I am registered for a human pharmacology course for this summer and I wanted to know if this course would be factored into my BCPM gpa before I begin. I noticed in the AMCAS instruction booklet that Pharmacology and Pharmacy courses should be classified under Health, but the course is very biochemistry/physiology based so I wanted to find out if it is likely that AMCAS would change it from Biology to Health if I tried to classify it as BCPM? Does anyone have any experience with classifying pharmacology courses as BCPM? Anyone have their pharmacology courses reclassified from BCPM to health? Any insight would be appreciated. This is important because my science GPA is right on the cusp of being competitive and I need to boost it this summer by taking classes that will count as BCPM. Thanks
Experience with pharmacology classified as BCPM?
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how is it listed on your transcript?
is it in the bio dept?
you could always call amcas and ask if it would be possible to classify it as bio, though they've made pretty clear that pharmacology counts as "health".
is it in the bio dept?
you could always call amcas and ask if it would be possible to classify it as bio, though they've made pretty clear that pharmacology counts as "health".
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honestly I don't think it matters what department it was offered under, as this is a subject that is directly listed in the HEAL (non-BCPM) section. If it is called "pharmacology", you must list it as HEAL, I think. In addition, all AMCAS ever sees is the course title, so the focus of the course could be basket-weaving and I think AMCAS would still change it. Very nit-picky changes were made to my course listings that did not even affect either GPA, so I think they would change it.
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yea, i was kinda thinking that, but the OP could always try and make a case with AMCAS via phone call. AMCAS is pretty clear about how they want to classify pharmacology though.
The course title is PHM 350 Introductory Human Pharmacology and the listing at the university is: http://www.reg.msu.edu/Courses/Request.asp?SubjectCode=PHM&CourseNumber=350
Thanks for the input, looks I will be dropping this class and taking one that will work towards raising my BCPM gpa. Oh boy, histology is just so much fun!
Thanks for the input, looks I will be dropping this class and taking one that will work towards raising my BCPM gpa. Oh boy, histology is just so much fun!
histology sounds like a more appropriate course for ugrad, but in a summer?Hope you have a good teacher!
Is histology too difficult of a class to take during a summer session? At the same time I will be taking Organic Chem I (but without a lab). Is this a dooms day combination for my GPA?
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If it's not listed under BIO, you're not going to get it to count as a BPCM course. All AMCAS has to go on to determine if the course is BPCM is the title and the course department. In this case, both the title and the course department suggest it's not a bio course.
Is that really true? If thats the case I am going to have to petition a lot of courses because my university has many departments and a lot of ecology classes (which according to the AMCAS instruction booklet are classified as BIO) are offered through the Environmental sciences department. If you read the syllabus and course description from the university bulletin, the courses are without a doubt ecology classes. Looks like I'm going to have some explaining to do.
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nope it will get turned. A buddy of mine had nearly all of his pharmacy classes turned
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Enter the departmental code before the class number. Then put the class title in its appropriate box. And as Holy Franz said, there's a 99% chance it will be overturned, but list it as BCPM if you want to try. The worst that can happen is they will just change it to Health.
Thank you for the responses!
Do I need to enter the departmental code before ALL class numbers, or just if I want to indicate it for a specific reason (such as in this case)?
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At first I didnt put any of the departmental codes, but then I watched the tutorial video of how to enter coursework and they used departmental codes, so I would do it for every class.
Did you have to call AMCAS to get this approved?
I have taken 2 classes in the pharmacology department, but both mainly focused on receptors, ligands, the immune system (in detail), the brain (in detail), the heart (in detail), etc. The main emphasis was on drugs targets at certain receptors at different organs at the cellular level/perspective.
We often went into more detail than was used even in some of my physiology classes.
I cannot see how these would not be considered courses that fit in the science/BCPM category, but they are in the pharmacology department.
No, it just went through. It's supposed to be classified based on the content of the course, not what department it's listed under.
But how do they know the content of the course?
That's supposed to be the guideline for you, not them. If a course was predominantly biology content even if it wasn't taught in the biology department, then you should classify it as BCPM. Obviously, if it sounds completely implausible they'll change it. There's a bunch of FAQ threads about filling about the AMCAS that have probably gotten buried but there's definitely one where you'll get advice about how to classify courses.
I didn't do it for a boost of my sGPA. I just felt that pharmacology was better fit under biology. But I'd guess one could do so to boost GPA...if the class was easy enough. Mine certainly were not easy at all.
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