how do semester hours work?

[bananaboat]

as a canadian, i'm a little confused.

all of my courses on my transcript are divided into 0.5 credits and 1.0 credits. these were all converted in 3 and 6 semester hours respectively.

i'm wondering if this means i DON'T meet the requirements for the schools with 4/8 hour requirements? i thought they were equivalent. did AMCAS not consider my lab work or something?

on my secondaries, should i write my semester hours as on AMCAS? and perhaps make a note that lab was included?

thanks.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[knio]

as a canadian, i'm a little confused.

all of my courses on my transcript are divided into 0.5 credits and 1.0 credits. these were all converted in 3 and 6 semester hours respectively.

i'm wondering if this means i DON'T meet the requirements for the schools with 4/8 hour requirements? i thought they were equivalent. did AMCAS not consider my lab work or something?

on my secondaries, should i write my semester hours as on AMCAS? and perhaps make a note that lab was included?

thanks.

I would suggest you contact each schools individually. Here at U of Waterloo, lectures are 0.5 and labs are 0.25 unit, so AMCAS converted each of my labs to 1 semester hour.

Worst case scenario: Get a letter from your Registrar's Office stating that your courses include lab components.

 

[bananaboat]

I would suggest you contact each schools individually. Here at U of Waterloo, lectures are 0.5 and labs are 0.25 unit, so AMCAS converted each of my labs to 1 semester hour.

Worst case scenario: Get a letter from your Registrar's Office stating that your courses include lab components.

on my transcript, even my courses with labs are given 0.5 credits. i don't get the 0.25 for the lab, so i guess thats why you got the extra hour.

but i still clicked "LAB component" on my amcas, so i dont see why they wouldn't consider this.

 

[knio]

on my transcript, even my courses with labs are given 0.5 credits. i don't get the 0.25 for the lab, so i guess thats why you got the extra hour.

but i still clicked "LAB component" on my amcas, so i dont see why they wouldn't consider this.

They can only do the conversion based on what is on your transcript. I am guessing all your courses (with or without labs) are given 1 unit by your school, so AMCAS can only give you 3 semester hour each based on their conversion guide.

I do think that med schools would be flexible with this. I am sure they must have come across this problem before (assuming you apply to schools that are quite popular among Canadian applicants).

Call the schools ... it may be faster than asking AMCAS to reverify your application. The last time I did this it took them over 4 weeks to reverify my application.

 

[bananaboat]

They can only do the conversion based on what is on your transcript. I am guessing all your courses (with or without labs) are given 1 unit by your school, so AMCAS can only give you 3 semester hour each based on their conversion guide.

I do think that med schools would be flexible with this. I am sure they must have come across this problem before (assuming you apply to schools that are quite popular among Canadian applicants).

Call the schools ... it may be faster than asking AMCAS to reverify your application. The last time I did this it took them over 4 weeks to reverify my application.

yea its really just a couple of schools anyway. it just makes no sense. i mean, i'm not even sure what semester hours mean.

something like o-chem, half a credit, i would have 3 hours lecture, 1 hour tutorial, and 4 hours a lab (on alternating weeks). i KNOW i'm meeting the prereqs, even if my AMCAS says 3 semester hours.

 

[knio]

yea its really just a couple of schools anyway. it just makes no sense. i mean, i'm not even sure what semester hours mean.

something like o-chem, half a credit, i would have 3 hours lecture, 1 hour tutorial, and 4 hours a lab (on alternating weeks). i KNOW i'm meeting the prereqs, even if my AMCAS says 3 semester hours.

LOL ... yea i have no idea what semester hours mean too. I am guessing (correct me if I'm wrong) that 3 semester hours simply means that you have 3 hr/week of that particular course for the whole semester. Makes sense to me.

 

[bananaboat]

bump. on the secondaries, should i be writing the semester hours exactly as they appear on amcas? does anyone know how to calculate semester hours?

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

yea its really just a couple of schools anyway. it just makes no sense. i mean, i'm not even sure what semester hours mean.

something like o-chem, half a credit, i would have 3 hours lecture, 1 hour tutorial, and 4 hours a lab (on alternating weeks). i KNOW i'm meeting the prereqs, even if my AMCAS says 3 semester hours.

Semester hours usually represent how many hours are spent in lecture + lab each week. This, however, is more of a rule-of-thumb, rather than a hard-and-fast rule.

i.e. Normal 1 hour MWF (or 1.5 hour TR) lecture-only courses are usually 3 credit/semester hours. Such a course with a lab is usually 4 credit/semester hours.

Labs are usually 2 credit/semester hours, but can also be 1. That's where the "system" breaks down.

If your school uses a non-standard system, AMCAS uses the instructions that your registrar provides (usually on the back of your official transcript) to convert to credit/semester hours. Any problems are likely the "fault" of your school/registrar and not AMCAS, since they just do what your transcript/registrar tells them to do.