How thoroughly do Adcoms look at transcripts?

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J

jamilla_w

I ask because I have about a B average in my Calculus and Physics classes, but I took the series for engineering students instead of the shorter and easier series for biology and chemistry students. I bascially got straight B's (with one A). Will they not even notice or will this help mitigate my lower grades in this area?

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I am also curious about this. If someone has Bs in orgo lecture, but an A in lab, does this help their cause?
 
IMO they look at everything. In my interview at PCOM the interviewers asked specifically about my grades in a class. I told them the truth. However, a B or two is not going to kill your chances. Relax a little...
 
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I was actually wondering myself if adcoms care at all about the rigor of your schedule...

There's not really all that much on my transcript that tells them anything about the sorts of classes I took (Brown transcripts are really vague), so I don't know if that sort of information is even availible to them.

Kind of frusterating because I've had a somewhat difficult course load. ..:confused: ...
 
Does anyone know whether they can tell by course names that class is Biochemistry or Molecular Biology? Its not clear from the course title and I know they want those classes! Stupid UCLA course titles..
 
yea

i took the advanced math and physics courses for engineering students, and not the basic ones for non-engineering majors. hope they take that into account.
 
Brown specifically describes its various pre-med courses in a form letter attached to the pre-med committee letter.

Some faculty members will do this in a LOR (describing the course you took with them & how hard it is because most of the students are -- majors and how well you did holding your own in that crowd, etc).

If you have an engineering major it is almost automatically assumed that the courses you took were a b*tch.
 
LizzyM said:
If you have an engineering major it is almost automatically assumed that the courses you took were a b*tch.

Music to my ears :D .
 
I was wondering about this too, do med schools really look at every grade who have earned in all your classes or do they just look at your overall GPA and science gpa?
 
SilverBandCry! said:
I was wondering about this too, do med schools really look at every grade who have earned in all your classes or do they just look at your overall GPA and science gpa?

I think it depends on the school. At PCOM the interviewers specifically asked me about my second semester biochemistry grade (which was a C-). No other schools I interviewed at asked specifically about any of my grades. (BTW-I did have a good reason for the C-, and I adressed this issue in general in my personal statement.)
 
SilverBandCry! said:
I was wondering about this too, do med schools really look at every grade who have earned in all your classes or do they just look at your overall GPA and science gpa?

I do. Some other members always seem to mention the o-chem & physics grades. One member always talks about the type of courses the applicant has taken looking for something beyond science, music (when someone who has been playing an instrument or singing for 13 years continues taking lessons for credit in school), and an intro level course in a heritage language.

AMCAS makes it really easy to scan down the page of grades & courses.
 
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