GPA Check-Up | How Does AMCAS Calculate GPAs?
What do you think the "typical" GPA is for students entering medical school? If you guess "4.0" guess again. In fact, students with 3.2 averages and above can be eligible candidates. While a "B+" average or better provides medical school admissions committees with valuable information about your overall scholastic achievement, what might prove just as important is how you got the "A" or the "B".
What does this mean? Well, if your GPA is improving each year of college, this could mitigate a lower GPA in your first year. But if your GPA is up one semester, and down the next, forming a pattern, this type of inconsistency could indicate weaknesses in aptitude or deficiency in application.
Another important variable in GPA is the differential between your overall GPA and your GPA in pre-med prerequisite courses and other science courses. Admissions committees typically look at this, and your science GPA should be in line with your overall GPA.
Finally, during the process, AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service) will calculate your "AMCAS" GPA which may differ from the way Northeastern calculates the GPA.
In order to "normalize" the wide range of policies among different colleges and universities for recording and calculating GPAs, the AMCAS generates three different grade point averages (GPA) from all your undergraduate courses.
The BCPM GPA is your science GPA from all biology, chemistry, physics and math courses. The AO GPA (all other) is your non-science courses GPA, and the CUM GPA is the cumulative GPA.
AMCAS also does not recognize any "forgiveness" policies, so a poor grade cannot be "erased" by re-taking the course - the two grades will be averaged.
