GPA Calculations

[wakeforestkid12]

I am currently applying to MD and DO schools. I've been reading through threads and some non-science majors have outstanding GPAS in comparison to many science majors. I was just wondering, how is it that science majors include all their courses in addition to their pre-requisites, while non-science majors generally only have their pre-requisite courses included as they generally don't take many more science courses. I only ask, because I encountered difficult upper level chemistry courses due to my major that significantly impacted my science GPA, yet non-science majors don't experience that. Wouldn't it make more sense to calculate the science GPA utilizing only the pre-requisite courses to obtain a more generalized GPA?

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[efle]

Yup, it is an extremely flawed system. Even within science majors there is a big variation in difficulty, someone studying mostly upper level ecology courses does not face the same rigors as a biomedical engineer. It is just one of many huge flaws in the GPA metric system, same as trying to compare GPAs between universities. It certainly would make sense to look at people's prereq GPA as a third type of GPA, and I think a lot of adcoms do exactly that, paying more attention to your performance in Ochem than in Earth and Planetary Science, etc.

In hindsight, smart move is to go to a school where you are way towards the upper end of the student body, do well in your core science prereqs and then major in something interesting and easy while using your mountains of free time to get killer ECs.