Dilemma with retaking a course (fewer credit hours)

[techbrah]

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Recently graduated from a 4 year OOS institution. To save money, I moved back home and will be attending a local state university in a DIY post-bacc.

During my freshmen year when I clearly didn't have my head in the game, I got C's in both Gen Chem I & II.

Retaking these 2 courses was a focal point of my post-bacc, however at my local university and every other university in my state (Texas), both Gen Chem's are only 4 hours, whereas at the college I graduated from it was 5 hours. Poor planning on my behalf (took anatomy/microbio my last semester as filler courses...if I knew ahead of time I would've just retaken gen chem), but I figured it wouldn't be hard to find a school to retake these 2 courses since they're two of the most popular classes in college with the amount of pre-meds/engineers.

Doing a post-bacc back at my old school would cost nearly 3x the money not to mention cost of living expenses, which I really don't have the funds for.

Would it be beneficial to still retake the courses? Pretty borderline for allopathic schools, and with grade forgiveness my GPA would take a nice spike on the AACOMAS/OptomCAS (backups) with A's in retakes. However with the course being fewer credit hours it wouldn't qualify for replacement for the latter two.

 

[techbrah]

Anybody?

 

[kami333]

Anybody?

What's your cGPA/sGPA currently and what would they be for AACOMAS if you were to retake for As?

 

[aesculapian]

This is probably a dumb question, but why does it matter if it's only 4 vs. 5 credit hours? I'm in a similar situation, but at my school everything was only 1 credit. It seems like a gen chem class at any decent university should be all right, no?

Also if it helps, I don't know if retaking chem while you were still enrolled would have been an option.. I had assumed it would be for me, but it turns out the institutional policy was that you can't retake a class here unless you failed it.

 

[kami333]

This is probably a dumb question, but why does it matter if it's only 4 vs. 5 credit hours? I'm in a similar situation, but at my school everything was only 1 credit. It seems like a gen chem class at any decent university should be all right, no?

Also if it helps, I don't know if retaking chem while you were still enrolled would have been an option.. I had assumed it would be for me, but it turns out the institutional policy was that you can't retake a class here unless you failed it.

To use the AACOMAS grade replacement policy the retake class has to have the same or more credit hours as the original one.

For AMCAS it doesn't matter at all.

 

[techbrah]

What's your cGPA/sGPA currently and what would they be for AACOMAS if you were to retake for As?

AACOMAS GPA (With 4 Hour Gen Chem, i.e. NOT replaced just added. 10 credit hours of C's + 8 credit hours of A's)

cGPA - 3.19
sGPA - 3.30

AACOMAS GPA (With 5 hour Gen Chem i.e. Grade forgiveness. 10 credit hours of C's replaced with 10 credit hours of A's)

cGPA - 3.39
sGPA - 3.61

As you can see that's a HUGE difference, I'd put myself in a much more competitive position with the latter, however I can't seem to find any schools that offer 5 hour gen chem courses in the nearby vicinity (Texas)

MCAT in late August, but not applying until next cycle. FWIW AMCAS GPA's will be around the same as the AACOMAS GPA w/o grade forgiveness.

 

[techbrah]

This is probably a dumb question, but why does it matter if it's only 4 vs. 5 credit hours? I'm in a similar situation, but at my school everything was only 1 credit. It seems like a gen chem class at any decent university should be all right, no?

Also if it helps, I don't know if retaking chem while you were still enrolled would have been an option.. I had assumed it would be for me, but it turns out the institutional policy was that you can't retake a class here unless you failed it.

My advisors told me the same thing, but you can do it behind their backs with online registration, AACOMAS GPA =/= University GPA. Had a couple friends do this with orgo (they got C's and advisors told them they couldn't retake it, but they just signed up for the class anyways)

 

[techbrah]

 

[hallowmann]

This is probably a dumb question, but why does it matter if it's only 4 vs. 5 credit hours? I'm in a similar situation, but at my school everything was only 1 credit. It seems like a gen chem class at any decent university should be all right, no?

Also if it helps, I don't know if retaking chem while you were still enrolled would have been an option.. I had assumed it would be for me, but it turns out the institutional policy was that you can't retake a class here unless you failed it.

Make sure you know how much "equivalent" credits those 1 credit courses were. On your official transcript there with be some mention of a conversion. At my school they used units, and there was a conversion for # of units to number of standard credit hours.

With regards to AMCAS, retakes don't matter, since all the courses ever taken are included in the AMCAS GPA calculation, which may be/is different from most university calculations.

For AACOMAS (and I guess the OptomCAS), retakes replace the previous grade, but they must have equivalent or greater credit hours. If you are planning to use grade replacement, its very important to take your retakes at schools that offer courses of equal or greater credit hours than the initial attempt.

My advisors told me the same thing, but you can do it behind their backs with online registration, AACOMAS GPA =/= University GPA. Had a couple friends do this with orgo (they got C's and advisors told them they couldn't retake it, but they just signed up for the class anyways)

Each university is different. Advisors always say not to take retakes and just to take more advanced courses, but university policy varies. Some only allow retakes for failed classes, while others only allow retakes for any grades <C.

Anyways, OP, your situation is a tough one. Really your best bet is to find ANY school (CC, college, university, etc.) that has 5 credit Gen Chem courses. ANY school will do. You don't have to do a "full" Post-Bac at that school, you just have to take those two courses for credit there. Do the post-bac at whatever school you want, but retake those two classes somewhere where it will actually count as grade replacement. If you can't find any school close by where that's possible, I would even suggest going to your degree-granting school, if possible just for the summer, and taking only those two courses.

Ultimately, its a tough situation, but if there's anyway you can manage it, it will significantly increase your chances of getting in. We have no idea what your MCAT is going to look like, so with only that GPA, you are below average for both low-tier MD schools and DO schools.

 

[techbrah]

Anyways, OP, your situation is a tough one. Really your best bet is to find ANY school (CC, college, university, etc.) that has 5 credit Gen Chem courses. ANY school will do. You don't have to do a "full" Post-Bac at that school, you just have to take those two courses for credit there. Do the post-bac at whatever school you want, but retake those two classes somewhere where it will actually count as grade replacement. If you can't find any school close by where that's possible, I would even suggest going to your degree-granting school, if possible just for the summer, and taking only those two courses.

Ultimately, its a tough situation, but if there's anyway you can manage it, it will significantly increase your chances of getting in. We have no idea what your MCAT is going to look like, so with only that GPA, you are below average for both low-tier MD schools and DO schools.

Yeah, I figure I'll just hold off on the Gen Chem's and this fall semester focus on other classes/work/volunteer. Realistically I don't have a shot at MD schools unless I hit a 33+ (even then it's a crazy uphill battle) so I'll have my scores in mid-September and my path will be more clear at that point.

How would retaking both Gen Chems online look? OSU offers a 5 hour online gen chem with virtual lab that would seemingly suffice as a replacement for a reasonable price. Still can't find an in-state school that offers a 5 hour gen chem course (ugh).

 

[techbrah]

How would retaking both Gen Chems online look? OSU offers a 5 hour online gen chem with virtual lab that would seemingly suffice as a replacement for a reasonable price. Still can't find an in-state school that offers a 5 hour gen chem course (ugh).

Anyone? 😱