College Classes you took while in High School...

[BerkeleyPremed]

I looked at the Instruction booklet for the 2004 AMCAS application and it says that they INCLUDE college classes you took DURING HIGH SCHOOL in your AMCAS science/non-science GPA and your overall GPA. So if Student A took 30 units of communtiy college classes during high school and earned As in all of them, wouldn't his AMCAS GPA be inflated? Seeing that community college courses are usually easier than courses offered by 4 year universities, wouldn't it be unfair to other applicants to include these community college units in Student As GPA? Also, let's look at the flip side of the coin. What if Student B didn't do so well in high school and took a community college class while in high school and earned a C or D? Student B goes onto college and does excellently in his premed classes and other university courses because he now has the ambition and work ethic he lacked in high school. 5 years after high school, Student B applies to medical school (let's say he took a year off after graduation from college to do research or volunteering at a hospital)...is it fair that Student B has a college class that he took in HIGH SCHOOl pulling down his AMCAS GPA? Why should he be haunted by something he did over 5 years ago in high school? Please discuss. If I overlooked anything in the Instruction Booklet or if you have any additional information about this, please feel free to inform me.

Berkeley '05

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[chapinsita]

nope, you didn't misread. The sad fact is that high school college credits do count towards your AMCAS GPA. The good part is that it says it was during high school. I took about 20 units of cc during my last 2 years of high school and boy do I regret it. Oh well, hopefully they realize how ridiculous this is.

 

[LadyBug9933]

but... what if you just don't report the college credits? is that possible? if you took them locally, can you just not report them to your university?

 

[deez4life]

Originally posted by LadyBug9933
but... what if you just don't report the college credits? is that possible? if you took them locally, can you just not report them to your university?

You have to list all post-secondary institutions you have EVER attended. If AMCAS finds out that you took college classes (ie in high school) and did not report them, they will launch an investigation and revoke your application. Even if you didn't transfer credits to your university.

I would recommend not trying to bend the AMCAS policy, as it will come back to haunt you very quickly.

 

[bnichols0330]

If you seem to think that Community College classes are so much easier than a 4-year instituion's classes, then why are you hesitating reporting them? I assume since they were easy that you have straight A's. If not then be careful before you begin stereotyping anyone who has ever taken classes at a community college. Also, I hope that you transferred those credits into your 4 year institute to graduate. If for example you don't report on AMCAS that you took English 101 at a community college, however you have a degree, they are probably going to question how you got a degree without taking EN101. So my advice to you is report it, and if you didn't do so hot. Go back and retake the courses (at a community college or a 4-year institue b/c now you realize a college course is a college course no matter where you take it) and prove that you have matured and can make a better grade.

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

To BNichols: When did this thread become about me? I included 2 scenarios in my post. The first scenario (Student A) was about students who took lots of community college courses while in high school and earned As in all of them. It wouldn't exactly be fair to have all of these As inflate that student's GPA, would it? Seeing as everyone else had to take harder courses at their 4-year universities, why should this student receive a boost from community college courses he took as a HIGH SCHOOL student? That's my only problem here. If the student did freshman and sophomore year at a community college and then transferred to a 4-year university, there is no problem. Of course those community college units should factor into this GPA because he was a fully enrolled COLLEGE STUDENT when he took them. However, the former case involves boosting someone's GPA for something they did in HIGH SCHOOL. The second scenario is just the flip side of the coin. Why should someone be penalized for something they did in high school? Isn't college supposed to be a new start (with a blank slate)? Student B shouldn't be punished if he did poorly in a community college class that he took in HIGH SCHOOL. I'm trying to debate the fairnes of the issue here. I never said that I took a community college course while in high school and did poorly. If you must know, I took 27 units of community college courses while I was still a high school student. I earned straight As in 24 of those units and earned a B in the last 3 units I took as a senior. I had already received admission to Berkeley at that point so I had senioritis ;-) However, it's not exactly fair for those units to count in my science and non-science GPA. Those classes WERE MUCH EASIER than the classes I'm taking now at Berkeley. I feel that including those courses in my GPA would give me an unfair advantage seeing as some of my classmates took the MUCH HARDER equivalent of those communtiy college classes here at UC Berkeley. Overall, I think community colleges are much easier than universities. However, my opinion is just based on my experiences (anecdotal evidence).

Berkeley '05

 

[28129]

I have a 3.80 at Cornell. But part of that comes from 4 A+s that I got (which are #$!*ing hard to get at Cornell) and are worth 4.3 each. AMCAS doesn't consider A+'s, so my GPA when they are converted to A's is only 3.75.

But I took 12 credits at U-Toledo when I was in high school, and I got A's in them. So they pull my GPA back up to 3.78.

So it sort of averaged out for me.

 

[bnichols0330]

Berkeley, I apologize for personalizing the issue. I suppose that I am simply taking the flip side of the debate. I say that overall community college courses are easier than 4-year university courses, and I too took hours as a high school senior and made A's. My point is that once you get into debating equality of course difficulty b/w 4-year universities and community colleges you must also consider differences between 4-year universities. For example I'm sure it is much more difficult to pull an A in Biochem at Harvard than it is at East Kalamazoo State. You must draw a line somewhere, and I feel that the line should be drawn between college courses and high school courses. Regardless of what you did during the day, whether it be high school or a VP of a company if you take college courses at night or on weekends you should receive college credit (and have the results weighed against you). If a high school student is not ready to worry about GPA's and competitiveness for future endeavors, then I feel he/she shouldn't be taking college courses. Again I apologize for taking it personal and being confrontational, but I feel College Course = College Credit = College Responsibility

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

The only reason I brought this up is because I didn't know this until I read the 2004 AMCAS Instruction Booklet. Previously, I thought anything you did in high school could never be used to boost you up/drag you down. However, it appears that people on both sides of the fence will suffer from this. Students like myself will feel bad since we're getting an advantage for college classes we took WHILE IN HIGH SCHOOL. In addition, I'm positive there are people who out there who took college classes in high school and did not do so well in them. And when they apply to medical school three, four, or five years later...they will be surprised to find out that their GPA is being pulled down by college classes they took while in high school. Well, I guess this is just an issue that premeds have to deal with. Best of luck to you.

Berkeley '05

"I want to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill."----Private Joker Full Metal Jacket


"And like that...he's gone."-----Keiser Soze
The Usual Suspects

 

[Oasis]

this thread is interesting. I jsut graduated from high school and took around 30 units at my local CC and got A's in all of the classes. I dont feel bad for this though. Why should I? becuase i wanted to work a little harder and give my self an advantage for med school?

 

[deez4life]

Originally posted by Oasis
this thread is interesting. I jsut graduated from high school and took around 30 units at my local CC and got A's in all of the classes. I dont feel bad for this though. Why should I? becuase i wanted to work a little harder and give my self an advantage for med school?

ah, the thread revived. adcom directors have told me they take high school cc credit with a lot of salt. it's a cc after all. your true undergrad counts exponentially more in your admission. an inflated/deflated amcas gpa due to cc classes will reveal itself very quickly the second the adcoms look at your course history.

deez

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

Exactly. I think having an inflated AMCAS gpa due to college courses you took in high school (like I do) would probably look worse than a deflated AMCAS gpa because you took a college coures in high school and didn't do so well in it. First of all, these are community college units. They will not be taken nearly as seriously as the units taken at a 4-year university. Secondly, these courses were taken as a HIGH SCHOOL student. The status for these courses is HS on the AMCAS application. Why would they even look at your HS GPA? (even if it was a really high GPA like mine...which was a 3.88) The most important GPA for medical school admissions is the UNDERGRADUATE GPA. My only question is...would community college courses you took in high school actually factor INTO your undergraduate GPA? If so, then mine will be inflated...especially given the fact that my primary undergraduate institution is a million times harder than the CC I attended in high school. Would these CC classes I took in HIGH SCHOOL actually factor into my undergrad gpa?

Berkeley '05

 

[fiatlux]

Originally posted by BerkeleyPremed
Would these CC classes I took in HIGH SCHOOL actually factor into my undergrad gpa?

Berkeley '05

To answer your question, plainly. YES. But there is a corollary statement. This is only true if you recieved a letter grade and recieved grade units reflected on an academic transcript from that college. That is how it worked for me. Many adcoms will look carefully at your course history and that is all that you can hope for so dont sweat it. Apply early, study hard at cal, do well on your mcat and most important of all, dont be a berkeleypremed, be instead a berkeley[insert something unique to you] and also premed. Good luck.

 

[thackl]

I wish TMDSAS was like that. They only throw out the grade if it is AP. I took 20 credits at SU when in HS and didn't work very hard (just transfered them to RIT). Anyway, I had a 3.25 SU GPA and it brought me down from a 3.9+ to a 3.81 (science).

 

[Mutterkuchen]

I think that college credit is college credit. Schools will probably look less closely at the grades that you got in high school (CC), but they will still be factored, especially if they use a cutoff system.

I don't see much of a problem with this, especially when students get 20-30 hours of credit. This is really no different than going to a CC for your first or second year of college and then transferring to a 4 year institution. We're talking about basic courses, not advanced biochem.

 

[gwyn779]

What about classes taken at a 4-year college while still in high school? All this talk has been about CC's. Anyway, I think AdCom's understand the difference between colleges of any type. I also agree that if someone feels they need/want to take college courses in high school, they should count as college courses.

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

No one is saying that they shouldn't count as college courses. The only issue is if they count in your UNDERGRADUATE gpa. Any college courses I took while in high school shouldn't be included in my undergraduate gpa because I wasn't an undergraduate when I took these courses, was I? Wasn't I a high school student? I didn't become an undergraduate until freshman year of college. It's fine that they have a separate high school GPA (which medical schools won't even care about anway), but it wouldn't make sense if they count in your undergraduate gpa. If they count in your overall GPA (that includes high school, undergrad, grad school, etc), it still wouldn't matter. However, if all those college courses I took in high school count in my undergraduate GPA, I would be receiving an unfair advantage over the other Berkeley students applying to medical school because I get to include 24 units worth of As (from a community college I went to in high school) in my undergrad GPA. These courses were MUCH EASIER than the courses I'm taking now at UC Berkeley and I took these courses in high school to gain admission to top COLLEGES, not medical schools.

Berkeley '05

 

[Oasis]

but see, your situation is not necessarily that of other people who took CC classes. For example, the reason i took CC classes while in high school was to get alot of bull**** pre reqs out of the way so i can focus on my science classes and take humanities classes that i actually want to take instead of have to take. In any case, i dont see how i should be penalized for working a little harder. Its not like i took these classes with the intention of inflating my grades. Also, CC classes are not necessarily alot easier than classes taken at schools like Berkeley, just alot less competitive. Think about it, what makes classes hard at berkeley is their grading curve, but the material you learn in some classes is the same anywhere.I dont expect medical schools to count my CC classes equally with my undergrade GPA when i apply to medical schools but I think one should be rewarded for working a little harder... dont you?

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

"In any case, i dont see how i should be penalized for working a little harder."

To Oasis: No one is saying that you should be penalized for working harder during high school. If anything, you'll be REWARDED for taking these community college courses while in high school because the admissions committees will see your High School GPA on your AMCAS application and they'll know that you worked really hard in high school by taking college courses, as opposed to regular high school courses. Those high school grades will also be factored into your overall AMCAS GPA. However, I don't think any of these high school grades should count in our UNDERGRADUATE GPA. That way, no one gets their undergraduate GPA deflated and/or inflated by courses they took while in high school.

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

Finally, some answers! I emailed AMCAS about this and they replied with the following:


Subj: Re: RQST00000125998
Date: 7/29/2003 8:51:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: [email protected]
To: (my email address here...i deleted it)
Sent from the Internet (Details)


Dear Applicant,

Thank you for contacting AMCAS.

The coursework taken in High School won't be calculated into your Undergraduate GPA.

If you have any questions, or if we can be of additional assistance, please contact us at
[email protected], or (202) 828-0600.

AMCAS

ds


dsc

 

[deez4life]

Yes, BerkeleyPremed, that is correct. High school dual-enrolled courses count as HS credit, while those taken after graduation count as undergraduate UG credit. However, in your AMCAS and Science GPA calculation, all credits are equal.

deez

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

Seeing as they put "Undergraduate GPA" in bold and with a larger font size on the AMCAS applcation whereas all the other GPAs (graduate school, high school, etc) are just in regular font, I'm assuming the admissions committees will be looking at your UNDERGRADUATE BCPM GPA and your UNDERGRADUATE AO GPA the most. I seriously doubt any of the AO GPAs really have that much effect on your admission. So judging from just the AMCAS application, I'd assume that the undergraduate BCPM GPA will be the one you want to have as high as humanly possible. AMCAS didn't make the mistake I thought it did...because FIATLUX posted above and said "Yes, it will be counted towards your undergraduate GPA if you received a grade and credit"...I was under the impression that all 27 of the community college units that I took during high school would basically inflate my UNDERGRADUATE GPA. However, as my email above proved...this is NOT the case. Any community college courses you took in HIGH SCHOOL will not touch your undergraduate GPA. When you say "science" GPA...I'm assuming you're referring to the BCPM GPA. But wouldn't they only care about the BCPM GPA for undergrad? Given the fact that graduate schools are generally grade-inflated and we already saw that courses taken in high school don't matter...why would they even look at the overall science GPA?

 

[deez4life]

Judging from your comments, it doesn't appear that you you've filled out the AMCAS application or seen the printout. On the printout (what schools will see) there is no "total UG GPA or UG BCPM GPA." The closest they get to totaling your UG GPA is by calculating your total for that particular year in college, ie. freshman, sophomore, junior, senior.

What they do include on the printout: total HS BCPM GPA, total HS AO GPA, total HS GPA, yearly UG BCPM GPA, yearly UG AO GPA, and yearly total UG GPA. Last, and most importantly, they tally up all your GPA's at the bottom of the chart to create a total BCPM GPA, total AO GPA, and total AMCAS GPA. These last three are what schools will most probably look at first, since they provide an immediate total for your GPA's that the UG breakdown does not provide. There is no singular totaling of your cumulative UG GPA.

However, after this first table, there is a semester by semester listing of all your courses on your printout. Any school worth its salt will probably ignore the tables from HS and go straight to the UG tables. So it is only upon close inspection that a school discovers the fallacy of dual-enrolled credit. Good thing adcoms inspect closely, eh?

Boy, I just love AMCAS semantics.

deez