Retaking courses, Bio, good idea?

[UT8305]

I'm currently going into my senior year at university of tampa, and my BCPM gpa is 3.28 right now, the place i really messed up was in bio, I got and B/C and a C (Bio 1 and 2), and if i take it again, and get A's, i can have a 3.7ish, however does anybody think this is a good idea, because i know how adcoms look down upon retakes of classes, however is it a better choice to stay wit that gpa then not doing it over again, thats the only class i really messed up in thats greatly effecting my science gpa. I'm writing the MCAT in august.

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[HumidBeing]

Normally, you wouldn't retake a course that you received those grades in. If you take different courses in the BCMP category, and get "A's", that would have the same effect on your GPA. It would also look better and give you the opportunity to learn new things.

 

[Mobius1985]

A reason to go ahead and retake the classes would be that you didn't master the material, which you need to understand to do well on the MCAT (and I don't believe that Adcomms would look down on this). And while retaking might boost your institution's transcript GPA, remember that AMCAS will calculate both grades into their GPA calculation.

 

[fireflygirl]

I agree with everything that has been said so far, however, one thing my advisor once told me was that retaking classes is not the most favorable thing looked upon by the Adcoms. If you get an A, it's great and they realise that you have a better grasp on the material and that you are dedicated...etc however, they know you have already taken it once as well, which may or may not give you a leg up on the material.

I had a similar situation before I applied, and I was encouraged to forgo taking Bio 101 again and instead focus on doing well on the upper level classes since they would have a better impact on my grades and overall appeal from the adcoms.

Finally, one last thing to think about is that if you are thinking of the osteopathic route, if you retake a class, and you do better than the last time, that higher, albeit more recent class, is counted towards your BCPM. However, if you did worse, because it's the most recent grade, that would count towards your BCPM.

All this being said, I just wanted to give you some other factors to think about...

 

[SamSt1]

tons of people have a C or two in their pre-reqs and don't retake...

take some upper level BCMP courses (immuno, histo, etc) and kill them. get A's and prove you can handle the coursework. retaking won't have the same effect.