Program-Specific prereq. GPAs

[greco13]

In the PTCAS application is it possible to designate which classes you want to fulfill a program's specific prerequisite requirements?

e.g. University X requires general psychology and another upper level psychology course OR a sociology course. Say I earned an "A" in gen. psych., a "B-" in abnormal psych. and an "A-" in sociology. The GPA of these two class combos calculates to be 3.33 vs. 3.83.

My prerequisite GPA is too close to the 3.0 cut-off for some of the schools I am applying to next cycle. This detail could mean the difference on whether my application even gets looked at or not.

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[jblil]

Yes. As you fill out the PTCAS application, you can designate a specific class that you took, for fulfillment of a specific pre-req.
However - some schools are quite rigid about their pre-reqs: one that I was applying to wanted General Psy as its pre-req, and would not accept anything else. It even stated that "Adv. Psy" or "Abnormal Psy" would not be considered.

 

[jchen707]

In PTCAS, you designate whatever you believe will fulfill one of hte PTCAS pre-reqs in the drop down menu. They then calculate your GPAs based on that designation. It's not program specific. Therefore, I believe that programs will look at your grades that you entered into the coursework section of PTCAS if they have different requirements. i.e. Some schools will only need 1 bio class but some want 2. In PTCAS you can designate bio1 and bio2. So when the school that only wants 1 bio class looks at your PTCAS pre-req GPA, it will be looking at a non-accurate representation of what your GPA is for their program. Does that make sense? For me at Emory, they only required 5 pre-reqs, and my GPA for htem was like 3.7 or something. But my pre-req GPA according to PTCAS is only a 3.47 or something. So there is some discrepancy that I think the schools work out among themselves. Anyway, To answer your specific question about the psych/soc course, It would take your General psych grade and your soc grade I believe. Anyway, this is a confusing thing to explain in text. If you have any specific questions I would call the school yourself and find out what they do during the process. Hope that helped

 

[greco13]

In PTCAS, you designate whatever you believe will fulfill one of hte PTCAS pre-reqs in the drop down menu. They then calculate your GPAs based on that designation. It's not program specific. Therefore, I believe that programs will look at your grades that you entered into the coursework section of PTCAS if they have different requirements. i.e. Some schools will only need 1 bio class but some want 2. In PTCAS you can designate bio1 and bio2. So when the school that only wants 1 bio class looks at your PTCAS pre-req GPA, it will be looking at a non-accurate representation of what your GPA is for their program. Does that make sense? For me at Emory, they only required 5 pre-reqs, and my GPA for htem was like 3.7 or something. But my pre-req GPA according to PTCAS is only a 3.47 or something. So there is some discrepancy that I think the schools work out among themselves. Anyway, To answer your specific question about the psych/soc course, It would take your General psych grade and your soc grade I believe. Anyway, this is a confusing thing to explain in text. If you have any specific questions I would call the school yourself and find out what they do during the process. Hope that helped

Thank you for the reply - helped a little. If you've taken 4 different classes that can fulfill the same prereq. how does the program choose which to use to calculate a prereq. GPA? Say for example a school requires 1 biology class - any one will do. you've take Gen 1, Gen 2, Exercise Physiology (some schools accept this for bio), and medmicro. The only course you got an "A" in was Gen 1. How do you make sure they use this to calculate your prereq. GPA?

 

[greco13]

Yes. As you fill out the PTCAS application, you can designate a specific class that you took, for fulfillment of a specific pre-req.
However - some schools are quite rigid about their pre-reqs: one that I was applying to wanted General Psy as its pre-req, and would not accept anything else. It even stated that "Adv. Psy" or "Abnormal Psy" would not be considered.

Ok. So I have an option of pairing a specific prereq. with a specific school? Like in my example I can designate that the later requirement be fulfilled with Sociology and not the abnormal class? But then for other schools sociology won't even be calculated in the prereq. GPA because they only accept an upper level psychology class...

 

[jchen707]

you're going ot have to call and ask the programs. PTCAS doesn't designate pre-reqs based on programs. So the easiest way to call and ask.

 

[Ngozi Onyema]

I kind of had the same question but I think at the end of the day the prerequisite GPA does not matter much because some programs have different prerequisites and the PTCAS prerequisite GPA is not an accurate GPA for a specific program. So I think schools look at your grades for their required prerequisite classes instead of the prerequisite GPA. PTCAS doesn't let you designate prerequisites for specific programs/schools. It's all bunched in to one GPA.

I'm not 100% sure but I think there is also a limit on PTCAS on the number of prerequisites per subject which might cause conflict if you are trying to apply to many schools with different prerequisites. I am not sure if the limitation i remember reading about would cause a conflict with entering prerequisites.

 

[greco13]

It's simple for the non-PTCAS schools because you can simply write in what class you want to fulfill each prereq. in their application. Even some PTCAS programs have paper supplementals where you do the same thing. I guess I'll need to just wait and call each program when I apply this summer.