High school grades

[Rdejong]

Hi all,

Just checked in on both my AACOMAS and AMCAS since my GPA got posted recently, and my high school CC courses that I totally botched brought my GPA from the 3.6 range all the way down to 3.3... Will adcoms take the time to realize that 16 year old me does not represent present day me? My trends are pretty great in college- I had a 3.94 this past year. Please calm my frayed nerves!

Thanks in advance

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[Doug Underhill]

All courses will be considered. Upward trends are viewed positively.

 

[NickNaylor]

Unfortunately your overall GPA will be what it will be. That may "scare" away some people that very quickly look over your application. If your more recent performance is strong, however, hopefully they will notice that your lower grades were limited to a time when you were younger and perhaps less mature. If so, I think that's more likely to be forgiven than if you, say, did poorly during your last two years of college.

 

[Banco]

Unfortunately your overall GPA will be what it will be. That may "scare" away some people that very quickly look over your application. If your more recent performance is strong, however, hopefully they will notice that your lower grades were limited to a time when you were younger and perhaps less mature. If so, I think that's more likely to be forgiven than if you, say, did poorly during your last two years of college.

You say "more likely" to be forgiven. Do Adcoms actually care about HS dual enrollment courses?

 

[GrapesofRath]

You say "more likely" to be forgiven. Do Adcoms actually care about HS dual enrollment courses?

It truly baffles me how we see anybody involved in admission always make a point to say "how nothing you do in high school means jack squat" but then med schools will still factor in community college credits(which some aren't fans of to begin with) taken from high school. Hell, many small crimes and misdemeanors(if an 18 year old HS senior) from high school days are often forgiven come med school admission. This is all assuming this is true that poor HS CC grades are factors in med school admission.

If in fact a poor community college grade from high school affects an applicant it shows how superficial part of this process can be in that a high school transcript couldn't be more meaningless but community college classes from that time will affect your chances at admission? We can argue about whether or not it should be this superficial and there might be some who feel the need to defend this kind of mindset ADCOMs have in viewing these things, but it's just worth noting and acknowledging for better or worse(if in fact it is true that CC high school classes are still weighed)

 

[ngc 2170]

Probably more so if the CC classes also fulfilled med school pre-reqs. That aside, the potential GPA effect is the risk one runs when dual enrolling and opting to receive college credits.

 

[nwts]

You say "more likely" to be forgiven. Do Adcoms actually care about HS dual enrollment courses?

It depends on what you mean. If you are talking about what they think about high school dual enrollment courses if/when they are looking at individual course grades, they probably put much less emphasis on these than on any other classes. However, those courses are still factored into the GPA, and that can affect their opinions. If they're just quickly glancing over your application and see the lower GPA, that might cause them to be wary of your application. Also, even if they realize that high school dual enrollment courses lowered your GPA, they are not going to bother to try to figure out exactly how much those courses lowered your GPA, so it is possible that they could underestimate the impact of those courses on your GPA (for example, they might guess/estimate that OP would have had a 3.45-3.5 without the high school classes, but in reality he/she actually would have had a 3.6).

 

[Lamel]

Probably more so if the CC classes also fulfilled med school pre-reqs. That aside, the potential GPA effect is the risk one runs when dual enrolling and opting to receive college credits.

If only they told us that med schools will see these grades when we were 14 yrs old.

 

[ZedsDed]

It truly baffles me how we see anybody involved in admission always make a point to say "how nothing you do in high school means jack squat" but then med schools will still factor in community college credits(which some aren't fans of to begin with) taken from high school. Hell, many small crimes and misdemeanors(if an 18 year old HS senior) from high school days are often forgiven come med school admission. This is all assuming this is true that poor HS CC grades are factors in med school admission.

If in fact a poor community college grade from high school affects an applicant it shows how superficial part of this process can be in that a high school transcript couldn't be more meaningless but community college classes from that time will affect your chances at admission? We can argue about whether or not it should be this superficial and there might be some who feel the need to defend this kind of mindset ADCOMs have in viewing these things, but it's just worth noting and acknowledging for better or worse(if in fact it is true that CC high school classes are still weighed)

In a process that is this competitive, ADCOM's will look for easy reasons (even ridiculous, superficial ones) to reduce the pile of applications that they get. GPA cutoffs are one of the easiest ways to reduce that pile.

 

[GrapesofRath]

In a process that is this competitive, ADCOM's will look for easy reasons (even ridiculous, superficial ones) to reduce the pile of applications that they get. GPA cutoffs are one of the easiest ways to reduce that pile.

That's all well and good.

The situation this persists often has little to do about hitting GPA cut offs to the point an app is screened out. Nobody is going to get cut off numerically for having a 3.65 vs a 3.85(without CC classes counting) but if it affects them in a negative way it still a) highlight how incredibly superficial the process can be in instances b) the double standard that exists in that nothing else means jack squat from high school(ADCOMs even at public info sessions will go out of their way to tell you this) but a couple poor CC grades for some reason will just because they are supposed to be linked to college credit.

The process can still be an overall decent one while a and b also being true and highlighting the blatant flaws with it.

 

[ZedsDed]

That's all well and good.

The situation this persists often has little to do about hitting GPA cut offs to the point an app is screened out. Nobody is going to get cut off numerically for having a 3.65 vs a 3.85(without CC classes counting) but if it affects them in a negative way it still a) highlight how incredibly superficial the process can be in instances b) the double standard that exists in that nothing else means jack squat from high school(ADCOMs even at public info sessions will go out of their way to tell you this) but a couple poor CC grades for some reason will just because they are supposed to be linked to college credit.

The process can still be an overall decent one while a and b also being true and highlighting the blatant flaws with it.

It's not an auto screen thing (unless they have like 10 Fs from high school that drops their GPA <3.0) so much as them divvying up applicants along the lines of GPA. An individual who has a low GPA but is an otherwise competitive applicant is going to be at a disadvantage against the sea of pristine applicants that flood in. It doesn't make sense to me either, it's just the nature of such a hyper-competitive process.

 

[Banco]

Yeah its pretty arbitrary. The requirement could easily be "provide all college transcripts after graduating from HS/getting GED".

 

[mw18]

This seems like a very good topic to address in the "Is there anything you would like to draw attention to or explain?" type question on many secondaries.

If you don't get auto-screened (I don't feel auto screening is likely) then maybe you can address it well in your essays.

 

[nwts]

I'm really torn about this issue. On one hand, I think it's kind of annoying that high school stuff is considered in applications to professional schools. It's frustrating that stuff that someone did when he/she was 14 is considered in assessing him/her as a 22 year-old. On the other hand, I know multiple people who took a lot of dual enrollment courses in high school (including all of the core/basic courses for their major) and then graduated with their bachelor's degree only 1.5-2 years after graduating high school. For most of these people, the only things they really needed after their high school classes were electives. It would kind of suck if people were able to do only 1.5-2 years of electives, and that was all that counted toward their GPAs and all that adcoms could see. It would seem wrong to me if people were able to apply to medical school and adcoms couldn't see their grades in chemistry, biology, physics, organic chemistry, and math. I know that the MCAT should prove that they have decent knowledge of these subjects. However, there are a ton of people who have gotten good or great MCAT scores who got only okay or even subpar grades in these courses, and that is generally a mark against them. It would seem wrong that you'd be able to "hide" all of your coursework in basic sciences. I am not saying that this completely justifies the policy. I just think situations like this are what make this a difficult issue to figure out.

 

[Grace184]

Tryna be a gunner bro....should have got those As in HS. Bit you in the A$$.

You'll be fine. Keep on gunnin

 

[ngc 2170]

If only they told us that med schools will see these grades when we were 14 yrs old.

It does seem unfair to hold something from 4+ years ago against you like that. But age 14? Wow. Anyone taking college classes in freshman year of high school probably possesses unusual foresight, I would imagine.

I always figured opting for college credits meant those classes would end up on my transcript and that I would need to disclose the grades to anyone wanting my "full" college class grades. For better or for worse — those classes could be easy As too!

 

[Banco]

It does seem unfair to hold something from 4+ years ago against you like that. But age 14? Wow. Anyone taking college classes in freshman year of high school probably possesses unusual foresight, I would imagine.

I always figured opting for college credits meant those classes would end up on my transcript and that I would need to disclose the grades to anyone wanting my "full" college class grades. For better or for worse — those classes could be easy As too!

Hahahaha I wouldn't say what I possessed was "foresight". It was more like "damn I got a B in college stats? that's pretty good!"

 

[ngc 2170]

For a high school freshman, that is pretty good!

 

[Gandyy]

High School Dual Enrollment is so good though if you do well in those classes. You can knock out non science pre-reqs that you dont want bogging you down at your 4 year.

I dont mean stuff that is hard.... i'm talking about the easy English Comp classes, and History etc that are just an annoyance you would rather not have to deal with when you hit the big boy Organic chemistry, and Physiology classes.