"Grades do not transfer." Help?

[rlplucien]

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Hello,

I am applying to transfer to Hunter College from a university in Chicago. However, Hunter's website says, "Grades do not transfer; the student's grade point average at Hunter is calculated solely on the basis of work taken at Hunter College."

This concerns me, because I have a 3.96 GPA at my current University. Is this only for Hunter's records? Will medical schools still average my GPA from my current University with my grades from Hunter if I end up going there?

 

[TriagePreMed]

Same thing happens at all universities. You will have 2 GPAs and the AMCAS will average them. Don't worry about it.

 

[rlplucien]

Same thing happens at all universities. You will have 2 GPAs and the AMCAS will average them. Don't worry about it.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Do you happen to know why it works that way? Is that just for their own reasons, such as scholarships or awards from Hunter itself (or any school transferred to)?

 

[empty p orbital]

That's great. Thank you very much.

Do you happen to know why it works that way? Is that just for their own reasons, such as scholarships or awards from Hunter itself (or any school transferred to)?

Because schools don't trust your GPA from other institutions. They want your GPA on their transcript to reflect your performance at their school. If it wasn't like that people could take pre-reqs and gen-ed classes at an easy community college, get a 4.0, then transfer to a more prestigious school as late as possible and finish their degree. Then they could just get a 3.0 in their upper division classes and still graduate and say to employers, "Hey I got a 3.5 from XYZ University, which is a really hard and prestigious school!"

Good schools don't like grade inflation. If everybody had 3.5+ then their reputation would suffer. There is no way they will let you artificially inflate your GPA by taking easier classes elsewhere and then transferring. It wouldn't be fair to the students who actually went 4 years at XYZ and worked their butts off to get a 3.5+. It's only fair that your GPA from your university reflect how you performed there and only there.

Med school adcoms want to look at everything you've ever done so they get a more complete picture of the applicant. They don't want people to be able to get a 2.5 their first 2 years and then transfer and be able to "start over" again. If that were possible think of all the insanity that would occur.. EVERYBODY would be transferring. They want you to get a 4.0 (or close) for your last 2 years and then have a good explanation as to why you didn't have any motivation for those first two years and what is different now that should convince them you can handle 4 years of med school and then a rigorous residency after that.

 

[rlplucien]

I see. That makes sense. Thank you so much for the information!

I was just a little concerned because I didn't want the 3.96 that I worked so hard for to count for nothing.

 

[Prof Chaos]

I see. That makes sense. Thank you so much for the information!

I was just a little concerned because I didn't want the 3.96 that I worked so hard for to count for nothing.

Don't worry it will count a lot for med school. But for most students who aren't interested in grad/professional school and who just apply for a job right after undergrad it wouldn't count for much other than earning the credit.

 

[gravitywave]

agree with everything that's been said about how the grades should work, but it might not hurt to call Hunter and make sure....

 

[mvenus929]

agree with everything that's been said about how the grades should work, but it might not hurt to call Hunter and make sure....

Make sure of what? The GPA isn't going to transfer, but it doesn't matter applying to graduate schools because 9 of 10 of them will require that you hand over all of your academic work since high school. AMCAS specifically says that you have to include all schools in your courses list, even those attended during high school. You have to send transcripts from each school individually anyway.