called AMCAS,4 answers to same ?, disregard credit levels for 'year in school'?

[caffeineaholic]

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Should I disregard credit levels when designating 'year in school' status?

If anyone could help me out, especially anyone who had lots of AP credit whose AMCAS is already verified, I would really appreciate it. I'm trying to figure out what my year in school designation would be for each semester since I have an atypical profile regarding credits.

I graduated in 4 years (8 semesters) which is typical. However, I came in with 37 AP credits and also took classes for 2 summers, which make my credit level profile atypical. By my university's standards based solely on credits earned, my 'year in school' designations are:

Sophomore (1st semester - came in with 37 credits from AP & ended with 53.5 credits)
Sophomore (2nd semester - ended with 70.5 credits)
Junior (3rd semester - ended with 96.5 credits)
Senior (4th semester - ended with 114.5 credits)
Senior (5th semester - ended with 137.5 credits)
Senior (6th semester - ended with 155.5 credits)
Senior (7th semester- ended with 173.5 credits)
Senior (8th semester- ended with 189.5 credits)

This is strange due to having no semesters with freshman status (since it was all AP), one semester of junior status, and 5 semesters of senior status

AMCAS instructions:
The guidelines below will help you determine your Year in School for AMCAS. Note that AMCAS is not responsible for any delays in processing and/or incorrect GPA calculations that might result from incorrect Year in School assignments. If a Year in School greatly exceeds or falls under the guidelines, AMCAS may reassign statuses. Each undergraduate status should consist of approximately 30-35 semester hours. Applicants with undergraduate, full-time, continuous enrollment at an institution should usually change Academic Status after every 2 semesters, 3-4 quarters, or 2-3 trimesters.
Applicants who have been enrolled part-time, or who have had interrupted
attendance, should use these ranges to determine their appropriate status for each term:
High School (HS) College-level course work taken while in high school
Freshman (FR) 0-32 semester hours
Sophomore (SO) 31-64 semester hours
Junior (JR) 61-96 semester hours
Senior (SR) 91 or more semester hours

Based off of this, I would think that due to continuous enrollment and graduating in 8 semesters, I would utterly disregard credit levels and change academic status every 2 semesters; so I'd be freshman, freshman, sophomore, sophomore, junior, junior, senior, senior.


However, I called AMCAS 4 times to check about this and received a different answer each time.

1) (in early June) - guy said to use my school's designations for 'year in school' so my AMCAS would be as close as possible to my university transcript, even if it is atypical (thus, I entered everything in according to that)

2) (today call 1) - lady said to use AMCAS instructions' credit ranges to designate 'year in school' status

3) (today call 2) - lady said to not use credit ranges at all, those are only for part-time students and if I used credit ranges, my info would be wrong; so I should do freshman, freshman, sophomore, sophomore, junior, junior, senior, senior

4) (today call 3) - lady said since I'm not part-time, I shouldn't use credit ranges, but that it's really up to personal preference what to do (credit ranges vs. no credit ranges) and that it doesn't really matter. She said some people go by their school's credit ranges, others don't, and that which way they picked can affect Fr/Soph/Jun/Sen GPAs and that people just go with whichever's favorable to them and that AMCAS doesn't mind either way.


I called so many times to try to get a consistent answer so I would know what rules to work by, and now i"m just confused as to what I should do.

Going by my school's / AMCAS's credit level method, I have no freshman GPA credits (since it's all AP which is non-graded) and have 33.5 sophomore GPA credits, 26 junior GPA credits, and 93 senior GPA credits. 152.5 graded credits and 37 non-graded credits = 189.5 total credits.

Going by AMCAS's 'Don't use credit levels method," I'd have GPAs for Fr/Soph/Jun/Sen for semesters of 33.5-36 credits, though I'd actually have a downward grade trend (since I performed best my frosh year with easier classes and did worst my senior year due to taking uber-interesting upper level classes w/o the pre-reqs and due to sustaining a serious injury that impacted my grades). I would also have to go back and manually change all of the 'year in school' statuses that I currently have entered.

Which method should I use? My main concern is doing this in a fashion that will make it easiest for AMCAS people to follow my application so it doesn't get delayed.

 

[mvenus929]

I had 47 credits going in, and they designated my entire year as freshman, my entire second year as sophomore, and my third year as senior. By credit level, I started as a sophomore, stayed there for two semesters, had a semester as a junior, and then went to senior. But I'm graduating in three, so I dunno. Maybe you should include your third year as a junior year....

 

[154241]

I'm looking at mine and it looks like they didn't count my AP as contributing to year status. I had 31 AP credits listed under fall freshman year (acc. to AMCAS instructions), but the year gpa/credit count total columns didn't include them; AP is mentioned elsewhere. I didn't pay any attention to proper class status b/c it didn't occur to me filling out AMCAS, but they verified my classes exactly the way I listed them: by the calendar year in which I took them, not year according to # of credits accumulated. Hope that helps; I bet caller #3 was right about it not mattering too much.

 

[GophurIt]

Yeah I think I had 45 units coming in, I just made entire 1st year freshman, 2nd soph, etc otherwise I would have 1 semester junior, and the rest would be senior

I think it does matter how you designate them because what is important is to separate your years, if you had an upwards trend for example, combining everything into "senior" would not show it off

 

[seraph524]

doesnt matter, go with credit standing

i came in college with 75, on my amcas i listed first year as "junior" and the rest as "senior"

i got verified, and it all checked out

 

[Nikki2002]

I may be wrong, but I think they just did it strictly by year...not by credits. so--my first year in college i was a freshman, second year soph., etc. it didn't matter that I was a senior by the end of my second year.

 

[bullishMD]

doesnt matter, go with credit standing

i came in college with 75, on my amcas i listed first year as "junior" and the rest as "senior"

i got verified, and it all checked out

yeah i came in with 35 and didnt just like him, iwas a sophmore after my first quarter and thats how i listed it and it worked out just fine after verification

 

[AppleseedCast]

do med schools see these types of corrections that AMCAS makes on primaries? i.e. the correction symbols at the right of each course on a student printout

 

[mvenus929]

do med schools see these types of corrections that AMCAS makes on primaries? i.e. the correction symbols at the right of each course on a student printout

LizzyM has alluded to the fact that she does see them, but never really cared about them.