AMCAS GPA -- False Trend?

[clavicle]

My primary app just got verified and the way AMCAS ranked what is Fresh/Soph/Jr./Sr. year make it look as though I have a downward GPA trend. I spent 3 yrs at a CC, then 2 yrs at a university. My 1st year at the university wasn't the best, but I improved my 2nd/final year there (graduated with honors). Because I have 5yrs of schooling, AMCAS grouped most of my 1st year at the university (what I think of as my junior year) in with my senior/5th year grades, making it look like I did the worst as a senior.

Do medical schools look at each individual academic year (years 1-5 for me), or do they just look at the GPA's that AMCAS labels as Fresh/Soph/Jr./Sr. year?

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[el_duderino]

How much of a difference are we talking here? What's your cGPA and senior GPA?

 

[clavicle]

3.3-3.4 for the senior year overall and 3.6-3.8 for all years overall. The issue is most noticeable under the science gpa calculations where I go from a near 4.0 "junior" year to a 3.3-3.4 "senior" year.

 

[Lamel]

Man, that's rough. Maybe call them and re-submit for correction?

 

[baxt1412]

Man, that's rough. Maybe call them and re-submit for correction?

i'd go with that. it doesn't make sense that it would go with your senior year. your class standing should be dependent on how many credits you had completed at that point, so you would think basically your junior and senior years at your non-cc would have been counted as "senior" and then goes down from there... so your first year at cc should have been freshman, then second = soph, etc. i'm not sure why it did that.

i'd definitely get in contact with them and try to have it changed because that looks kinda sketch.

 

[persumas]

AMCAS is so strange in how it determines how to group Fresh/Soph/Jr./Sr credits... For mine it lumped the 2 years of CC coursework I took during high school as high school (understandable), then classified my university credits as 1st year - freshman, 2nd year - sophomore, 3rd year - senior. So apparently I have no junior credits. So odd that they aren't able to accurately distinguish grade level according to # of credits completed..

 

[Jepstein30]

AMCAS groups the years by credits.

Basically, your first 30 credits account for 'freshman' year, your second 30 credits account for 'sophomore' year and so on. Credits 90-120 and all additional credits go under senior year.

I'm not sure you can really get them to change that either.. that's their policies. If its a significant change, I would point it out in secondaries as simple clarification (no excuse making or blaming AMCAS). A simple "To clarify my reported GPA on AMCAS, here are my uGPA and sGPA by year:" and proceed to list them all.