AMCAS and Study Abroad Course Classification

[littledreamer]

So I've read through the AMCA's guidebook and some previous threads and couldn't quite find an answer to my question (sorry if I missed something!):

I studied abroad for a full year during my undergrad. I was careful to avoid taking prereqs abroad but I obviously did take many courses. For some of my courses, my university transferred them directly as what they are (ie Immunology)

For other courses, my university did not have a direct analog. For instance, Cancer Development (essentially Cancer Bio 2) doesn't exist at the undergrad level and so my university listed it as "Overseas Study in Zoology."
Even worse, some courses are just listed as "General Undergraduate Credit" in certain departments. One even transferred in as a much different course (US and the World) than what I took (Classical Greek Literature). [No, I don't know why this happened.]

Is there any way for me to list the ACTUAL title of the course on AMCAS? I know med schools won't get my grades, which is fine, but I worry about having half a year being listed as "General Credit" in some department or another. I just want my coursework represented accurately, and for some of it, I need it to count towards 30 credits of humanities, etc. I also really don't want to get dinged by AMCAS as misrepresenting coursework.

Thanks!

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[littledreamer]

No as the emphasis in the original AMCAS instruction below would indicate

https://www.aamc.org/students/download/182162/data/amcas_instruction_manual.pdf

(p51) "List study abroad coursework under the foreign college, the foreign listing of your home institution,
or the organization at which it was attempted, exactly as it appears on the sponsoring U.S. or Canadian institution's transcript.
Do not enter the coursework twice"

Well, this is rather disappointing. I was hoping to include it in brackets or something.

So I guess two follow-up questions:

1) Is there any way for me to provide this information to medical schools? Perhaps in secondaries somewhere?

2) Are medical schools going to look at it poorly? It doesn't really change things now, of course. But I didn't screw around during my year, I worked quite hard and don't want them to think I fooled around. It's not as drastic as I thought it was as I have 30+ humanities hours without that year anyways. I also think the completion of my double minors should accurately represent the majority of the coursework that transferred in as GCU.

Thanks for the help and time!

 

[littledreamer]

1) you can attached/submit your original transcripts from the study abroad institution. (though frankly, they arent likely to get much attention
2) You note the study abroad in secondary in "additional comments/info" by a brief narrative noting a number of credits were transferred in bulk. No school will really care about the course titles, nor should you attempt to list them as it will only serve to mostly annoy the application reader.
3) You can note your double minor but again, most schools really dont care about such things.

Thanks! I won't stress about it too much then. Is this because they only deeply care about pre-reqs? I assumed they cared quite a bit about coursework, but maybe I was wrong and they look mostly at pre-reqs and/or which departments courses are in.

 

[Bermie]

I actually listed my study away experience as one of my 15 ECs and explained what I did while away and why it was meaningful. It may be unconventional but it prompted positive conversation with one of my interviewers.

I didn't discuss coursework from studying away, more just the experiences etc.

 

[littledreamer]

I actually listed my study away experience as one of my 15 ECs and explained what I did while away and why it was meaningful. It may be unconventional but it prompted positive conversation with one of my interviewers.

I didn't discuss coursework from studying away, more just the experiences etc.

This isn't a bad idea at all! Thanks for the suggestion. My study abroad (in a general sense) features heavily in my personal statement, so hopefully that will prompt discussion about it. I invested heavily in the community and culture, and that's been a theme throughout my entire undergrad experience. Similarly to you, my study abroad had much more important experiences to pull from than just my coursework. It just stings a bit to lose about 1/2 of my junior year work to GCU credit. Depending on how my 15 experiences fall, I may add it in as one of those though!