AMCAS GPA Calculations?

[premediator]

I have some questions as to how AMCAS calculates GPAs. I attend an out of state school but to fulfill all of my premed requirements, I took two physics classes at a local state university in my state during the summer. However, the school I attend during the fall/spring includes the lab grade within the total grade yet the local state university has separate grades for the lab and course. How does AMCAS take this into account when calculating my GPA? Does it include both grades in the total or does it combine them? In other words, if I got an A in both the course and its respective lab and are shown as separate grades on my transcript does AMCAS use both grades? My GPA would increase if it does consider each component (lab and course) as separate grades so I would appreciate it if you guys could clarify this.

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[Bernoull]

I have some questions as to how AMCAS calculates GPAs. I attend an out of state school but to fulfill all of my premed requirements, I took two physics classes at a local state university in my state during the summer. However, the school I attend during the fall/spring includes the lab grade within the total grade yet the local state university has separate grades for the lab and course. How does AMCAS take this into account when calculating my GPA? Does it include both grades in the total or does it combine them? In other words, if I got an A in both the course and its respective lab and are shown as separate grades on my transcript does AMCAS use both grades? My GPA would increase if it does consider each component (lab and course) as separate grades so I would appreciate it if you guys could clarify this.

All letter graded courses, lab and lecture, are factored into ur gpa calculation just like ur school does. It's a lab or lecture is pass/fail/clep then it's not factored in..

 

[premediator]

What if the lab is only 1 credit hour and the course is 3? Or does AMCAS just calculate every single grade on the transcript equally no matter the credit earned and whether other schools have combined lab/course grades? If so, isn't that kind of unfair? What if someone taking sciences classes at school that combines both grades and another student is taking them at a school that separates the grades. Hypothetically, if the first student gets an A its just a single grade while the second student would receive two A's (lab and course) which would increase that student's GPA unfairly. Is this the case?

 

[JJMrK]

What if the lab is only 1 credit hour and the course is 3? Or does AMCAS just calculate every single grade on the transcript equally no matter the credit earned and whether other schools have combined lab/course grades? If so, isn't that kind of unfair? What if someone taking sciences classes at school that combines both grades and another student is taking them at a school that separates the grades. Hypothetically, if the first student gets an A its just a single grade while the second student would receive two A's (lab and course) which would increase that student's GPA unfairly. Is this the case?

GPA is always calculated as (earned grade points)/(total possible grade points), with grade points for a specific course = (# units)(numerical representations of grade). In other words, classes worth more units are given greater weight.

AMCAS abides by this rule. Your GPA will be calculated exactly according to your transcript; if the lab is listed separately as a 1 unit course, it will be counted as such.

 

[premediator]

As mentioned, the university I regularly attend combines the lab and course grade and there are no hour credits. All classes at my university count as one credit (we need a total of 32 to graduate). So, will AMCAS only multiply my grades times 1 credit or will it convert them to credit hours (1 credit hour at my school equals the normal 3 hour credits most universities have)?

 

[JJMrK]

As mentioned, the university I regularly attend combines the lab and course grade and there are no hour credits. All classes at my university count as one credit (we need a total of 32 to graduate). So, will AMCAS only multiply my grades times 1 credit or will it convert them to credit hours (1 credit hour at my school equals the normal 3 hour credits most universities have)?

That makes it more complicated. You'll have to look at specific instructions on AMCAS when the form for your cycle opens up and/or call them. A good guess is that they'll go based whatever it says on your transcripts.

 

[premediator]

Does anybody have any idea about how AMCAS goes about calculating my GPA in my situation? Does AMCAS count my science class grades (combined lab and course grades) as just 1 credit, since my university uses unit credits not hours instead of the 3 hour course and 1 hour lab credits at most universities? Or, will AMCAS convert the 1 credit to hours? If so, will it be 3 hours just for the combined grade or will it separate the grade 3 hours for the course and 1 hour for the lab since it is a combined lab/course grade? Thanks guys.

 

[JJMrK]

Does anybody have any idea about how AMCAS goes about calculating my GPA in my situation? Does AMCAS count my science class grades (combined lab and course grades) as just 1 credit, since my university uses unit credits not hours instead of the 3 hour course and 1 hour lab credits at most universities? Or, will AMCAS convert the 1 credit to hours? If so, will it be 3 hours just for the combined grade or will it separate the grade 3 hours for the course and 1 hour for the lab since it is a combined lab/course grade? Thanks guys.

Look at your transcripts. If it only lists one class for both the lab and lecture, it won't be separated. If there are two entries, it will separate them.

My guess is that if all of your courses are worth 1 credit/unit/whatever, they will all be weighted equally. In reality, keeping them as 1 unit is really the same as converting them all to 3 units once you average them.

 

[premediator]

Ok, I looked at both of my transcripts - the one from the summer classes I took at another university which has separate 3 hour course credit and 1 hour lab credit for my physics classes and the other transcript from my regular university which has 0.5 unit credits for each class. I have an AMCAS gpa calculator I found online as an excel sheet and I want to calculate my gpa with it. However, I don't know if should equalize the different types of credits from both universities or should I just input the credits as they are shown on each transcript? If I do the latter, my gpa is much higher than if I just take all grades, no matter course credit or university, and just average them out. So I don't know what to do!

 

[JJMrK]

My guess is that AMCAS will convert things to credit hours, especially since some of your classes are in that format already. I'm not even close to being sure, though. You'll know after you submit your AMCAS in a few months.