raising Science GPA.. has to be upper division courses?

[kies89]

I want to raise my science GPA. i have two more quarters in UC (I already have met my graduation requirement but to raise GPA more)

i am thinking about any science classes to raise my science GPA.

but does it have to be upper division science courses?

or any general education courses that are science good enough?

for example like.. exercise biology courses.. or food and health courses..

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[503224]

I wouldn't fill your schedule with general education courses in science by any means, but taking a few of them that might be easy, especially when you're otherwise filling up on sciences, could be a GPA booster.

ex. take 3 science classes (actual science classes--upper level BCP's), 1 class you need for your major that isn't hard, and 1 general education science class that isn't hard and interests you (nutrition and food and health courses is a good pathway to go on for dentistry I think, and nutrition counts as "science" though not BCP)

That's a bit of schedule balancing, but it gives you 2 not hard classes that will give you more room to focus on the 3 science classes you're taking, plus the food science class if it's in the nutrition department will count for science GPA. Also I wouldn't recommend taking more than one lab class per semester unless it's a pure lab class. So if you're taking a 4 credit prereq with a lab attached, I wouldn't recommend taking another prereq with a lab attached in the same semester. I guess what it boils down to is don't stack too many labs. You could take a pure lab class like Molecular Bio lab, though. What I mean by pure lab class is a class that is just a lab and just composed of writing lab reports with possibly a presentation or two. That's what I've learned about composing a balanced schedule anyway.

If 3 science classes is too much for you, take 2 and then take another class for your major instead of adding another easy "science." I wouldn't take more than one easy "science" per semester. And maybe not even every semester.

 

[kies89]

any other opinions/advices please?

thanks

 

[iSorin]

i needed to do the same thing after I didn't get in dental school the first few years, but I suppose my situation might be a little different. A+P was not a requirement for my Bio degree or for my first choice dental school (Marquette), so I took A+P 1 and 2 over 2 summers to boost my GPA. I wouldn't consider it an upper level Bio class but I finally got in this year so I guess it helped lol.

However, each time I went to speak with the director of admissions at Marquette he always told me to try to take upper level Bio classes, since those will probably be as close as possible to the difficulty level of the dental school classes. But he also warned me to not try to do too much at once...since it looks better to take 1 or 2 at a time and get A's than to take 4 and get 1 A and the rest B's.

 

[503224]

However, each time I went to speak with the director of admissions at Marquette he always told me to try to take upper level Bio classes, since those will probably be as close as possible to the difficulty level of the dental school classes. But he also warned me to not try to do too much at once...since it looks better to take 1 or 2 at a time and get A's than to take 4 and get 1 A and the rest B's.

I would agree with this. Take as many upper level science classes as you can handle getting A's in. Raising your sGPA is hard enough...you want to do it with as close to a 4.0 as possible.

I have found I can take 3 upper level science classes and by choosing the correct ones I can do well, but you might be better off starting with 1 or 2 to see how much you can handle.

 

[REK111]

Hope you don't mind if I ask a related question which is whether you think I should take an upper level bio course. I graduated last spring. My stats:

oGPA 3.61
sGPA 3.33.
DAT 21 (AA), 21 (PAT) my scores were 20-222 on all subsections

Because I majored in psych, I only took the required predent classes + biochem. My reason for thinking about taking an upper level course (maybe microbio) is to raise my sGPA.

My college was one of the 3 top ranked small liberal arts colleges in the country according to USNWR. My advisor says I don't have to improve my sGPA but what do you think? Thanks very much. And good luck to everyone.

 

[UCLAzy]

nobody cares about the rank of your school but you and maybe your parents (sorry bro). but your stats arent that bad either, you can probably roll the dice and apply