Sending Medical Schools my updated grades

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I know it's generally apropos to send the medical schools that haven't rejected you a friendly "update" regarding you academic status. I just received my fall semester grades earlier this week and would like to inform the medical schools I applied to about them. I'm not sure how to do this though, since most medical schools request that you send things to them online. Should I just upload a picture or pdf of my official transcript, or is an email with the grades sufficient? I mean, theoretically, how do they know you're not lying about your grades if you don't send an official transcript from your college?

 

[wiloghby]

I mean, theoretically, how do they know you're not lying about your grades if you don't send an official transcript from your college?

It's simple. If you lie about your grades and are subsequently admitted, you will have to provide a final transcript. They will see the discrepancy and your offer will be rescinded.

So you can just type up the grades, because they know you have to be telling them the truth.

 

[Ginred]

Does anyone know if updated GPA's bear much sway on the decisions of most Ad coms? Will they likely look at your new GPA when deciding on you if you email it to them, or are they more prone to just stick to the info from AMCAS? I'm going to email my schools either way, I'm just curious if this will have any effect according to anyone's experience/awareness.

 

[strugglebus]

Our premed office tells us to have official transcripts sent to schools we want to update. While you could theoretically send an email being like "I got these grades in these courses," it's probably more professional/more legitimate to send your transcript. Also, I heard that you only need to do this if your grades this semester show a positive difference in your GPA. Otherwise it's not necessary.

@Ginred Some schools said during their interview days that they didn't look at MCAT/GPA after the interview. And based on what I know, getting an interview shows that you already have the stats to be competitive at a school. So I personally don't think these updates are worth much, unless your GPA suddenly shoots up a lot this semester.

 

[BurberryDoc]

I think the advantage is not so much in "ha! my GPA went from a 3.6 to a 3.68!, here are my A, A, A, and A- and B+ for this semester! I'm an awesome student and you should consider me!" but rather, submitting grades to the schools in an update letter conveys your continued interest in their program, and also provides you with an additional opportunity for correspondence with the admissions committes about "why your program" or what you have done with yourself outside of the classroom since applying.

 

[BurberryDoc]

Our premed office tells us to have official transcripts sent to schools we want to update. While you could theoretically send an email being like "I got these grades in these courses," it's probably more professional/more legitimate to send your transcript. Also, I heard that you only need to do this if your grades this semester show a positive difference in your GPA. Otherwise it's not necessary.

@Ginred Some schools said during their interview days that they didn't look at MCAT/GPA after the interview. And based on what I know, getting an interview shows that you already have the stats to be competitive at a school. So I personally don't think these updates are worth much, unless your GPA suddenly shoots up a lot this semester.

Updates are valuable. I am fairly certain that my post-interview update swayed the ADCOM towards acceptance and away from wait list (I have a 3.3 uGPA and interviewed at a school where the average GPA was a 3.7. I am non-URM.)

 

[strugglebus]

Updates are valuable. I am fairly certain that my post-interview update swayed the ADCOM towards acceptance and away from wait list (I have a 3.3 uGPA and interviewed at a school where the average GPA was a 3.7. I am non-URM.)

Good to know! I definitely agree that updates are valuable but was just unsure about grades.

 

[aspirantmed]

Think they'll care about individual grades, though, or do you think it will simply suffice to give them a numerical GPA in an update letter?

 

[kmp0410]

I have sent updates to many schools. In the ones via email (and not directly on the application page) I have copied the part of my unofficial transcript and pasted it in the email as well as attached the saved web page of my unofficial transcript.

This is what UCF asked for specifically and every other school seems to be fine with it.

 

[BurberryDoc]

Think they'll care about individual grades, though, or do you think it will simply suffice to give them a numerical GPA in an update letter?

Well, my GPA dropped slightly, but my grades are A, A-, B, B+. Not terrible, considering my GPA is 3.85. But instead of saying my new, slightly lower GPA, in going to just tell them my grades. Really it depends how though/brief you want to be, and which side of your GPA (up or down) you are on.

 

[aspirantmed]

Well, my GPA dropped slightly, but my grades are A, A-, B, B+. Not terrible, considering my GPA is 3.85. But instead of saying my new, slightly lower GPA, in going to just tell them my grades. Really it depends how though/brief you want to be, and which side of your GPA (up or down) you are on.

Up, but I took a science class on a non-credit 'audit' basis, and I'm not so sure if medical schools might see that favorably. I see your point though; if there's no real convention here, it seems to be very much of a "portray yourself in a positive light" approach.

 

[Ginred]

By way of update, most of the schools replied to me with a simple "Thanks for letting us know, we've put this information in your application" or the generic "we'll respond to your email in the next few days." My GPA definitely helped my cause (4.0 this semester! Woot woot!!!) so I included my letter grades along with my newly calculated AMCAS GPA's (both cumulative and BCPM.)

BurberryDoc I like your approach of making this more a letter of interest which happens to include an academic update as well. This is the route I ended up taking with my email.

Thanks to those who responded to my question by the way!

 

[ct303]

@Ginred how did you get/calculate new GPAs by AMCAS?

 

[Ginred]

Hey ct303

I logged on to my AMCAS application and then opened up my official application (by clicking "Print Application" on the right hand side.) After choosing the PDF option, this loaded my official AMCAS application. Under the grades section, it shows how many credit hours you have for both GPA calculations in the "Verified Grade Point Averages" section of the application.

Now, let's say a student has a 3.50 in BCPM and a 3.60 for their cumulative GPA and they have taken a total of 125 hours toward their cumulative GPA and 75 hours toward their BCPM GPA. For 125 hours, the most quality points that the student could have achieved is 125 x 4= 500 (125 for the number of credit hours, the 4 based on a 4.0 grading system.) Because the student achieved a 3.60 cumulative GPA, then we can calculate his/her quality points as 3.6/4 or 0.9 of 500. In this case, 0.9 of 500 is 450, so the student achieved 450 quality points for their cumulative GPA.

Using this same logic we can calculate quality points for the BCPM GPA as 262.5.

To calculate the new GPA, we just have to determine how many quality points are being added to the GPA difference ratio. So now let's say the student in our example just completed a 14 credit hour semester of courses, ALL OF THEM BCPM. Let's also suppose that the student achieved a 3.80 GPA for the semester. The total possible number of quality points for this new semester is 56 (14 x 4). The student earned 53.2 quality points (56 x 0.95. The 0.95 is the same as 3.8/4)

Now let's add these new quality points to the students totals. First for the cumulative GPA. The student HAD 450 quality points (AKA a 3.6) This semester they added 53.2 quality points to that 450 for a total of 503.2 quality points. This new number isn't out of 500 any more of course, it is now out of 500 + 56 = 556 (The 56 was the total possible number of quality points for the semester remember.) Now, 503.2/556 = .905. We can multiply this number by 4 to find the new cumulative GPA, which is 3.62.

With this same approach, we can calculate a new BCPM GPA of 3.55.

Sorry if this explanation was a bit convoluted. If you'd like some help calculating what your new AMCAS GPA's are, feel free to PM me your info and I can help you with them. I hope this helps!