Calculating GPA when all courses are 1 unit?

[meliora27]

I'm a non-trad doing a post-bacc right now and I understand that when AMCAS calculates my GPA 3 credit courses such as lectures will be multiplied x3 and 1 credit courses such as labs will be multiplied x1. At my undergrad institution however, all courses were simply "1 unit". How is this factored? A comparable Bio class for example where I'm doing my post-bacc is 150 mins of classroom instruction/week just as it was at my undergrad institution, however it seems like it's weighted 3x higher. Has anyone else had this situation?

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[DrMidlife]

I'm a non-trad doing a post-bacc right now and I understand that when AMCAS calculates my GPA 3 credit courses such as lectures will be multiplied x3 and 1 credit courses such as labs will be multiplied x1. At my undergrad institution however, all courses were simply "1 unit". How is this factored? A comparable Bio class for example where I'm doing my post-bacc is 150 mins of classroom instruction/week just as it was at my undergrad institution, however it seems like it's weighted 3x higher. Has anyone else had this situation?

Typically, a class that has lecture for 3 hours a week is a 3 unit class. A lab that meets for 3 hours a week is a 1 unit class. This varies.

The dividing line between each school year (in AMCAS, TMDSAS and AACOMAS) is set at the number of units accumulated. For example, on the semester system, the 30 unit mark defines the end of freshman year, and for the quarter system, it's 45 units.

So a system of "everything is one unit" is going to need conversion, and you might want to plan on spending time (early on) communicating the conversion to the app services. In your shoes, I'd be looking on your transcript, or in the university catalog, for a term like "credit hours," or otherwise figuring out how to come up with equivalent terms.

Best of luck to you.

 

[kami333]

Your old school's registrar's office can usually quickly tell you what the conversion is to credit hours, mine is also listed on the back of my transcript.

(Incidentally, all of my classes were 4credit hours, I feel jipped for all the labs I had to take)

 

[gman33]

Penn uses that "unit" system.
AMCAS converts 1 unit = 3 credits.
There were some classes (labs) that were 1/2 units. This converted to 1.5 credits in AMCAS.

AMCAS has a conversion table for individual schools that don't use the credit system. I've never seen it published, but I'm sure they could tell you if you called.