Raising my GPA after a degree?

Question

I graduated this past year with a bachelors degree in Biology. After taking some time off, I'm ready to go back to school. The only problem is that my GPA (a 2.4) isn't high enough to even be considered by most med schools. If I take undergraduate courses at a local college (community college), can those apply to my undergraduate GPA? What if I took classes at the same school I already have a degree from?

Or- once you have a degree can you not take classes to affect the GPA? Is there anything else I can do? Has anyone been in this same situation?

I graduated this past year with a bachelors degree in Biology. After taking some time off, I'm ready to go back to school. The only problem is that my GPA (a 2.4) isn't high enough to even be considered by most med schools. If I take undergraduate courses at a local college (community college), can those apply to my undergraduate GPA? What if I took classes at the same school I already have a degree from?

Or- once you have a degree can you not take classes to affect the GPA? Is there anything else I can do? Has anyone been in this same situation?

Answer 1

It's true that you will not be able to go back and change your GPA at the time of your graduation. However, you still have many options.

You can also enroll in regular classes through the university extension and although this will not change your undergraduate GPA, some medical schools may factor them in when they do their own GPA calculation. Often, schools look at your last two years of study, regardless of your student status. You should email the admissions office and ask them what they do with post-baccalaureate GPA since they vary by schools.

You may also want to consider a second Bachelors or a Masters degree. You may not qualify for a Masters program right away but if you take classes through extension, they should transfer once you are accepted into a graduate program. But you should talk to an advisor first so that you don't just end up taking random classes.

Also depending on where you live, you may have an option to enroll as a post-baccalaureate student with no degree objective (unclassified student). One advantage is that you will save money on tuition since you will pay regular fees instead of individual classes. Encouragingly, I have few friends who got in this way although they had to start from scratch since they had not majored in the sciences.

One question I have for you is, if you plan to improve your undergraduate GPA, what classes would you take? I am assuming you have already taken all or most of the perquisites courses for a medical school.

You should not give up. I know plenty of people with mediocre undergraduate GPAs to go to medical and PhD programs. What you need at this point is to do extensive research on different options and the self-commitment to become a serious student.

Answer 2

You can't hide that 2.4 GPA. However, you can take more classes and get great grades in those. Unfortunately, you need a reason to take those classes. You might try and retake the prereq classes for med school. That's a reason why you are taking classes again. Then, if you have good grades in those, the med schools have an option to use them instead of the earlier ones. Plus, they may average all those grades raising your overall past the minimum to even be looked at.

Still, you really need to spend time and bulk up your extra currics. Give them a compelling reason to take you despite your grades.

You're in a tough spot because 2.5 is typically the minimum. Since you have a BS with a 2.4, they may just consider you too low to even count all the stuff you do after that.

Answer 3

Once you graduated you graduated with that GPA. I graduated with a 2.5 so I know how you feel. The only thing you can do now is volunteer, internship, and bring up your none schooling experience. Schools don't just look at GPA or GRE scores, they also look at MCAT scores and what you did for your community. So get out there and intern, volunteer, and the best thing you can do is talk to either your undergraduate universities guidance counselor or email a Medical Universities Admission counselor and they can tell you what you need to do to get into med school. Good Luck

Answer 4

You can't raise the GPA you graduated with, but you CAN show potential med schools that you are serious by taking additional classes and doing well in them. Now that you're older and wiser (and willing to work harder!), take some classes that you didn't take as an undergrad, that would help prepare you for medical school. If you can show that you can do well in those, your chances of being accepted to med school will improve. Good luck!

Answer 5

Your GPA is only calculated off of the grades you earned while being a student. Once you've graduated, that's it.

But going back to school and taking additional classes, or retaking ones you didn't do so well in before could help improve your chances if you do well enough in them this time around, and take them from a legitimate and reputuable institution.

Answer 6

You CAN raise your GPA because the next school will have prerequisites that you have to have in order to fulfil them, now what you want to ask is if your school will replace your grade with the higher grade, average both of them and/or allow you to do it in the first place. Secondly, I will talk to the next school and ask them what they advice you doing, retaking at the same school or going to another school. If you are going to community college you may only have 100-299 level courses there. If you need to increase an upper-level course the comm. college option will probably not exist.

Good luck to you!!

Answer 7

Everybody makes mistakes when they are young. Unfortunately, many schools do not explain the need to have a 3.0 or better before graduation. Consider that life happens and things can always change. You can be a doctor if that s what you want, even with a low GPA. Go back and take courses and make sure you get an A. It s worth the try, better than wondering if you had taken the leap...............

Answer 8

Slappy McStretchNuts... you're a useless person

Answer 9

You can't raise your gpa once you've already graduated. Sorry! And you probably really shouldn't be a doctor if you had that low of a gpa anyway!