Bad GPA from college courses taken in high school...suggestions/questions

[godofpath]

I am a soon-to-be college freshman and a hopeful premed. I have taken several intro science and math courses at a local 4 year university. Suffering from senioritis, a deluge of other responsibilities, numerous APs, and not realizing that I would have to submit ALL transcripts to med schools, I made bad grades in those courses (think Cs). I believe these grades do not accurately reflect my academic potential, especially in the sciences; however, due to the fact that AMCAS requires transcripts from all undergraduate institutions, it seems that my overall and science GPA already took a huge dip. What is worse is that I will have to retake several of those courses in undergrad due to differences in syllabi between the local 4 year college and my undergraduate institution. None of the courses I took at the 4 year college were for "actual credit" (I won't transfer them), but merely to satisfy my curiosity and prepare me for some of the research I was doing back then.

So I have a couple of questions...

How would AMCAS compute my GPA if the two institutions used differing credit systems (i.e one uses 3 or 4 credits per course, and the other operates on 0.5 or 1 credits per course)

Will AMCAS average my GPA between two courses if I retake it? And will this reflect negatively on my application?

How can I explain the circumstances surrounding those grades, and how might I obviate the undoubtedly adverse consequences?

What if I didn't send the transcript and played dumb...what are the chances AMCAS would actually find out?

Just to preempt some of you, yes, I have done a search for this topic, but the almost all the threads feature minimal GPA drops (and most of the time, GPA gains) involved in submitting those college transcripts. I think that my situation is different in terms of the negative effects that my grades have. And yes, I do realize that AMCAS requires you to send all your transcripts, and that I am morally and ethically incorrect to think about fooling the rules for an ultimately personal and selfish reason; however, I was naive and didn't realize the courses actually "counted" (and I would have tried infinitely harder if they had), and I really don't want to start my undergraduate life with a 2 something science/overall GPA due to this stupid mistake, which would basically preclude me from top med schools.


Thanks in advance to any responses/answers.

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[student1799]

What if I didn't send the transcript and played dumb...what are the chances AMCAS would actually find out?

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you do this, because if you get caught (which is highly likely), this will be considered falsification of your application and you will most likely never get into med school at all. (If you have already been admitted when the admission is discovered, your offer will be revoked.) It's really not worth the risk.

Philosophically, I think this rule is ridiculous, and has no real justification behind it, because an applicant's performance on college courses taken in HIGH SCHOOL has nothing to do with that person's ability to succeed in med school. However, rules are rules, and you have to follow them.

Since AMCAS breaks out your GPA into different buckets (HS, undergrad by year, undergrad overall), it will be clear on your application that it's the HS grades that are dragging you down. If you do really well in your undergrad prereq classes, I think you can make a strong argument on your med school application that the HS grades are not reflective of your true ability. Say that you weren't ready for college work yet, were immature, etc., but now you're fully ready and have performed up to your true potential.

Another thing you might want to do, just as an insurance policy, is apply to a few DO schools. I don't know if they count HS grades in your GPA to begin with, but even if they do, they calculate it differently than MD schools. They allow "grade replacement," which means that if you retake a class and get a higher grade, the new grade replaces the old one. This would completely remove the negative impact on your GPA.

Good luck with premed and med school applications.

 

[soulwater]

I had the same problem but when i asked my adviser today, he said it does not matter, the grade won't carry over, but i don't have to take the same class over, now that i think about it....it does not sound right.

 

[Van Chowder]

I had the same problem but when i asked my adviser today, he said it does not matter, the grade won't carry over, but i don't have to take the same class over, now that i think about it....it does not sound right.

Man... This is why I cant stand advisers.. It does get counted into your GPA, I was in the same situation as the op, as I took a history class the summer before senior year and got a C in it. I emailed a couple of the UC Med schools and they all said that it WILL count into my GPA.. Sux but oh well 😀

 

[soulwater]

i will kill him !! he screwed me over, and i could have just taken that class over again in college >.< but nooo he told me it does not matter...i got 2.0 in that class, don't ask- senior year too much partying 🙁...i cant change mu classes, school policy . hopefully i can still get a 4.0 overall in college ?? or am i screwed .

 

[godofpath]

I was in the same situation as the op, as I took a history class the summer before senior year and got a C in it. I emailed a couple of the UC Med schools and they all said that it WILL count into my GPA.. Sux but oh well 😀

Was this history class taken for college credit or was it just for fun. I think from the AMCAS FAQ, one can get the impression that if it wasn't for transfer, then you don't necessarily have to submit them.

1. If I received transfer credits, do I need to have transcripts sent from those schools?
   AMCAS requires that official transcripts from all U.S. and Canadian post-secondary institutions are submitted, regardless of which school(s) accepted this credit. For example, if you take a summer course at a community college and transfer the work to your primary/home institution, AMCAS requires BOTH official transcripts; the one from the community college and the one from your regular year college, even if the community college course work also appears on your home institution transcript.

I dunno, but I think the implication in the answer is that if you received transfer credits, then a official transcript is required; however, if no transfer credits were received or used (the classes were taken for the hell of it), then the same stringent rules may not necessarily apply. My reasoning is based on the wording of the question itself: "If I received transfer credit", and how the answer is phrased: "regardless of which schools accepted this credit" (This dependent clause is constraining the first independent clause). Moreover, in the example that they gave, the student clearly transferred credit from the community college, and thus required a transcript. I think there exists a slight implication that if the credits were not transferred, the transcript would not have to be sent. Of course, this is all using very suspect reasoning and heavily involves ambiguous semantics, and I'm probably totally wrong (hey, can hurt to try, right? 😀).

Again, I think this rule is punishing people for no apparent reason, especially since people in high school are unlikely to realize the fact that every course they take counts, even if they don't want to use that college credit to transfer to their undergraduate institution.

 

[Col Kurtz]

Was this history class taken for college credit or was it just for fun. I think from the AMCAS FAQ, one can get the impression that if it wasn't for transfer, then you don't necessarily have to submit them.

[/LIST]
I dunno, but I think the implication in the answer is that if you received transfer credits, then a official transcript is required; however, if no transfer credits were received or used (the classes were taken for the hell of it), then the same stringent rules may not necessarily apply. My reasoning is based on the wording of the question itself: "If I received transfer credit", and how the answer is phrased: "regardless of which schools accepted this credit" (This dependent clause is constraining the first independent clause). Moreover, in the example that they gave, the student clearly transferred credit from the community college, and thus required a transcript. I think there exists a slight implication that if the credits were not transferred, the transcript would not have to be sent. Of course, this is all using very suspect reasoning and heavily involves ambiguous semantics, and I'm probably totally wrong (hey, can hurt to try, right? 😀).

Again, I think this rule is punishing people for no apparent reason, especially since people in high school are unlikely to realize the fact that every course they take counts, even if they don't want to use that college credit to transfer to their undergraduate institution.

"AMCAS requires that official transcripts from all U.S. and Canadian post-secondary institutions are submitted, regardless of which school(s) accepted this credit."

I think the bolded phrase trumps all. Even if the words imply something like that, I would not want to be forced to defend my omission based on what the hyper-technical syntax on an faq could mean.

 

[plsletmein]

[/LIST]
I dunno, but I think the implication in the answer is that if you received transfer credits, then a official transcript is required; however, if no transfer credits were received or used (the classes were taken for the hell of it), then the same stringent rules may not necessarily apply. My reasoning is based on the wording of the question itself: "If I received transfer credit", and how the answer is phrased: "regardless of which schools accepted this credit" (This dependent clause is constraining the first independent clause). Moreover, in the example that they gave, the student clearly transferred credit from the community college, and thus required a transcript. I think there exists a slight implication that if the credits were not transferred, the transcript would not have to be sent. Of course, this is all using very suspect reasoning and heavily involves ambiguous semantics, and I'm probably totally wrong (hey, can hurt to try, right? 😀).

Again, I think this rule is punishing people for no apparent reason, especially since people in high school are unlikely to realize the fact that every course they take counts, even if they don't want to use that college credit to transfer to their undergraduate institution.

Transcript Requirements
One official transcript is required from each U.S., U.S. Territorial, or Canadian postsecondary
institution at which you have attempted course work, regardless of
whether credit was earned. This includes but is not limited to:
• College-level courses attempted while in high school, even if they did not
count toward a degree at any college.
• Colleges at which you originally attempted a course, even if transfer credit
was subsequently accepted by another school.
• Colleges where you registered but did not earn any credit (e.g., incompletes,
withdrawals, failures, audits, etc.).
• Courses that did not count toward a degree, regardless of whether credit was
earned or transferred.
• Extension programs through which you attempted courses, if a separate
transcript is provided by the Extension Division.
• Correspondence and home study programs.
• Military education.
• American schools overseas.
• U.S., U.S. Territorial, and Canadian medical schools.

when you play with fire, you're bound to get burned...

 

[RunwayModel]

when you play with fire, you're bound to get burned...

Lesson to be learned from this: ABSOLUTELY DO NOT take college courses at a local community college DURING high school, bc if you don't make straight A's it may come to bite you later.

A community college class = Credit only w/no grade points at the 4 yr. institution but counts for credit AND gradepoints on AMCAS

AP exam = Credit only w/no grade points at the 4 yr. institution and Credit only w/no grade points on AMCAS