Do engineering classes count in BCPM gpa?

[dimebag darrell]

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Hi everyone,

I'm a junior bioengineering major and am wondering if my engineering classes will count towards my amcas BCPM gpa. Are there any engineers who have had their BCPM gpas calculated by amcas and thus know the answer?

Thanks! Cheers.

 

[isobel]

Hi everyone,

I'm a junior bioengineering major and am wondering if my engineering classes will count towards my amcas BCPM gpa. Are there any engineers who have had their BCPM gpas calculated by amcas and thus know the answer?

Thanks! Cheers.

my advisor told me they mostly don't count unless you are using them as required classes. like my two intro engin courses are courses i used to fulfill the physics requirement, so i counted those.

it's a b*tch tho because i took electrical circuits and i took thermo and i think those should have counted as physics and chem respectively (especially thermo since it's listed as being chem by AMCAS' instructions) but my advisor said they get pretty suspicious if you reclassify an engin course as something else. so i let it go. even though i aced thermo..... argh.

but, jeez, engineering is a mix of chem, math, physics, and bio for those of us that are BME, you'd think it would count.

 

[amandil]

Although I was not an engineering major, I did take some engineering classes in college. I called the AMCAS helpdesk because I wasn't sure if "Biomedical Engineering" would count as biology. The person who answered my call said that:

1) First, check the instruction book on the AMCAS website (http://www.aamc.org/students/amcas/2006instructionbook.pdf). If your course is clearly identified in the "Course Classification" section (pages 66-70), then that is the appropriate classification.

2) Otherwise, use your best judgment. If the curriculum covered more biology than engineering, you can classify it as biology. If the class covered more engineering than biology, you should classify it as engineering. You can try to find out how the course was classified by previous pre-meds, or you can talk to your professor. Ultimately, you should keep in mind that you may have to justify your classification to a med school if they challenge your designation (but I imagine that this is relatively rare).

 

[spaceman_spiff]

my advisor told me they mostly don't count unless you are using them as required classes. like my two intro engin courses are courses i used to fulfill the physics requirement, so i counted those.

it's a b*tch tho because i took electrical circuits and i took thermo and i think those should have counted as physics and chem respectively (especially thermo since it's listed as being chem by AMCAS' instructions) but my advisor said they get pretty suspicious if you reclassify an engin course as something else. so i let it go. even though i aced thermo..... argh.

but, jeez, engineering is a mix of chem, math, physics, and bio for those of us that are BME, you'd think it would count.

You can designate your classes however you want. That's the whole reason AMCAS does that "verify application" stuff, because someone in Washington pores over all of your classes and makes sure they're designated correctly. Go ahead and place thermo as a chem and don't worry about it; if AMCAS disagrees, they'll change it, and there's not much you can do about it then.

Take my application, for example: I didn't fully understand that the "M" part of "BPCM" was not for math, but for calculus, so I designated every math class I took (a lot since I'm a math major, with A's in most of my math) as part of BPCM, and I also took circuits as a required course for a physics degree so I designated it as physics. But after AMCAS processed and verified my app, some courses like "Discrete Math", "Abstract Algebra", and "Electric Circuit Analysis" had an X by them meaning that AMCAS changed something, and I'm pretty sure it was the designation.

 

[isobel]

bastard... maybe i should be posting in the "i hate my premed advisor" thread. but i don't. he was just really against it for some reason and i didn't want to risk having my app delayed by AMCAS making lots of changes.

 

[SeventhSon]

Hi everyone,

I'm a junior bioengineering major and am wondering if my engineering classes will count towards my amcas BCPM gpa. Are there any engineers who have had their BCPM gpas calculated by amcas and thus know the answer?

Thanks! Cheers.

the answer is no. I did it myself. Someone mentioned you can designate BENG classes as bio but I don't know if it's correct to do that... they ARE engineering classes. I woudln't fret it too much, they (the adcoms) know what's up.

 

[dimebag darrell]

Looking at the instructions on the amcas website, it would seem that thermodynamics is the only engineering course that qualifies as BCPM, which is strange because that was one of the more "true engineering" (rather than chem, for instance) engineering classes that I took (our course did not focus on chemical thermodynamics), while a class like fluid mechanics (which seemed to me to be all physics) doesn't count. Go figure.

 

[jeffsleepy]

You can designate your classes however you want. That's the whole reason AMCAS does that "verify application" stuff, because someone in Washington pores over all of your classes and makes sure they're designated correctly. Go ahead and place thermo as a chem and don't worry about it; if AMCAS disagrees, they'll change it, and there's not much you can do about it then.

Take my application, for example: I didn't fully understand that the "M" part of "BPCM" was not for math, but for calculus, so I designated every math class I took (a lot since I'm a math major, with A's in most of my math) as part of BPCM, and I also took circuits as a required course for a physics degree so I designated it as physics. But after AMCAS processed and verified my app, some courses like "Discrete Math", "Abstract Algebra", and "Electric Circuit Analysis" had an X by them meaning that AMCAS changed something, and I'm pretty sure it was the designation.

I'm pretty sure the math is for all math. My discrete math, linear algebra etc. classes all passed through fine.

 

[kgboy]

As long as you feel that your engineering classes had mostly bio, phys, math, or chem content and less industrial applications, I think you can call them BCPM. This question is asked year after year, and you'll find some people telling you not to call them BCPM and some telling you that it's to your best judgment. I called my biomechanics, continuum mechanics, and bioengineering physiology classes BCPM because that's what I considered them. AMCAS never corrected it and none of the interviewers had a problem with it.

If the AMCAS doesn't think that your classes don't count as BCPM, they will correct it and the record of the correction will remain on the application. If you decide to dispute it even after that, you'll need to send them some evidence that those classes are BCPM (such as the description of course content), from what people told me in the past. But this can lead to weeks of delay in AMCAS application processing, which is not good for schools that have rolling basis admissions. So it wouldn't hurt to classify your engineering classes as BCPM the first time (assuming those classes have BCPM content), but it definitely would if you decide to dispute it after their correction. Just don't classify classes like "finite element methods" as BCPM because that has mostly engineering applications content but rather something like "mechanics: statics, dynamics" which is considered physics.

 

[Bluntman]

In the AMCAS online help area, it specifically states that engineering classes, including biomedical engineering classes are not included in BCPM. Bummer I know.

 

[Mixtli]

In the AMCAS online help area, it specifically states that engineering classes, including biomedical engineering classes are not included in BCPM. Bummer I know.

I included all my bioengineering classes as BPCM and let AAMCAS do the grade corrections. I only had 1 correction. So, if you think it will raise your BPCM, then do it, otherwise don't do it since BPCM is more slightly more important than GPA.