Minor/Extra Science Classes?

[bbee09]

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Hi! This is my first post on SDN 🙂 I am in my second year of college. I have recently started to learn more about medical school and my options as far as raising my GPA and making myself a more competitive applicant. I have only just begun learning about the med school application process, so I apologize my questions seem ignorant or silly. Anyway, I was wondering how classes taken towards achieving a minor factor into the GPA med schools consider in your application for admission? How does a minor (especially one that may not necessarily relate to your major) affect your application? Another question- I had been considering taking different kinds of science classes (outside of med school prereqs and my major requirements) to raise my sciences GPA. For example, my major does not require any clinical nutrition classes. So I was thinking I could take some classes in clinical nutrition, hopefully do well and raise my GPA. Is this a good idea? Would these classes actually be counted in my sciences GPA? Thank you!

 

[bbee09]

No one has an answer?

 

[Astarael]

Medical schools don't really care about what you major in, so a minor isn't going to even register for admissions. The GPA that you get in your minor just gets factored into your overall undergrad GPA, which then gets split into science and cumulative GPAs. As for science GPA, what counts is any class in the BPCM (biology, physics, chemistry, math) categories. Clinical nutrition may or may not fall under biology (my guess would be probably not) but you could find out for sure by reading the AMCAS instructions on the AAMC website.

 

[TexasPhysician]

There is only science gpa and overall gpa. I don't think nutrition courses are considered in the science gpa, but I could be wrong. A minor may help if it is in a foreign language. Med schools like the bilingual thing.

 

[vanillabear55]

A minor may help if it is in a foreign language. Med schools like the bilingual thing.

👍

I'm not minoring in spanish, because I don't want to take the 9 credits of literature courses, but I'm probably going to do individual oral development courses 'til graduation to hopefully get closer to being bilingual