Do US schools drop your lowest grades from the GPA?

[mac_kin]

Some Canadian schools drop the lowest grade for each term of your undergrad when they calculate your GPA. Some just drop your overall lowest 2 or 3 grades. I've been checking out some school websites and generally haven't seen any info about this in the US.

Just curious if anyone knows if any American med schools that do this??

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[notdeadyet]

Let me be the first to give you a resounding NO. That'd sure be sweet...

 

[CptCrunch]

No.

 

[armybound]

damn do I wish.

how about my lowest year?

 

[JLT91W]

We all wish they did. Then more of us would have 4.0's!!

 

[Lshapley]

The closest you can come to this in the US would be osteopathic schools dropping the lower grade if you retake a course. Allopathic schools count every last grade at every college/university you earned it at.

 

[Law2Doc]

Some Canadian schools drop the lowest grade for each term of your undergrad when they calculate your GPA. Some just drop your overall lowest 2 or 3 grades. I've been checking out some school websites and generally haven't seen any info about this in the US.

Just curious if anyone knows if any American med schools that do this??

No. But it makes no difference how your school calculates GPA, it matters how AMCAS calculates GPA anyhow.

 

[mac_kin]

Thanks for the answers.

This process is actually what makes life more difficult for premeds in Canada in my opinion (well on top of having no requirements whatsoever for most schools) and why I want to avoid it if I can, by going south that is.

 

[RokChalkJayhawk]

EACH term? That's insane. I would actually have a 4.0

There's always that sneaky class.

 

[JLT91W]

It wouldn't matter. All it would do is push up the average GPA and make the admissions process even more capricious. Can you imagine how many more threads would pop up here saying, "Why didn't I get accepted when my GPA was a 3.8?!"

This is true. I didn't really think about that at the time of my original post. I wonder how it works out elsewhere?

 

[gary5]

I'm sorry, but Canada is a joke. I've lost all respect for your country. If the school drops your lowest grade per term, then your GPA is fake, and so is the diploma.

 

[TPROrgoTutor2]

I'm sorry, but Canada is a joke. I've lost all respect for your country. If the school drops your lowest grade per term, then your GPA is fake, and so is the diploma.

You've lost all respect for the country based on a few schools' choices to drop the lowest grade on a term. ? I think that is kinda ridiculous and unnecessary, but certainly not enough to lose respect for an entire country.

 

[gary5]

You've lost all respect for the country based on a few schools' choices to drop the lowest grade on a term. ? I think that is kinda ridiculous and unnecessary, but certainly not enough to lose respect for an entire country.

OK, I overreacted. I thought you meant that it is common or pervasive in Canada. I think it's ridiculous when schools have fake grades, meaning that they are artificial in some way. There are high schools in the U.S. where you can get a 5.0 GPA out of 4. Since, in the real world, it is not possible to get higher than a score of 100%, this is ridiculous also, especially from an academic institution, where they should understand mathematics.

 

[hopeagainstodds]

.You also have to realize that it’s not the degree granting institution that is dropping the grade. Its the med school's calculation of your GPA. The GPA you earn at the end is the GPA you graduate with. There's no basis for a Canadian diploma to not be "real".

I understand that your just being facetious, but just wanted to clear that up..

 

[EBI831]

sounds a lot like accountants shredding the money trail to me. it would be nice to get in on some of this insider trading or whatever but alas in the US of A, we don't forgive that easily hence why people still have stickers that say the war of northern aggression and the south won.

 

[CoolerTHANu]

nope here in the US we believe in taking responsibility for our actions

 

[UMP]

you canadians are weird....

 

[Critical Mass]

I don't know of any US schools that do this. AMCAS makes GPA calculations for most of them.

 

[UMP]

I don't know of any US schools that do this. AMCAS makes GPA calculations for most of them.

all of them

 

[MadHopsMD]

I don't know of any US schools that do this. AMCAS makes GPA calculations for most of them.

dude it is true that how AMCAS calculates your GPA is what matters the most. for example:

MY UofToronto AMCAS calculated GPA: 3.72
MY Western AMCAS calculated GPA: 3.86

Damn, too bad I did my degree at UofT . b/c uoft 85+ is 4.0, while at western 80+ is a 4.0 according to AMCAS.

Anyways, what makes the Canadian process so frustrating is that if you dont make the GPA/MCAT cutoffs you are tossed aside, while in the US they see the whole applicants. With my 34/3.72, I would not have shown any love from ontario schools. I just dont make the GPA cutoff or the MCAT (have only a 9 VR).

Apply to America my friend, you have the right idea. Also apply early!!!

 

[pyrois]

I'm sorry, but Canada is a joke. I've lost all respect for your country. If the school drops your lowest grade per term, then your GPA is fake, and so is the diploma.

I forget if Canada runs on the British system, but in the British system I hear it's very difficult to get good grades (i.e. their C's/B's are like our A's).

 

[mac_kin]

dude it is true that how AMCAS calculates your GPA is what matters the most. for example:

MY UofToronto AMCAS calculated GPA: 3.72
MY Western AMCAS calculated GPA: 3.86

Damn, too bad I did my degree at UofT . b/c uoft 85+ is 4.0, while at western 80+ is a 4.0 according to AMCAS.

Anyways, what makes the Canadian process so frustrating is that if you dont make the GPA/MCAT cutoffs you are tossed aside, while in the US they see the whole applicants. With my 34/3.72, I would not have shown any love from ontario schools. I just dont make the GPA cutoff or the MCAT (have only a 9 VR).

Apply to America my friend, you have the right idea. Also apply early!!!

I completely agree! Canadian schools look only at your GPA at first and nothing else. So potentially you could be a kid who never left the library during undergrad, has no social life/skills, never volunteered, never did research but has a 3.99/4.0 and you will get an interview before me and many qualified students. Alternatively, you could be the kid who never took a science class, or did just the bare minimum first year courses, and then took all bird courses like "history of rock music" (which do exist where I go, with all multiple choice exams, and in classes of 400+ you bet there's lots of whispering). In the end you will also probably have a 3.99/4.0 and get an Interview before me and many many other dedicated students.

Canada sucks for medical school. Ever since schools like McMaster and Western decided to drop all science requirements the only people who get in are the ones taking all the bird courses, the ones with no social life, or the ones who kiss a lot of *** of people who work the system. I've lost respect for the med school system here as well.

And for those who misunderstood my original comment. It is indeed not the school where you study that drops your lowest grades, but the med schools that drop your lowest grades. So just in case you decided to throw a biology course in there with your rock history/liberal arts, and failed miserably, it won't matter.


lol that feels better