced by other med schools. They will simply notice the upward trend.

 

[mimelim]

huh? No med schools do his. None of them literally REPLACE your weak undergrad science GPA with a post-bac one.
Also, its interesting. Bec even if someone had a lowish science GPA and wanted it badly to be replaced, this is only a plus for an applicant who 100% wants to go to this school. Bec for other schools, the norm is that the GPAs just get combined.
So I guess the moral of the story is that if you wanna do a post-bacc, do a post-bacc, and it will be HUGE PLUS for this particular med school.

What do you mean by what most med schools do informally? No one replaces the GPA like that...

We did it all the time. This is the same concept as considering "an upward trend.". Virtually every adcom that I know (~20) will look at a year or two of solid grades favorably. They are simply stating that to them, if you meet certain requirements, they consider the other grades to be unimportant, which we pretty much all do anyways. Why would I care what kind of student the applicant was 2 years ago? I want to know who I'm getting in my class when they matriculate. I don't think that a semester is enough to demonstrate that you are a different kind of student than your previous poor grades. The line is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 credits. This school happened to pick it.

I can remember half a dozen conversations like this at admissions committee meetings:

Adcom A: "We really want this guy in our class."
Adcom B: "He has a 3.1 GPA..."
Adcom A: "If you take out everything from 5+ years ago, he has a 3.9."
Adcom B: "Oh good call"

 

[mimelim]

Right. But from a strictly numerical perspective, your GPA is not going to be replaced by other med schools. They will simply notice the upward trend.

I don't think you understand how admissions committees work. The only people this would really affect are people who have GPAs that get auto screened out by a school and no human actually looks at the application. I know of multiple 3.1s that got at least reviewed at top 5 schools, so the auto-trash bar has to be at least that low at even the top level schools. I'm sure that there are plenty of schools that are lower than that.

 

[ILOVEMED123]

We did it all the time. This is the same concept as considering "an upward trend.". Virtually every adcom that I know (~20) will look at a year or two of solid grades favorably. They are simply stating that to them, if you meet certain requirements, they consider the other grades to be unimportant, which we pretty much all do anyways. Why would I care what kind of student the applicant was 2 years ago? I want to know who I'm getting in my class when they matriculate. I don't think that a semester is enough to demonstrate that you are a different kind of student than your previous poor grades. The line is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 credits. This school happened to pick it.

I can remember half a dozen conversations like this at admissions committee meetings:

Adcom A: "We really want this guy in our class."
Adcom B: "He has a 3.1 GPA..."
Adcom A: "If you take out everything from 5+ years ago, he has a 3.9."
Adcom B: "Oh good call"

Exactly. But thats only if you opened up the applicant's 3.1 science GPA in the first place in order to recognize that trend. Many schools will disregard that GPA from the start without looking further. That is why the replacement thing is very nice.

 

[mimelim]

Exactly. But thats only if you opened up the applicant's 3.1 science GPA in the first place in order to recognize that trend. Many schools will disregard that GPA from the start without looking further. That is why the replacement thing is very nice.

Since none of us know what the 'actual' auto-reject line is for all of the schools (or this school for that matter), I would say that it has little to no effect on applicants with a GPA over 3.0 which constitute most people hoping to get into medical school.

 

[ILOVEMED123]

I don't think you understand how admissions committees work. The only people this would really affect are people who have GPAs that get auto screened out by a school and no human actually looks at the application. I know of multiple 3.1s that got at least reviewed at top 5 schools, so the auto-trash bar has to be at least that low at even the top level schools. I'm sure that there are plenty of schools that are lower than that.

oh ok. well then I guess this policy also applies to a student who finishes off with 3 strong semesters with science courses included (the same kind of idea). Not everyone has the time/money to do an official post-bacc of only science courses of 32 credits worth

 

[ILOVEMED123]

Since none of us know what the 'actual' auto-reject line is for all of the schools (or this school for that matter), I would say that it has little to no effect on applicants with a GPA over 3.0 which constitute most people hoping to get into medical school.

Interesting. I mean yes, I assume adcoms have brains and look at the later courses with more regard, but the applicant pool is so big, that it requires opening up your application to notice that. Ok, we are pretty much just saying the same thing lol.

 

[Goro]

What Mimes is saying is 100% correct. Rising trends are, in effect, grade replacement, or more accurately, GPA salvage. They demonstrate that the you of now is not the you of then. But the key thing is to get onto radar screen, which doesn't trip for many schools unless the GPA is over 3.0.

 

[ILOVEMED123]

What Mimes is saying is 100% correct. Rising trends are, in effect, grade replacement, or more accurately, GPA salvage. They demonstrate that the you of now is not the you of then. But the key thing is to get onto radar screen, which doesn't trip for many schools unless the GPA is over 3.0.

I think you meant "under 3.0"

 

[NonTradJp]

That's awesome.

 

[Catalystik]

huh? No med schools do his. None of them literally REPLACE your weak undergrad science GPA with a post-bac one.
Also, its interesting. Bec even if someone had a lowish science GPA and wanted it badly to be replaced, this is only a plus for an applicant who 100% wants to go to this school. Bec for other schools, the norm is that the GPAs just get combined.
So I guess the moral of the story is that if you wanna do a post-bacc, do a post-bacc, and it will be HUGE PLUS for this particular med school.

This is Wayne's policy, too.

 

[PhysicianScientist]

Does this apply for traditional undergraduate students as well or only for non-trads who have been removed from their undergrad for some years? For example, if a senior undergrad were applying and had 3.0 freshman and sophomore year and 4.0 junior and senior year, would you view the applicant as a 3.5 applicant or a 4.0 applicant?

 

[Goro]

It applies to strong rising trends for UG as well.