Taking similar courses from different departments - in regards to BCPM GPA

[Superman78]

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My school has two different Biology departments which offer similar courses. The emphases are slightly different and I'm interested in taking a General Genetics course from the other Biology department after already having taken it in my department. My school's policy is that I would receive no credit for this, although the grade would go on my transcript. I'm wondering if AMCAS will count those as two separate BCPM classes, or if it'll average them as if I retook the class, or if it'll do something totally weird and unexpected. The titles of the courses are slightly different and the descriptions are different and one has a more macro viewpoint while the other is more micro/molecular.

Thanks.

 

[silverlining1]

The AAMC can be helpful - just give them a call and describe your situation. I also called to ask about listing courses on my AMCAS, and they answered my question.

 

[IceMan0824]

A short reply, from the little I remember from my AMCAS adventure is that it AMCAS would count both grades (although some schools might give you some looks for taking strangely similar (if not identical) courses).

The reason I say that is simply that, even if the classes were identical, and your school covers up the first grade with the other, AMCAS will still require you to disclose both grades. Why there should be any difference in this case is beyond me?

 

[Superman78]

Yeah, I'm thinking they'll probably treat them as separate classes since they ARE separate classes, they're not crosslisted or anything, they just happen to cover a lot of the same material. And the grade does appear on the transcript even though I'd receive no university credit towards graduation for it, which I don't care about since I'm swimming in AP credit. Two different departments, two different classes, two different grades.

Now that I think about it I might not even take the class, I should do something else. I want to broaden my knowledge and take different classes, but I'm also trying to boost my GPA and to do that I have to overload with units, but in doing so I don't want to overload with every class being completely new material otherwise it could just end up backfiring and hurting my GPA. Eh, I'll figure it out.