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Entering Grades Into CASPA


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Hi everyone,

 

I am a prospective PA Student who is planning on applying for the 2016 cycle. I am a non-traditional student due to the fact that when I began my undergrad at age 17, I was extremely immature and unmotivated. I was a straight A student in high school without needing to put forth much of an effort. I was unprepared for the college (academic) experience. This lead to an extremely lousy GPA over the course of 5 semesters, and eventually academic dismissal. I took over a year and one half off to re-asses my life goals, grow up, etc. I basically started from the beginning when I re-enrolled at a community college. I then earned my associates with a GPA north of 3.5 (all general sciences, orgo I/II, calc-based physics I/II, Microbio, A&P I, calculus I/II, 3 non-science/math courses). I am in my second to last semester at SUNY OW and have a GPA north of 3.9 (Analytical Chemistry, Physical Chemistry I/II, Biochemistry I/II, Molecular Bio, Genetics) and my last semester will include Immunology (grad level), Cancer Cell Bio, and Cell Bio. 

 

My question is how do I go about inputting this into CASPA? It says on the CASPA website to make sure the courses stay in chronological order (ie. DONT put Sophmore in 2009 and Freshmen in 2011), so I suppose Ill add up the total credits and divide by 4 to determine the cutoffs? Or list all of the classes from my school as "freshman" and then start from "sophmore" with the classes from my second school? If anyone else has ran into this issue or has insight into what I should do, please help. I feel this is the biggest weakness in my resumé, and I want to present all of my grades in the correct way (But that is also most beneficial).

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Hi everyone,

 

I am a prospective PA Student who is planning on applying for the 2016 cycle. I am a non-traditional student due to the fact that when I began my undergrad at age 17, I was extremely immature and unmotivated. I was a straight A student in high school without needing to put forth much of an effort. I was unprepared for the college (academic) experience. This lead to an extremely lousy GPA over the course of 5 semesters, and eventually academic dismissal. I took over a year and one half off to re-asses my life goals, grow up, etc. I basically started from the beginning when I re-enrolled at a community college. I then earned my associates with a GPA north of 3.5 (all general sciences, orgo I/II, calc-based physics I/II, Microbio, A&P I, calculus I/II, 3 non-science/math courses). I am in my second to last semester at SUNY OW and have a GPA north of 3.9 (Analytical Chemistry, Physical Chemistry I/II, Biochemistry I/II, Molecular Bio, Genetics) and my last semester will include Immunology (grad level), Cancer Cell Bio, and Cell Bio. 

 

My question is how do I go about inputting this into CASPA? It says on the CASPA website to make sure the courses stay in chronological order (ie. DONT put Sophmore in 2009 and Freshmen in 2011), so I suppose Ill add up the total credits and divide by 4 to determine the cutoffs? Or list all of the classes from my school as "freshman" and then start from "sophmore" with the classes from my second school? If anyone else has ran into this issue or has insight into what I should do, please help. I feel this is the biggest weakness in my resumé, and I want to present all of my grades in the correct way (But that is also most beneficial).

Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior are all based on how many credits you have completed. Not how many years of school you've been in. So your first 0-29 credits will count as your freshman semesters, 30-59 will count as your sophomore semesters, 60-89 will count as your junior semesters, and 90+ will count as your senior year.

 

Those credits at the first college while you were in high school would count as your freshman year up until 29 credits. Assuming they transferred when you went to get your associate, the next 30-59 credits will count as your sophomore year. If not, they'd also count as your freshman year. The rest should be self-explanatory.

 

You're associates degree should include your freshman/sophomore years, while your bachelors only includes your junior/senior. That is, unless none of your credits from you school with the associates degree transferred over to the 4-year school and you had to start all over with 0 credits.

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According to CASPA's instructions on "How to Enter Coursework:"

https://portal.caspaonline.org/caspaHelpPages/frequently-asked-questions/academic-history/coursework/index.html

 

 

"FRESHMAN-SENIOR: All college level courses taken prior to your first bachelor’s degree. CASPA does not monitor credit levels in regards to freshman-senior designations. In general, four year students list one year per designation and five-year students list their last two years as senior. Non-traditional students label their terms as evenly as possible, but should remain in chronological order (i.e. do not report yourself as a junior in 1999 and as a freshman in 2000)."

 

The way I understand it, is they want your credits to split up as evenly as possible between the Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior designations. You may want to contact customer service to double check how they want you to do it before you enter all of that in.

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This will be interesting for me as well. I was in CC for two years following high schools (took one class in high school) and then it took me five more years to complete my BS. I had to apply to a program and so I took additional classes until I got in...the program was three years. Each semester I took a full class load and have far more credits than a BS would require.

 

 

Tiffany

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Tiffany, I was in a similar situation as you when I put my classes into CASPA. I just guestimated as best as I could when my credit numbers would have changed my status from freshman to sophomore, and so on. I ended up with quite a few semesters being labeled senior. It was never questioned by CASPA, I got the impression that it isn't that important, at the bottom they will have your GPA broken down by freshman- senior designations, but unless you have a downward trend I doubt schools look at it.

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Tiffany, I was in a similar situation as you when I put my classes into CASPA. I just guestimated as best as I could when my credit numbers would have changed my status from freshman to sophomore, and so on. I ended up with quite a few semesters being labeled senior. It was never questioned by CASPA, I got the impression that it isn't that important, at the bottom they will have your GPA broken down by freshman- senior designations, but unless you have a downward trend I doubt schools look at it.

I'm glad you said that. I will use the same approach. I'm just trying to avoid a hold up on CASPA.

 

Thanks for your insight guys.

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