How do ADCOMS pick apart classes?

[donkeykong1]

Not sure if anyone might know how to answer this but I know that most schools have their own unique system for numbering and titling their courses. Like my school uses weird letters and numbers that don't correlate with courses being upper or lower level to identify the bio, chem and physics, dept. Nor do they even signify the department.

Its not like most schools who use the traditional BIO XXX or CHEM101.

Would ADCOMS normally go by title or do they spend time looking up courses on schools catalog sites.

If they only go by course title, how would they know which dept offered that course? For example how would they figure out that a stats course was taken under a traditional math dept over a non trad research dept.

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[koan]

My understanding is that ADCOMS don't handle this aspect per se, as much as AACOMAS (the application service) does while verifying your transcripts. You enter the subject for each course according to the instructions (http://www.aacom.org/InfoFor/applicants/documents/instructions.pdf) and during verification AACOMAS groups your courses according to prerequisite fields, noting any credit hour deficiencies. My guess is that the schools themselves don't go looking up course descriptions unless you have some unique issue.

 

[drctother]

Its a **** show, good luck. My sGPA is way lower than it should be. Of course, my non-science GPA is through the roof because my best science courses werent counted as science. I took a lot of courses like pharmacology, physiology, microbiology, pathology, virology etc. These are ALL considered science courses at my school but AACOMAS clearly didnt think all were science because my sGPA is aboue 0.2-0.3 below my calculated sGPA

Although generally at American schools, dont you guys have it clear cut "ie pathology would be BIO XXX"? Im Canadian and we dont do this. We have PATH 375 for example. I think the mixed titles is why my sGPA is off. Would you say thats true generally that your departments are clear cut?

 

[MLT2MT2DO]

Although generally at American schools, dont you guys have it clear cut "ie pathology would be BIO XXX"? Im Canadian and we dont do this. We have PATH 375 for example. I think the mixed titles is why my sGPA is off. Would you say thats true generally that your departments are clear cut?

It varies from school to school and that is what the OP is asking. In contrast to your story, I had many classes that started with a designation of CLS I labeled the ones that should have been BIO credits as such and AACOMAS left them as BIO.
It sounds like you should have maybe contested the fact they were changed, drc by providing a course catalog description.

 

[donkeykong1]

Exactly bro. So I think its up to us to designate the subject of each course. Then AACOMAS or AMCAS checks the designation with the course title to see if there is some resemblance. This is why both application services clearly mention that course designation is based solely on course content and not dept since its virtually impossible to check the dept classifications for thousands of applicants.

The Canadian thing is another story, I think there is something mentioned on p.30 that might clear some stuff up.

 

[drctother]

Ya good point. If I dont get in this cycle I will definitely follow through next cycle to ensure I get the proper science GPA

Thanks

 

[CopToEM]

I took a lot of courses like pharmacology, physiology, microbiology, pathology, virology etc. These are ALL considered science courses at my school but AACOMAS clearly didnt think all were science because my sGPA is aboue 0.2-0.3 below my calculated sGPA

You should contest that. Each of those courses should definitely factor into your sGPA and it sounds to me like AACOMAS just let them slip by as general courses. Those are definitely science courses as anyone would expect.

To the OP, everyone else has pretty much been spot on. To be honest, from what I understand, most schools do not mull over your AACOMAS information as much as we like to stress that they do. It's my understanding that they essentially just look at your cGPA, sGPA, and any trending. Most don't go through class by class to see how you performed on individual topics. There's thousands of applicants and that kind of time just simply doesn't exist.