Effectiveness of retaking courses

[dtd8671]

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My transcript contains some bad grades due to a couple of different reasons, mainly helping out with my sick father (first year) and serious financial difficulties after not being accepted into medical school (my parents stopped helping me through school so I had to spend the majority of my time working, as opposed to going to classes). Regardless, I did fairly well in my med school prerequisites and all other classes (3.35 GPA for ~90 hours of the most difficult courses) except for the final 12 hours of my upper division Bio classes (Histology, Comparative Anatomy, and Ecology). These grades combined with the grades from the semester that my father died have significantly lowered my overall GPA (2.8). I know that retaking the 12 hours of undergraduate course work would help boost my calculated GPA on the AACOM application, but I was wondering if spending my money and time on graduate level courses would be more beneficial, even though it wouldn't raise my calculated GPA on the AACOM as much as repeating the undergraduate courses. Will each school that I apply to still nit pick through my transcript, or do they simply use the calculated values given on the AACOM application? Any advice would be appreciated.

This post might need to be in another section.

 

[OSUdoc08]

My transcript contains some bad grades due to a couple of different reasons, mainly helping out with my sick father (first year) and serious financial difficulties after not being accepted into medical school (my parents stopped helping me through school so I had to spend the majority of my time working, as opposed to going to classes). Regardless, I did fairly well in my med school prerequisites and all other classes (3.35 GPA for ~90 hours of the most difficult courses) except for the final 12 hours of my upper division Bio classes (Histology, Comparative Anatomy, and Ecology). These grades combined with the grades from the semester that my father died have significantly lowered my overall GPA (2.8). I know that retaking the 12 hours of undergraduate course work would help boost my calculated GPA on the AACOM application, but I was wondering if spending my money and time on graduate level courses would be more beneficial, even though it wouldn't raise my calculated GPA on the AACOM as much as repeating the undergraduate courses. Will each school that I apply to still nit pick through my transcript, or do they simply use the calculated values given on the AACOM application? Any advice would be appreciated.

This post might need to be in another section.

All that matters is your overall GPA, and that needs to be above 3.0 for both science and overall. If your science GPA is below 3.0, you can retake courses that you made a C or D in, and only the second course will be counted.

Graduate courses are counted seperately than undergraduate courses, and it will not alter your GPA. Obviously no point in taking courses there.

You should obviously apply first and see how you do before retaking courses, although the only reason I'd retake a course is to elminate a C or D in a science course due to a low science GPA.

 

[jkhamlin]

Graduate courses are counted seperately than undergraduate courses, and it will not alter your GPA. Obviously no point in taking courses there.

OSU told me that they would look at them together and separate. AACOMAS totals both separate and together, and OSU said that grad credit (as well as upper division undergrad) would help and recommended it as a strategy for me to get in next time. Of course they don't recommend taking grad credit unless that is what you want to do, they just look at it more or less the same.

 

[OSUdoc08]

OSU told me that they would look at them together and separate. AACOMAS totals both separate and together, and OSU said that grad credit (as well as upper division undergrad) would help and recommended it as a strategy for me to get in next time. Of course they don't recommend taking grad credit unless that is what you want to do, they just look at it more or less the same.

Yeah---they don't want you just to do a semester or two and drop out, just to get more classes.

 

[Nate]

I suspect many schools screen through GPAs and MCAT scores for some sort of minimum before looking at the rest of the application. That is not to say some schools won’t look past it or that all schools will eventually sift through the lower end applications but, I believe to be most competitive from the get go and have the rest of your stellar application looked at early (which is important with rolling admissions) you should have a 3.0 undergrad GPA and a decent MCAT score. This is all hearsay and opinion though so if you want official answers call the schools you are interested in and ask. Good luck

 

[Funkdoctor]

My transcript contains some bad grades due to a couple of different reasons, mainly helping out with my sick father (first year) and serious financial difficulties after not being accepted into medical school (my parents stopped helping me through school so I had to spend the majority of my time working, as opposed to going to classes). Regardless, I did fairly well in my med school prerequisites and all other classes (3.35 GPA for ~90 hours of the most difficult courses) except for the final 12 hours of my upper division Bio classes (Histology, Comparative Anatomy, and Ecology). These grades combined with the grades from the semester that my father died have significantly lowered my overall GPA (2.8). I know that retaking the 12 hours of undergraduate course work would help boost my calculated GPA on the AACOM application, but I was wondering if spending my money and time on graduate level courses would be more beneficial, even though it wouldn't raise my calculated GPA on the AACOM as much as repeating the undergraduate courses. Will each school that I apply to still nit pick through my transcript, or do they simply use the calculated values given on the AACOM application? Any advice would be appreciated.

This post might need to be in another section.

Take the courses that you did the worst in (as long as you know you can get A's). Sit down and crunch your numbers, figure out how much of a difference it will make in your gpa. You have to way the cost vs. benefits, and by costs I mean the time it will take you and the financial cost. There comes a certain point where your time will be better spent doing something else that will impress adcom's. However, in your case you need to bring your gpa up significantly, and if you don't then you probably aren't going to get any interviews. Btw what was are your MCAT scores? If your scores are not so great consider taing the MCAT over, this might get your app looked at.

 

[DoctorFunk]

Funkdoctor

My lord, it's like my alternate universe evil twin is posting on this board. Or maybe I'm the evil one...hmm.