AAMC Hours Calculator

[Sneaky Sloth]

Hi,

I have a quick question, it may be silly but I am pretty sure I am just missing something.

So I plan on taking my Sociology Class as Pass/No Credit because I am going to end up with a B and I don't want it to drop my GPA. In the process of trying to understand how medical schools might perceive this, I came across their Grade Conversion Chart. While I see that Pass/No Credit applies as supplementary hours and doesn't go towards your GPA calculation (thank god), I learned about the conversion from quarter hours to semester hours.

I am on the quarter system at UCR, so my number of units are higher than what they would be on the semester (i.e. my 4 unit quarter class is worth 2.7 for the semester system?). This in correspondence to the fact that my letter grade system is standard with the normal weights being what I got at UCR (i.e. an A is a 4.0, an A- is 3.7, etc.) is making me question the math. If one's GPA is calculated by the total quality points divided by the total semester hours, and my total quality points is staying constant but my total semester hours is decreasing, doesn't that mean that my GPA would be larger than what it would be calculated normally for the quarter system?

I feel like this is a too much of an advantage for quarter system kids and AAMC had to have done something about it by now. However, I couldn't find anything on it online so I remain stumped.

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[Paralegalities]

I'm not sure about this specific question, but as for advantages students at some schools have but not others, that's totally a thing at other grad schools so I wouldn't be surprised if med school had that too. For example law school counts an A+ as a 4.25 GPA instead of 4.0, so for those students who attend universities which use A+ as a grade, they can potentially get an entire 0.25 above a perfect 4.0 GPA on their applications for top schools.

 

[KnightDoc]

Hi,

I have a quick question, it may be silly but I am pretty sure I am just missing something.

So I plan on taking my Sociology Class as Pass/No Credit because I am going to end up with a B and I don't want it to drop my GPA. In the process of trying to understand how medical schools might perceive this, I came across their Grade Conversion Chart. While I see that Pass/No Credit applies as supplementary hours and doesn't go towards your GPA calculation (thank god), I learned about the conversion from quarter hours to semester hours.

I am on the quarter system at UCR, so my number of units are higher than what they would be on the semester (i.e. my 4 unit quarter class is worth 2.7 for the semester system?). This in correspondence to the fact that my letter grade system is standard with the normal weights being what I got at UCR (i.e. an A is a 4.0, an A- is 3.7, etc.) is making me question the math. If one's GPA is calculated by the total quality points divided by the total semester hours, and my total quality points is staying constant but my total semester hours is decreasing, doesn't that mean that my GPA would be larger than what it would be calculated normally for the quarter system?

I feel like this is a too much of an advantage for quarter system kids and AAMC had to have done something about it by now. However, I couldn't find anything on it online so I remain stumped.

I don't think I understand your question -- in your example, your GPA would be 4.0*2.7/2.7=4.0. What advantage would you be getting over the person who had 4.0*4/4=4.0? Basically, you'll have more classes, and each will be worth a little less (4=2.7), but in the end you'll have the same number of semester hours regardless of which system you are on. Am I missing something? You're not going to be able to calculate your GPA by doing 4.0*4/2.7=5.9, if that's what you were thinking! You're not going to get 16 quality points for getting an A in a 4 unit quarter class -- you'll only get 4*2.7=10.8.

 

[Sneaky Sloth]

I don't think I understand your question -- in your example, your GPA would be 4.0*2.7/2.7=4.0. What advantage would you be getting over the person who had 4.0*4/4=4.0? Basically, you'll have more classes, and each will be worth a little less (4=2.7), but in the end you'll have the same number of semester hours regardless of which system you are on. Am I missing something? You're not going to be able to calculate your GPA by doing 4.0*4/2.7=5.9, if that's what you were thinking! You're not going to get 16 quality points for getting an A in a 4 unit quarter class -- you'll only get 4*2.7=10.8.

You answered my question spot on. I knew my math was wrong but I needed another set of eyes to point it out to me. Thank you!