GPA question...

[rosebud1]

I'm a general pre-health student at the moment, not 100% sure which field I want to go into yet, but from what I've researched so far, PT is one of my top choices. The non-pretentious, laidback atmosphere and high level of relationship building really appeal to me.

But I have a question about how GPA is calculated.

I know that for med school and dental school they look at your overall GPA and your science (BCPM) GPA. It seems that PT schools break it down into overall GPA and prereq GPA. But I've noticed that most PT schools list things like psychology and English as prereqs. So are classes like psych and English actually included in the prereq GPA? Or is more like the BCPM model used for other professional programs?

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but the term "prereq GPA" used in place of "science GPA" threw me off...

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[artizzle]

Each school has different prerequisites. Look at the school that you are interested and see what courses they require. "Prereq GPA" is specific for each school, so do your research and come back with the schools you are interested in. poop.

 

[vinganca]

^^ s/he's not asking what prerequisites are required; she's asking whether the humanitites prereqs (i.e. English comp, psych, etc) are included in the prereq GPA calculations.

I would assume so, although it does sound a bit ambiguous since prereq GPA is often referred to as "science GPA". I don't know. But my best guess would be that if a school requires a course as a prereq, they include it when calculating prereq GPA.

 

[DancerFutureDPT]

yes they are included. I logged into my PTCAS application and got all the GPA calculations they do (I deleted my GPA calculations, but here's the list):

The first they do is calculate your GPA based on each year in school, any work after undergrad level, and 300-400 level courses (upper division):

Freshman
Sophomore
Junior
Senior
Upper-Division Course
UnderGrad Cumulative
Post Baccalaureate
Graduate
Total

Then they calculate for each course subject, a combine math and science GPA, and an overall "prereq" GPA (this includes those humanities courses).
Anatomy and Physiology
Biology
Chemistry
English Composition
Math
Movement Science
Other Course
Other Science
Physics
Professional Course
Social / Behavioral Science
Total
Combined Science and Math
Core PT Prerequisite GPA

However, when you fill out the application, you have to manually enter every course you've ever taken, and then select if it's a prerequisite course or not. They only give you two classes per prerequisite (like choose "social science/psychology 1" and "social science/psych class 2", "chem I", "chem II", etc.)...they don't want you to put that every psych or sociology class you ever took as a prerequisite course. For example, if you've taken Gen Chem I and II, and Organic Chem I and II, and biochem, you would only select Gen Chem I and II as your "prerequisite" courses. Since I was a psych minor, I have a crapload of psych classes to choose from, so I chose the two psych classes that I knew were required for some programs (like abnormal psych), and then another psych class in which I got an A. For my English composition course, I chose the course I got an A in (instead of the one I got an A- in).

However, when you're entering courses, they do make you select the subject area it's in, if it falls into one of the prerequisite course topics. So for all my psych classes I had to say they were social science courses. Therefore they got calculated into the social science GPA, but I only selected 2 of them to count for the 2 social science prerequisite courses (I hope that makes sense). Because of this, my "prerequisite" GPA is much higher than almost any of my individual subject matter GPAs. My social science GPA was 3.32, but the only two courses that actually count for the GPA were both 4.0s, so that bumps it up. It's pretty easy to cheat the system just a little bit. But nonetheless, the schools will still see your entire transcript, so if you have a lot of Cs and Ds then it won't help you much to select two A's, because they'll still see everything.

If you're still confused, I would say register with PTCAS (it doesn't cost anything to start filling out the application) and look at the course listing information in there. It would probably help to see it yourself to see what you have to do.

 

[johncronejr]

Why would you need to choose between a class you made an "A" in versus "A-" ? I have never seen a college transcript that shows anything but A, B, C, D, F. Are there colleges that actually put +/- 's on transcripts?

 

[Danae00]

.

 

[DancerFutureDPT]

Why would you need to choose between a class you made an "A" in versus "A-" ? I have never seen a college transcript that shows anything but A, B, C, D, F. Are there colleges that actually put +/- 's on transcripts?

Indeed there are....Northwestern in Evanston, IL does! Except one of my professors who decided not to follow school policy and only give A, B, C, D....so glad I studied my but off, got an 89.5 in the class, and got a B. I could have not taken the final and still gotten an 80 in the class. Oh well. And all NU classes use the standard scale, 90, 80, 70 etc....some professors decided what was an A- versus A (93 may be an A- or an A).

But PTCAS does distinguish between A and A- if it appears like that on the transcript. For us an A = 4.0, A- = 3.7, B+ = 3.3., B = 3.0, etc.

 

[rosebud1]

Thanks everyone.

Then they calculate for each course subject, a combine math and science GPA, and an overall "prereq" GPA (this includes those humanities courses).

So each person technically has lots of GPAs, but schools just primarily look at the overall GPA and the pre-req GPA, right?

That's kind of the impression that I get, since all the schools list their average overall and pre-req GPAs, but I've never seen a school list its average science and math GPA or its average senior year GPA or anything like that.


EDIT: I should probably note that I'm not trying to cheat the system to make my GPA look higher than it is or anything like that. I already have a pretty good GPA. I was just curious about how this whole thing works.

 

[rosebud1]

Ohhh, and speaking of the whole + and - thing, I've noticed that a few of the professors at my school have a policy of giving + grades but not - grades.

It's a pretty sweet deal. For example, if you get an 88% in a class, they'll give you the B+. But if you have an 81%, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt and call it a B.

Does anyone else have profs that do this? I've only had 2 professors who have done it, but I actually really like that system. It seems more fair, since chances are someone with an 91% understands the material just as well and works just as hard as someone with a 94%. But yet it also rewards the high achievers with + grades.

 

[MIDPT2012]

Why would you need to choose between a class you made an "A" in versus "A-" ? I have never seen a college transcript that shows anything but A, B, C, D, F. Are there colleges that actually put +/- 's on transcripts?

The school I go to doesn't give a letter grade, you get a 0.0-4.0 grade down the to tenth.

So a 98-100 is a 4.0
97 is a 3.9
96 is a 3.8
95 is a 3.7 etc etc...

Another university by us only gives in 0.5 increments. So comparing GPAs between schools can be somewhat misleading. When I was an undergrad an 85% was a 3.0, where I am for grad school an 80% is a 3.0

 

[johncronejr]

Interesting. Thanks for the responses about +/-.

 

[Shugo]

Why would you need to choose between a class you made an "A" in versus "A-" ? I have never seen a college transcript that shows anything but A, B, C, D, F. Are there colleges that actually put +/- 's on transcripts?

yup, there are schools that show specifically what type of letter grade you received and it is included in GPA. I wish mine did. PTCAS makes a standard GPA for all applicants to conform to.