do neuroscience courses with "psych" in the title count towards bcpm?

[Admires]

thanks

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[RAFneuro]

So I had the same question last spring when I was getting ready to fill out my application. My pre-med advisor told me to classify the neuroscience courses that were not psych-based as a biology course, and then to leave it up to review by the AAMC. When they go through your application, they will either agree with you or change it back to psych. For example, I took Biopsychology and they agreed that it classified as a biology course even though the course number is under the psychology department. The same thing happened for my Behavioral Neuroscience course.

Hope this helps 🙂

 

[RAFneuro]

Thanks for the information. Since I"m a neuroscience major, I have a lot of As in my neuroscience courses under the psych department so I'm trying to gather anecdotal evidence from a lot of people to see if my courses would count (specifically the three in my original post).

If AMCAS classifies based on content instead of course title, then I should be good to go, but that's basically my main question here.

I'm not %100 percent how clear I was, sorry! I am a neuroscience major, and as my school did not have a neuroscience department, all my classes for my major were in the psych department. I think that is what they intend to do, and you can argue their decision with them, but it will basically come down to how they interpret the course when you submit your application.

 

[RAFneuro]

Ok, cool. So all of your neuroscience courses (under a psych title) that you listed under bcpm counted?

Yup! I just checked to make sure, but they are all categorized as biology courses under the AAMC.

 

[efle]

My school had a super confusing major called Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology, and so a bunch of neuroscience classes were on the course catalog as PNP XXX.

I just went by what I thought was fitting, for example cognitive neuroscience I put down as a psych class, while a psychopharmacology class went down as BCPM. They didn't change them. Just go by what you think they are closest to.

 

[efle]

Interesting, my cognitive neuroscience class was heavy on the neuroscience and brain anatomy/projections relating to cognition. It would seem to definitely fall under BCPM.

Mine was more "this is the part that lights up on fMRI when you do this kind of cognitive task set"

If you were looking more at anatomy/connectivity I'd put yours as BCPM too

 

[floatingribs]

IT depends in my school at least. On the transcript we have the department number listed so neuroscience courses with the psych department number would be considered that but the ones in the bio department would count towards that regardless of the course materials.

 

[efle]

Ah, ok, cool. Does AMCAS generally leave things alone based on peoples' experience? I plan on putting most of my classes that have neuroscience in the name (since most of them deal with anatomy and projections relating to a topic such as ) under BCPM although they fall under the psych department (like all neuroscience classes at my school). Based on what I've seen from people here, if a class is debatable, they side with what you choose.

Yeah they generally will only make changes that have a good clear reason for being moved. If something is ambiguous they usually don't guess opposite of your categorization.

I believe they also consult course catalogs? So they should have a description to use as well, not just the class title.

 

[Frogger27]

I put all of my psych classes that were anywhere near biology related as BCPM and they all went through.

 

[kstorm]

I put all of my psych classes that were anywhere near biology related as BCPM and they all went through.

What classes were they?

 

[Frogger27]

What classes were they?

Too lazy to look them up, there was like 6-7 of them. I knew 4 would be counted for sure but the other 2-3 were definitely questionable

 

[kstorm]

Too lazy to look them up, there was like 6-7 of them. I knew 4 would be counted for sure but the other 2-3 were definitely questionable

Was it stuff like Cognitive Neuroscience, Abnormal Psych, Sensation and Perception, Learning and Memory, Psychopharm, etc.?

 

[Frogger27]

Was it stuff like Cognitive Neuroscience, Abnormal Psych, Sensation and Perception, Learning and Memory, Psychopharm, etc.?

I bet cog. neuroscience and psychopharm would go through. The other 3 would depend on what the course description says. If they had a good amount of bio in them (~50%) I would put them.

 

[artist27]

Kind of off topic but what about for the DO application system? Is it the same thing or do they go strictly by which department it's listed under?

 

[md-2020]

Was it stuff like Cognitive Neuroscience, Abnormal Psych, Sensation and Perception, Learning and Memory, Psychopharm, etc.?

abnormal probably wont count, everything else is definitely fine. i had basically equivalent course titles listed in psych counted as bio.

also worth noting research methods in psych appears to be viewed as math/stat by amcas, i tried listing a cheeky B+ in that as psych/BESS but they changed it

 

[md-2020]

For AMCAS Course content is judged by terms used in official college catalog for year the course was taken, in both what terms are used and in balance with other terms used, as well as department and course title. This is now done primarily thru an automated system in conjunction with NSCH

As the AMCAS instructions clearly states

Page 39 (bolded in red in the instructions)
Course Classification
Each course must be assigned a course classification based strictly on the primary content of the course.

Page 85 (emphasis added)
Course classification is based solely on the primary
content of the course content, rather than course title or
department through which it is offered.
Consult your pre-professional health advisor or registrar to resolve
any questions concerning this classification

also despite the public stance by amcas i have it on pretty good authority that its just a bunch of reviewers that call it based on your course title; apparently accurately pairing course catalogs with listed classes is very difficult.

 

[benjamin94559]

My school had a super confusing major called Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology, and so a bunch of neuroscience classes were on the course catalog as PNP XXX.

I just went by what I thought was fitting, for example cognitive neuroscience I put down as a psych class, while a psychopharmacology class went down as BCPM. They didn't change them. Just go by what you think they are closest to.

Did you go to washu?

OP i would just label them in whatever way is most advantagous to you and if AMCAS wants to fight you over it they can change whatever they want.

 

[kstorm]

Yeah it sounds like AMCAS will mostly likely just go with whatever you classified it as.

 

[efle]

Did you go to washu?

Yep, 10/10 would attend again

 

[MareNostrummm]

I've read on here that people have gotten Psychopathology to count as BCPM ("pathology" sounds science-y enough)

What do you guys think about a course titled "Intro to Experimental Psychology", would it count as BCPM if it involved statistics?

edit: found a copy of the syllabus

"The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the diverse field of Experimental Psychology. One aim of the course is to familiarize you with methods and concepts of experimental psychology, including theories, the formulation of hypotheses, operational definitions, variables, and measurement scales. In addition, we will discuss different experimental and nonexperimental research methods, when to apply them, and what inferences can be drawn from different designs. And finally we will explore ways of analyzing and interpreting data from different experimental designs. Throughout the course you will be exposed to a variety of past and current psychological research. Ultimately, our goal is to provide you with some of the basic necessary tools to examine the existing evidence about a variety of topics in the field and to be able to generate new ideas and ways of testing those ideas.

By the end of the course, you should be able to
• Search for, understand, and critically analyze peer-reviewed and popular press articles
• Evaluate research studies in terms reliability and validity
• Compare and contrast the advantages and weaknesses of different study designs
• Generate new hypotheses and identify ways to test these hypotheses
• Analyze, interpret, and report results of studies
• Get hands-on experience with real-time data on classic psychological experience"

 

[efle]

I've read on here that people have gotten Psychopathology to count as BCPM ("pathology" sounds science-y enough)

What do you guys think about a course titled "Intro to Experimental Psychology", would it count as BCPM if it involved statistics?

edit: found a copy of the syllabus

"The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the diverse field of Experimental Psychology. One aim of the course is to familiarize you with methods and concepts of experimental psychology, including theories, the formulation of hypotheses, operational definitions, variables, and measurement scales. In addition, we will discuss different experimental and nonexperimental research methods, when to apply them, and what inferences can be drawn from different designs. And finally we will explore ways of analyzing and interpreting data from different experimental designs. Throughout the course you will be exposed to a variety of past and current psychological research. Ultimately, our goal is to provide you with some of the basic necessary tools to examine the existing evidence about a variety of topics in the field and to be able to generate new ideas and ways of testing those ideas.

By the end of the course, you should be able to
• Search for, understand, and critically analyze peer-reviewed and popular press articles
• Evaluate research studies in terms reliability and validity
• Compare and contrast the advantages and weaknesses of different study designs
• Generate new hypotheses and identify ways to test these hypotheses
• Analyze, interpret, and report results of studies
• Get hands-on experience with real-time data on classic psychological experience"

I would guess they'd immediately move that to psych based on the title.

 

[MareNostrummm]

I would guess they'd immediately move that to psych based on the title.

Research methods in Psychology appears to count for BCPM though...

 

[efle]

Research methods in Psychology appears to count for BCPM though...

Based on being heavy on math/stats I thought though. Your description doesn't have anything about stats!

 

[efle]

Maaaybe the data analysis part.

Can't hurt to try, I'd put it wherever helps your GPAs