Advice?

[scarlettsky]

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I know it doesn't matter too much how you classify freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior when entering coursework into AMCAS, but I got some bad grades for some semesters so I retook a couple of classes and I don't know which way would be best to show an upward trend.

Would it be better to go by the year I attended (1st year=freshman, 2nd year=sophomore, etc.) or to go by credits? If you go by credits, I was a Sophomore by my 2nd semester of my 1st year since I came in with some AP credits. Is it better to have below a 3.0 sGPA for what seems like 2 years or just 1 year but with a 2.3 sGPA for it? Would it be the same for cGPA? Which one is better for cumulative?

I know I have an upward trend, but I'm not sure which way is best/correct to categorize it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I attached photos of the trends. If I explained anything weirdly, please ask questions. Thank you so much!

Edit: Thank you for everyone's advice. I was leaning towards going by the actual years I attended too because it makes the most sense to me, but some people said to go by credits, so I was confused and didn't want to do anything wrong. The last thing I want is my categorization to be deceitful, so thank you. Also, I spent an extra year mainly to get a minor in a subject because I personally enjoyed it.

 

[stinkycheeseperson]

you need to do the 30-ish groups as per the manual. there's some flexibility (like 28, 36, 40, 23) but not like 15, 45, 60, 21. also, check the manual about how they handle APs in the count. if you don't follow the manual and the adcom doesn't like however you've organized things, they'll just re-do it anyway

 

[KnightDoc]

you need to do the 30-ish groups as per the manual. there's some flexibility (like 28, 36, 40, 23) but not like 15, 45, 60, 21. also, check the manual about how they handle APs in the count. if you don't follow the manual and the adcom doesn't like however you've organized things, they'll just re-do it anyway

This^^^^.

Unless your school assigned specific semesters to your AP credits, they all go into freshman year, along with all of the other work you did that year. This will result in a lot of credits that year, but, it is what it is. Your freshman year doesn't magically become your sophomore year just because you entered with AP credits, especially when you physically spend 5 years in school.

"To claim AP credit, the credit hours must be listed on your transcript. AP courses should be entered under the term the college credit was initially granted for. If no term is designated, include the credits with freshman coursework (FR)."

Yes, you go by year attended, especially when you attended for 5 years. You don't look for breaks that allow your GPAs to present slightly differently. No matter what you call it, schools will see exactly when you took each class, so you'll accomplish nothing by pretending your sophomore year was your junior year because you came into school with some AP credits and you want the optics of your bad grades being bunched in the same academic year even though they were spread over two.

 

[mmchick]

Yea this is super confusing. You categorize yourself based on your actual year in college. People take all sorts of credits any given year, but your freshman year is still your 1st year and your junior year is your 3rd year; if you were to have graduated a year early, you'd say you didn't have a senior year then, not a lack of a freshman year.

Also if you performed poorly in your sophomore and junior years (non-credit denomination) then you performed poorly and that is what should be reflected, as you say is by the <3.0 sGPA those 2 years. You don't get to inflate your sGPA for one of the years by relying on AP credits and better performing lower science or intro courses taken your freshman year but "credit-wise sophomore year". That wouldn't accurately reflect the reality that you didn't perform well your 2nd and 3rd year, and could borderline be considered deceitful with trying to make it appear you only performed poorly 1 year by cutting credits oddly. Also, I'm assuming you graduated in 5 years to potentially make up for some of these deficits.. you'll have to explain why it took 5 years anyway and making it seem as though you only had 1 year of bad performance kind of contradicts that objective.