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We have all seen the 1,000s of threads about improving your GPA and/or MCAT score when people either fail to get in, or really know that the 3.0 and the 26N are just not quite competitive enough.
Now-- I recently had a friend that is more or less in this boat. People suggested she "improve her GPA by taking additional classes." Seems reasonable right? But why? Do people ever stop and think about how LONG it would take to bring up a GPA?? With the exception of screwing up a semester freshman year, a GPA is based on 6 to 8 semesters of coursework. Adding one or two more semesters, under the generous assumtion of getting straight A's will only boost your GPA a tiny bit. (For example, my entire post-bacc program boosted me from 3.65 to 3.7, making all A's) If you have a 3.0 Science GPA, you will, at best, improve it around 0.1 per quarter... And that is only at the beginning--- then the law of diminishing returns kicks in. And a science GPA is based on way less credit hours than the overall GPA. Bringing up an overall GPA by .5 would be damn near impossible! So you might improve your Science GPA from 3.0 to 3.3? The average is still in the neighborhood of 3.5+. This doesn't even address the fact that a person's study habits, test taking skills, raw ability, etc are what designated a 3.0 to begin with!! Why doesn't anyone ever talk about these things?? "Hey dude, you need to study differently." The answer seems to always be: "Take more classes and work really hard." Perhaps there are other underlying issues here?
MCAT? Maybe. But thats another blog.
Now-- I recently had a friend that is more or less in this boat. People suggested she "improve her GPA by taking additional classes." Seems reasonable right? But why? Do people ever stop and think about how LONG it would take to bring up a GPA?? With the exception of screwing up a semester freshman year, a GPA is based on 6 to 8 semesters of coursework. Adding one or two more semesters, under the generous assumtion of getting straight A's will only boost your GPA a tiny bit. (For example, my entire post-bacc program boosted me from 3.65 to 3.7, making all A's) If you have a 3.0 Science GPA, you will, at best, improve it around 0.1 per quarter... And that is only at the beginning--- then the law of diminishing returns kicks in. And a science GPA is based on way less credit hours than the overall GPA. Bringing up an overall GPA by .5 would be damn near impossible! So you might improve your Science GPA from 3.0 to 3.3? The average is still in the neighborhood of 3.5+. This doesn't even address the fact that a person's study habits, test taking skills, raw ability, etc are what designated a 3.0 to begin with!! Why doesn't anyone ever talk about these things?? "Hey dude, you need to study differently." The answer seems to always be: "Take more classes and work really hard." Perhaps there are other underlying issues here?
MCAT? Maybe. But thats another blog.