GPA question

[Postictal Raiden]

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I was wondering, to what decimal place do AACOMAS round the GPA?

I am expecting to have a 3.25-3.3 GPA by the end of this (Junior) year. I know that both 3.25 and 3.3 are considered low GPA's, but I was wondering if I end up with something like 3.279 will that be 3.28, 3.3, or it would just appear as 3.279.

Also, what kind of MCAT score would compensate for such a GPA?

 

[JeetKuneDo]

I was wondering, to what decimal place do AACOMAS round the GPA?

I am expecting to have a 3.25-3.3 GPA by the end of this (Junior) year. I know that both 3.25 and 3.3 are considered low GPA's, but I was wondering if I end up with something like 3.279 will that be 3.28, 3.3, or it would just appear as 3.279.

Also, what kind of MCAT score would compensate for such a GPA?

I think it would only show up to two decimal places, so you would just round up if you got 3.279.

 

[Kevin Baker]

I was wondering, to what decimal place do AACOMAS round the GPA?

I am expecting to have a 3.25-3.3 GPA by the end of this (Junior) year. I know that both 3.25 and 3.3 are considered low GPA's, but I was wondering if I end up with something like 3.279 will that be 3.28, 3.3, or it would just appear as 3.279.

Also, what kind of MCAT score would compensate for such a GPA?

If I recall, AMCAS and AACOMAS both round to two decimal points.

A lot more goes into GPA than the raw number. Trends, rigor of your classes, rigor of your institution, major, amount of classes, EC, etc. are all weighed in and can either help or hurt your raw GPA number. That said, I like to think 1 pt on the MCAT compensates for a .1 gpa difference, though it may not compensate much above the low 30s.

 

[Postictal Raiden]

If I recall, AMCAS and AACOMAS both round to two decimal points.

A lot more goes into GPA than the raw number. Trends, rigor of your classes, rigor of your institution, major, amount of classes, EC, etc. are all weighed in and can either help or hurt your raw GPA number. That said, I like to think 1 pt on the MCAT compensates for a .1 gpa difference, though it may not compensate much above the low 30s.

Could you explain this part?

 

[JeetKuneDo]

If I recall, AMCAS and AACOMAS both round to two decimal points.

A lot more goes into GPA than the raw number. Trends, rigor of your classes, rigor of your institution, major, amount of classes, EC, etc. are all weighed in and can either help or hurt your raw GPA number. That said, I like to think 1 pt on the MCAT compensates for a .1 gpa difference, though it may not compensate much above the low 30s.

Do you mean that if your for every .1 gpa point you are under the school's average acceptance gpa, you can compensate it with every 1 point above the school's average mcat score?

 

[Kevin Baker]

Do you mean that if your for every .1 gpa point you are under the school's average acceptance gpa, you can compensate it with every 1 point above the school's average mcat score?

Exactly. Sorry if I was unclear. I think one needs a 3.0 for the file to even be looked at by most schools so a 2.9/32 != a 3.5/26

As to the point about scoring more than a low 30's, by my understanding the MCAT is structured such that the average is a 24-25 with a std deviation of 2-2.5. So while the difference between a 26.5 (avg DO matriculant?) and a 32 is huge percentile wise, going from a 32 to a perfect 45 is a less than 1 percentile difference.

 

[TwinsFan]

The standard deviation of the MCAT is around 6.5 with a mean around 25. This means that the 90th percentile is around 33, the 95th is around 35, and the 99th is a 38-39. This could imply that MCAT score won't make as significant difference over high 30s per point at most institutions since the percentile difference is very small (in the top 1 or 2 percent).