GPA Math

[chill3]

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This may be very intuitive for some and may not be too useful, but I was playing around tonight with some numbers and wanted to post an algorithm for calculating how many classes you need at a given GPA to raise your current GPA to a desired level. I was prompted to do this by all the comments saying "take a few classes to boost your GPA." What needs to be realized is that in the range of competitive MD GPA's and what I would assume are full courseloads, it becomes very hard to raise your GPA even slightly. For example a 3.5 to a 3.6 with 32 classes already taken requires an additional 8 A's....

Anyway, here it is:

Cn = Courses Needed
Ct = Courses Taken
<GPA> = The desired change in GPA (i.e. 0.1 points for 3.5 to 3.6)
dGPA = desired GPA
eGPA = estimated average GPA for yet to be taken courses (I assume you want this = 4)

Cn = [Ct*<GPA>]/[eGPA - dGPA]

if you expect to get all A's in your remaining course the equation would look like this:

Cn = [Ct*<GPA>]/[4 - dGPA]

Hope this is helpful for someone out there.

 

[aesculapian]

This is really helpful. Thank you for posting!

 

[Dallasmavs]

You're probably gonna need to change it to credits not courses. All courses do not have the same amount of credits so they will impact gpa differently

 

[487806]

This may be very intuitive for some and may not be too useful, but I was playing around tonight with some numbers and wanted to post an algorithm for calculating how many classes you need at a given GPA to raise your current GPA to a desired level. I was prompted to do this by all the comments saying "take a few classes to boost your GPA." What needs to be realized is that in the range of competitive MD GPA's and what I would assume are full courseloads, it becomes very hard to raise your GPA even slightly. For example a 3.5 to a 3.6 with 32 classes already taken requires an additional 8 A's....

Anyway, here it is:

Cn = Courses Needed
Ct = Courses Taken
<GPA> = The desired change in GPA (i.e. 0.1 points for 3.5 to 3.6)
dGPA = desired GPA
eGPA = estimated average GPA for yet to be taken courses (I assume you want this = 4)

Cn = [Ct*<GPA>]/[eGPA - dGPA]

if you expect to get all A's in your remaining course the equation would look like this:

Cn = [Ct*<GPA>]/[4 - dGPA]

Hope this is helpful for someone out there.

Meh not really useful. The previous poster is correct that your equation is falsely assuming that all courses have the same credit... but the AAMC-GPA spreadsheet basically eliminates the need for any and all equations.

 

[chill3]

Meh not really useful. The previous poster is correct that your equation is falsely assuming that all courses have the same credit... but the AAMC-GPA spreadsheet basically eliminates the need for any and all equations.

Oh yeah I forgot they had that!