Are your later grades weighted higher on AMCAs?

[HristosKaran]

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I recently heard from a fairly reliable source that there is a GPA on your AMCAs that weight your later grades higher than each previous year before it? Is this true, and if so, how is the weighting scored?

 

[1SwtWrld]

Your Source is Unreliable.........this is not true. Although most med schools do consider upward trends a positive.

 

[WayChanger]

I recently heard from a fairly reliable source that there is a GPA on your AMCAs that weight your later grades higher than each previous year before it? Is this true, and if so, how is the weighting scored?

No...everything is weighed equally, regardless of what year you took things. However, I imagine that individual schools may do as they please when looking at your grades, and give more weight to trends (improvement, decline) and/or later years, at their discretion.

 

[Dr.who]

While AMCAS will not weight your later grades higher, some schools will. I know for sure that the University of Washington employs the following formula:

(1*first year GPA + 2*second year GPA + 3*third year GPA)/6 = Cumulative GPA

They first look at your GPA by this formula, compare it to the rest, and then when they're really scrutinizing your application they look at your fourth year grades.

I would assume there are at least a couple other schools out there that do something similar, but who knows.

 

[dbhvt]

While AMCAS will not weight your later grades higher, some schools will. I know for sure that the University of Washington employs the following formula:

(1*first year GPA + 2*second year GPA + 3*third year GPA)/6 = Cumulative GPA

They first look at your GPA by this formula, compare it to the rest, and then when they're really scrutinizing your application they look at your fourth year grades.

I would assume there are at least a couple other schools out there that do something similar, but who knows.

😱 I was just going to make this shiit up and say that's what amcas does. same damn algorithm. therefore, I don't believe a word you are saying. dr.who is full of it, peeps.

 

[exmike]

I recently heard from a fairly reliable source that there is a GPA on your AMCAs that weight your later grades higher than each previous year before it? Is this true, and if so, how is the weighting scored?

What your source probably meant was that recent coursework probably carries more weight than old coursework to the adcom. similarily, given the same GPA, an upward trend is better than a downward trend.

 

[plainolerichie]

You had a bad source. Maybe the adcoms care about them more.

 

[Dr.who]

Dr.who is not full of it, homeboy; I heard about this algorithm from an admissions officer at the UW Med School when he came to my school, Western Washington University, to give a talk about getting into med school.

 

[TheFreshPrince]

Dr.who is not full of it, homeboy; I heard about this algorithm from an admissions officer at the UW Med School when he came to my school, Western Washington University, to give a talk about admissions.

NO. This doesn't even make sense.

 

[Bluntman]

NO. This doesn't even make sense.

You're wrong here. Some schools definitely DO weight your academic years (FR/SO/JR/SR) differently.

 

[deuist]

The "Thread of the Day" Award goes to HristosKaran for giving me a good shock this morning. There is no weighting from AMCAS; hence, why some people take easy classes during their sophomore and junior years to boost their GPAs.

 

[Anastasis]

Dr.who is not full of it, homeboy; I heard about this algorithm from an admissions officer at the UW Med School when he came to my school, Western Washington University, to give a talk about getting into med school.

Oh is that how you heard about it? I just figured you used the Tardis to sneak into the adcom office.

(that's my nerdy joke for the day).

 

[TheFreshPrince]

You're wrong here. Some schools definitely DO weight your academic years (FR/SO/JR/SR) differently.

I meant Amcas doesn't do this, not an individual school.

 

[iheartrain]

While AMCAS will not weight your later grades higher, some schools will. I know for sure that the University of Washington employs the following formula:

(1*first year GPA + 2*second year GPA + 3*third year GPA)/6 = Cumulative GPA

They first look at your GPA by this formula, compare it to the rest, and then when they're really scrutinizing your application they look at your fourth year grades.

I would assume there are at least a couple other schools out there that do something similar, but who knows.

But this completely ignores post-bac grades. I took all my pre-med classes in my senior and post-bac years...so does UW not even count these science grades in my gpa? That method sounds really stupid if its true. What a weird way of complicating an already complex process. I'm not getting it UW.