Common Question - Engineering & BCPM

[confusedchild]

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For those who are engineers, this is a common question...

Having talked to a few people in the past from my school and my major who have applied to medical school, I know the following classes can be classified as BCPM primarily because of their title...

ELE ENGR X "PHYSICS-ELECTRC ENGR"
ELE ENGR X "ELEC ENGR PHYSICS I"
ELE ENGR X "PROBABILITY"
MECH&AE X "INT-ENGR THERMODYNC"

So here's the question..I don't know if the following two classes can be classified as BCPM. What does everyone think?

C&EE X "STATICS AND DYNAMICS"
ELE ENGR X "ENGR ELECTROMAGNTCS"

 

[drizzt3117]

It depends. I was an engineer and many of my classes didn't fall into BCPM. Some certainly will though.

 

[FlowLimited]

Here's my advice: if you think it could fall under your BCPM, list it as such. The worst thing that can happen is they change it. Big whoop. There's no penalty for trying and it won't hold up your app.

 

[thoffen]

I had several similar titles and they weren't classified as BCPM. Of course I didn't want them to be...

 

[Bryson17]

C&EE X "STATICS AND DYNAMICS"
ELE ENGR X "ENGR ELECTROMAGNTCS"

Statics and Dynamics - I don't really know, but I'd say yes. Sounds like all physics to me.
Electromagnetics - absolutely. It's all physics and math. (Biot Savart, Forces due to magnetic fields, integrals of charge densities, etc.)

When I looked back at my classes, I pretty much looked at how many integrals I did in each class (I'm EE, which it appears that you are as well). If I felt like the class concentrated on integrals, then I put it as BCPM.

 

[236116]

It's a crapshoot for all of them.

Just be honest: is it mostly real-physics, or mostly engineering-physics?

 

[235009]

if you did well in the class (if it will bring your BCPM up) then categorize it as BCPM and if it doesn't help your BCPM then don't list it as BCPM. if they have a problem with it they'll change it. Oh and try not to make it TOO obvious that you're doing that.

 

[confusedchild]

hey all,

Thanks for the responses. The two classes I listed were the ones that I thought were extremely physics heavy. There was very little if any engineering in them as both of them were actually the 101 course for EE and Civil E respectively. So I think I'm just going to list them as BCPM and see what AMCAS says. I'm definitely not trying to push it, haha; there are many engineering courses that I know are just to engineering based to be rightly considered as BCPM. My main motivation for wanting to list the C&EE101 class as BCPM is because I obtained a letter from that professor and it should be a decently strong letter, and I figure that if AMCAS considers it as BCPM, there is no excuse for a school not to take it. I know that most schools (at least based off of my brother's experience) seem to have no problem taking engineering professors as science letters anyways (a few schools are more picky and selective). But just in case I want to classify it as BCPM so there letter can be regarded as BCPM and not one of those iffy middle ground letters. Alrighty, thanks for all the input!

 

[atomi]

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[chief illiniwek]

hey all,

Thanks for the responses. The two classes I listed were the ones that I thought were extremely physics heavy. There was very little if any engineering in them as both of them were actually the 101 course for EE and Civil E respectively. So I think I'm just going to list them as BCPM and see what AMCAS says. I'm definitely not trying to push it, haha; there are many engineering courses that I know are just to engineering based to be rightly considered as BCPM. My main motivation for wanting to list the C&EE101 class as BCPM is because I obtained a letter from that professor and it should be a decently strong letter, and I figure that if AMCAS considers it as BCPM, there is no excuse for a school not to take it. I know that most schools (at least based off of my brother's experience) seem to have no problem taking engineering professors as science letters anyways (a few schools are more picky and selective). But just in case I want to classify it as BCPM so there letter can be regarded as BCPM and not one of those iffy middle ground letters. Alrighty, thanks for all the input!

really? i think it was my pre-med advisor who told me that engineering professors could absolutely not be used to get science LORs. i thought it was silly, but i believed her. if i had known there were schools that would take them, my application would have been alot stronger.

now i hate my pre-med advisor even more.😡

 

[Podalarius]

BCPM is determined by content, not course name. Thermodynamics, E&M, and statics can all be reasonably classified under BCPM. I classified design or process-focused courses as engineering and theory courses as BCPM, and AMCAS did not reclassify anything. My only science letter (submitted as part of a committee letter) was from an engineering professor for a class I categorized as BCPM, and neither my school's committee nor medical schools seemed to find a problem with this - some schools might be more strict about this than others, of course, so I don't know how much one applicant's experience matters.

 

[confusedchild]

really? i think it was my pre-med advisor who told me that engineering professors could absolutely not be used to get science LORs. i thought it was silly, but i believed her. if i had known there were schools that would take them, my application would have been alot stronger.

now i hate my pre-med advisor even more.😡

ya i'm sorry to hear that!...a lot of pre med advisors don't know what they're talking about..some of course are really helpful. At my school, the advisors tell us to take far more classes than is necessary for medical school and most people just end up not listening to them. Yah, my brother submitted three engineering professors (none of the classes he took with them were classified as BCPM) and he's gotten over 9 interviews, so I don't think it should be a problem. For schools that are extremely picky, I might have to figure out a way to get my letters through but i'm assuming the argument that might course was considered BCPM should be more than sufficient evidence to consider the corresponding letters as science LORs.

 

[dr zaius]

really? i think it was my pre-med advisor who told me that engineering professors could absolutely not be used to get science LORs. i thought it was silly, but i believed her. if i had known there were schools that would take them, my application would have been alot stronger.

now i hate my pre-med advisor even more.😡

Mine did the same thing. I had to wrangle up some professors that I hadn't seen in 4 years to write my letters. Very frustrating.

 

[The Anhedonia]

i have a degree in geotechincal engineering and i am working towards dental school. in my experience, all of those classes beyond engineering physics and engineering chemistry do not count towards BCMP. the general rule (at least at my current institution) is that if it does not count for the non-engineering versions of those classes, it cannot contribute to your BCMP. The only exception to this is calculus I,II,III and Differential Equations as they are purely math courses.

I took all of those fancy engineering classes, but in applying for a pre-health committee letter, in the application, i had to fill out a separate spread sheet with my engineering classes.

 

[ams83]

On a related note, does taking a graduate level Math class in graduate school count towards BCPM or does it just fall in the AO GPA?

 

[FlowLimited]

On a related note, does taking a graduate level Math class in graduate school count towards BCPM or does it just fall in the AO GPA?

Graduate school courses are not factored into your undergraduate GPA. There is a separate GPA calculated for graduate school.

 

[Bradstein]

ELE ENGR X "PHYSICS-ELECTRC ENGR"
ELE ENGR X "ELEC ENGR PHYSICS I"

Physics

ELE ENGR X "PROBABILITY"

Math

MECH&AE X "INT-ENGR THERMODYNC"

Chemistry

C&EE X "STATICS AND DYNAMICS"

Engineering (NOT BCPM. Statics may seem like physics but it's engineering.)

ELE ENGR X "ENGR ELECTROMAGNTCS"

Physics

Courses are organized based on content. You can learn more by taking a look at the AMCAS 2010 instruction book: http://www.aamc.org/students/amcas/amcas2010instructions041509.pdf

 

[UVAbme2009]

Put what you want, and let them change it if they have a problem. That's exactly what I did, and they changed nothing.