A 2.9 science GPA with a cumulative above 3.0. What now?

That was a listener voicemail, and it's one of the most common situations I see. So let's talk about it honestly.

Most programs want a 3.0 minimum, and schools do not round up. A 2.97 is a 2.9 to them. That's the hard part nobody wants to hear.

The fixable part: your science GPA moves if you make it move. Retake the courses where you earned a C or lower, and add upper-level science classes where you can genuinely earn A's. Every new grade dilutes the old one. It's slow, but it works, and I've watched a lot of applicants do it.

GPA gets so much weight because PAEA's research keeps showing it's one of the better predictors of who makes it through a program. Committees aren't being cruel. They're being cautious.

Run your actual numbers before you plan anything. Guessing at your GPA is how people apply a year too early.

What I cover:

• Why a 2.9 science GPA is a real obstacle and not the end
• Overall versus science versus prerequisite GPA
• Why schools don't round up
• Retaking C's and adding upper-level science courses
• How much your GPA can realistically move, and how fast
• Deciding whether to apply this cycle or wait

Resources:

CASPA GPA Calculator: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-school-caspa-gpa-calculator

Free PA School Application Timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

Pre-PA Counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

Pre-PA Academy: https://prepaclub.thepaplatform.com/landing/academy

Mentioned in this episode:

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One of the most common questions that comes up is around GPA and what to do if you're kind of on the cusp of what you need to have to apply to PA school.

So today we're talking about that with a voicemail question from Grace that I hope will give you a lot of insight into how GPA plays into your application process for PA school.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Hello everyone.

Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today, for joining the Pre PA Club.

If this is your first time listening, welcome and thank you for tuning in.

So in our podcast we try to make this whole process of becoming a PA a little less confusing and a little more straightforward.

It's difficult because it is a little complicated and there's a lot of gray area, one of those being gpa, which we will talk about a little bit more today.

I'm Savannah.

I am a dermatology PA in Georgia and I've been a PA now for eight years.

I have also been doing pre PA coaching through my website, the PA Platform, for the past seven years.

So I love being able to advise and connect and help current students and future PAs while still getting to practice clinically as well.

So it's a great balance for me and I think our profession is just so great and something that more people need to know about and be able to work towards if it's something that you're interested in.

So we do have a voicemail question for today that we'll get to in just a second.

But first I have something I want to share from Picmonic that I want you guys to know about.

I have officially been a PA for eight years and that means I have to start the process of studying for my Panry, which is our recertification exam.

I'll be using one of our podcast sponsors, Picmonic, an audio visual learning system with unforgettable stories and characters to revisit everything I learned in PA School.

The subjects in Picmonic are based on the pants and pantry and a great memory tool and supplement to help make the information stick.

I'm working on Cardiology today and the videos are short and digestible, which fits in perfectly with a busy schedule.

There's a free option that offers a free daily Picmonic or you can sign up now for access on iOS, Android or desktop and get 20% off with the link in the description.

You can also use the code the PA platform for 20% off on Picmonic.

I have been loving it so much.

If you are not aware you can leave a voicemail question for the podcast and that will help me know what you guys need to know more about, what you want to know more about.

And I will put the link to that in the description.

But we will hear from Grace now and take her question.

Hi, my name is Grace.

First off, I just want to let you guys know that you're the best.

You've been a large part in me feeling much more level headed as I begin to build my application for PA school.

My question is in regard to cumulative versus Science gpa.

So most of the schools that I've been looking at require a 3.0 cumulative and science GPA.

So I have accumulated GPA above a 3.0.

However my science GPA is a 2.9.

I was wondering how that might impact my application and if it completely limits the pool of schools I could apply to.

I took a really intensive major in college, so a lot of my courses were science based and a lot of them were very difficult.

So I was wondering if that would change things.

I was also wondering if you guys had any advice on boosting my science gpa.

Thank you.

Hi Grace.

First of all, thank you so much for your question and your message as well as the kind words.

Our goal is to be helpful in whatever ways we can.

So, so glad to hear that the PA platform has helped you out and you are not alone in being unsure of how GPA plays into this whole process.

So, so we'll go through it.

We'll talk through it.

There are some blog posts on the PA platform and videos on YouTube that also go into this subject.

So if you are listening but you prefer to read something or watch something, those may be some places to check out and we'll link those in the description also.

So when it comes to GPA we have to keep a couple things in mind and this is where sometimes I think this can be hard to hear or people don't really want to hear the truth.

I think you do because you asked about it.

But I do get lots and lots of questions about this when we're looking at gpa.

The paea, which is the Physician Assistant Education association.

So kind of all the teachers, the education part of becoming a pa, they have said in their research that GPA is The best indicator of how a student will perform in PA school academically.

There are tons of arguments that can be made for why this is true or not true.

And it there are so many factors.

So you know, there are people who took classes a long time ago and had no idea what they were doing and kind of messed up their gpa.

There are people who started college without much direction or as first generation students or people who, like me, didn't have anyone really in the medical field and really no one who had ever gone off to college to help them.

You're just figuring stuff out and that is overwhelming, that's stressful.

And then when you add in for this PA school process, also trying to figure out how you're going to get volunteer hours and shadowing hours and work and do all of these things that they want you to do, it's a lot.

And grades can sometimes suffer because of that.

So for anyone who's listening, who's kind of new to college or new to this journey, the one piece of advice I would give you is don't sacrifice your grades to try to get everything done more quickly.

If that means taking a gap year or two, it will be worth it just to make your life easier in the long run.

So those are just a few things to keep in mind when we're talking about GPA and why it's important and why we talk about it so much and why you see schools have requirements for this.

When we're getting into caspa, which is the universal application for applying to PA school, and how GPA factors in, there are another few things to keep in mind.

CASPA has to level the playing field, for lack of a better term.

So CASPA is going to calculate your GPAs in a way that tries to standardize things between the different schools, the different undergrads, and all of the different types of classes that people take.

So what that means is that.

Your.

Repeated courses are going to be included.

Nothing is left out.

Any class you've taken at a college level, whether it was dual enrollment during high school, a summer class, something 20 years ago, every single class that you take will be included in your GPA calculations.

Nothing is averaged and nothing is left out.

Looking at a lot of undergraduate transcripts, oftentimes they will leave out repeated courses.

And so those GPAs that are calculated on your transcripts are often not what will be calculated by caspa.

They can be close, but many times I've seen where people are disappointed in a negative way when their CASPA calculations are less than what is on their transcript.

So we want to make sure that what you're calculating is accurate for what CASPA will calculate, because that is not a great surprise when that happens and it can make your application not be considered, which I know is very frustrating when you've put a ton of time and money and effort into all of this.

So when CASPA does calculate your GPAs, you'll see an entire page of GPA calculations.

We did a, we've done some CASPA webinars this year, some GPA webinars where we go through this even a little bit more and with, with some visuals as well.

So you can kind of see all of that.

But what you'll see is CASPA is going to calculate your GPAs for each year, for postbac, for graduate, for your science GPA for each year, your all these different GPAs.

So it's a whole page.

The main ones that we're looking for and that most schools are looking for, which are the ones you mentioned, are your overall GPA and your overall science gpa.

Those are typically the ones schools want.

If a school is asking for a prerequisite GPA that will not be calculated by caspa, they don't do that.

It will be calculated based on each school's preferences.

Now some schools will have you put in your prereqs and assign them to what they require.

So they may calculate it from there and so you might could figure it out there.

But then every school kind of has their own process or own formula, own way of doing things.

Some will exclude, repeat, some will take the most recent class.

There's so much variety.

Looking at the program websites and making sure you understand what they're wanting, what they're asking for and how they do this process will be so valuable to you because it will save you a lot of time on the back end if you put in the work to research that ahead of time.

So you get all these GPAs and we're really looking at that overall and overall science or cumulative same thing.

And so with these GPAs, these are the ones that usually need to meet the minimum requirements.

When you look at a program website and they say they want a 3.0 overall GPA and a 3.0 science GPA.

You have to meet those to be considered for the program.

I remember being on my TA rotation, so they're like part of our schooling as our rotations was being a TA for a month, which was really cool.

I loved it.

And I would spend a lot of time in the office and I remember our receptionist, Miss Peggy, she retired, but she would be answering the phone all day, and a lot of her responses were the same.

And she would just kind of spout it out where people would say, they had a 2.9, 2.98.

And she was like, a 2.98 does not meet our requirement for a 3.0.

You have to have a 3.0 to be considered.

And so she would tell people this all day long.

She would say, we don't round up.

There's no rounding up.

And so, you know, that kind of showed me that this is something that is a concern and something that you have to really be aware of a lot of.

This process at the beginning is kind of like an algorithm.

So if you're GPAs aren't meeting those minimums, you're likely going to be weeded out before the school even sees your application.

We also want to look at the averages of the schools that you're applying to and what they typically accept.

If they have a minimum of a 3.0, but their average GPA that they accept is a 3.8, that tells you a lot.

That tells you that they're looking at GPAs.

They're looking for those higher GPAs even though they have a lower minimum.

For example, Duke has no minimum technically, but they will post that their range of what they accept, which I think last year was around like a 3.5 to 3.9 of what they actually accepted.

So you just want to be aware of those things, take them into consideration.

That's not saying don't apply if you don't have the average, but you do need to at least have the minimum.

Okay.

And after, at the end of this, I'm going to go through some tools that I like that I think will be helpful in figuring some of this out also.

So what's your strategy?

If you're thinking, okay, my GPAs are low, lower than I would like, they don't meet the minimums.

What can I do?

So this is where I think sometimes it's easier to focus on getting more experience or doing more of the things we like to do, which is not taking classes.

And if you really feel that GPA is the weakest part of your application, that needs to be where your focus is.

So you really need to take the time to get more classwork done.

I mean, that's the only way you're going to raise your GPA and show schools that you are ready and have what it takes to take on PA school, too.

So my kind of Rule of thumb with this is first of all, look at your prereq courses.

Anything that has a C or lower you need to retake.

And then in the also look at expiration dates.

If anything's expiring, you want to make sure that you are going to retake that and make sure it's up to date.

Some schools put a limit of five years on their classes and that's not from when you graduate, that's from when you take the class.

So C or lower.

In a prereq, you'd want to retake any recommended courses you'd want to re, you'd want to take and then any additional upper level science classes.

Ideally taking multiple of these at the same time.

That can be on your own or in a traditional postbac program or master's program.

Something again to show the programs that you are able to handle a difficult science based course load is our goal here.

So with taking classes, the sad thing is that once you've taken a good amount of classes, raising your GPA is fairly difficult and it may take a good amount of classes to get you bumped up.

And we'll talk about how to do that.

I did want to mention part of your question, Grace, was about whether rigor of the program plays into the application process when it comes to the GPA requirements.

It does not.

So schools aren't going to say like, oh yeah, you went to a more difficult school.

Like so much of this is so just subjective.

And so that really doesn't play in, I think in some areas and regions geographically that might play in like so personally I went to UGA and I know that my program knows how rigorous UGA is and does somewhat take that into account.

But I wouldn't say that they do it in a way where it makes up for a lower GPA or they, you know, take necessarily anything less than the minimums.

I know they wouldn't, but it's just, you know, maybe it's something that comes up on the decision table, but I don't think it's the biggest part of that application process.

I did also take a lot of my science classes locally and so, you know, I think, I don't know.

That's not going to help you out too much, unfortunately.

Sorry.

So, okay, so raising gpa, figuring out what you got to do.

Let's talk a little bit about some tools that I think are helpful to make sure your GPAs are correct and to see what you need to do.

So if you, number one, if you look up how to raise your GPA and I'll try to put a link in the description.

There's a really great free online calculator that you can plug in how many units you currently have, how many you're taking, the grade you plan to get, and it will show you how your GPA will change.

So I use that a lot during our pre PA counseling when we're trying to figure out like okay, you're going to need to take 15 hours and get all A's to raise your GPA 0.2 points.

I completely made that up.

That's would be very specific to a specific situation numbers but that's kind of what you can figure out and see how the classes you plan to take will affect your GPAs.

So that's super helpful and a good kind of check in tool to see where you're at and what you need to do now.

Tools for figuring out your gpa let's talk about these.

So we do GPA calculations through the PA platform.

So if you're like I don't want to mess with this and I want your Excel document that calculates GPAs for me and I can add my stuff and it'll adjust and tell me predictions and stuff, then we can do that.

I think it's $35 on the website to do that.

You just send all your transcripts in and then we will calculate your GPAs through the Excel sheet and send it back to you.

And it's fully kind of editable, customizable to do what you want to do with it.

So that's an option you also have to consider correcting for quarter and semester hours, just FYI because those are different, which our calculator does.

So yeah, the blog post I'll link has a lot more information about that and the CASPA FAQ does as well.

So then we can calculate them.

We have a free GPA calculator on the PA platform, but I will be honest that it is not quite as accurate as I would like.

It is close, but it it's the closest I could find with my limited technology skills, but it's still not 100% where I would want it because it doesn't take into account some kind of nuances with the grading scales.

As an aside, CASPA does consider plus minus in their GPA calculation, so that is something just to know that if you have a plus minus system it will be considered in your GPA calculations.

Sorry, I just said the same thing twice.

I didn't really have anything else to say about that.

So yeah, so that's good to know.

Next kind of tool.

So you can use the free GPA calculator on our website just to get, you know, baseline, kind of see where you're at.

There is a tool now that if you, if you've been a long time listener.

One of my first podcast episodes was with Dr. Ryan Gray and so he does medical school HQ, which is basically what I do for medical school, which I don't know as much about, only what my husband went through.

And he has this awesome tool called Mapped App.

So M A P P D and you can find that online.

I'll put actually a link in the description, but I'll tell you a little bit about it.

So Mapped is really.

I don't even know how to like put it in one word.

It's a tool to put all of your information in.

So it kind of, you can put in your experience, you can kind of save everything for your application process, but it's very intuitive and it'll give you suggestions about your application process like your timeline and stuff.

There's also options for advising within the app so that you can talk to an advisor, like a pre health advisor, prepaid in the app.

The link that they set up for me gives you 60 days free of that, which is a lot and should get you a lot of questions answered.

And then I think it's $10 a month after that if you want to continue with advising.

So this is a great option if you don't have a great advisor at your school or mentor or somebody who can help you with that one on one.

But your advisor can see everything you put in.

So what I would recommend is setting up your Mapped app, putting in all of your information and then talking to the advisors.

But the GPA part of it is so good.

I am a skeptic and I was very skeptical, but it is accurate.

I've tested it, I've done lots of stuff and it is accurate.

So the cool thing is it pulls up courses automatically from different schools and if yours isn't in there, you can add it and then you can assign it to science or non science.

Make sure you're using the CASPA course subjects list to do that and we have a video and I think podcast on how to make sure you're doing that accurately as well because that can also affect your GPAs.

But you can put in all of your information.

It's going to show you your GPA per year.

It's going to show you your overall, your science overall and will give you A lot of information on how to proceed as far as GPAs.

So that's something kind of new that I have been really liking so far to use again in like pre PA sessions.

It helps us out a lot to just have all of your information in one place and I think is really, really a cool tool.

And it's free.

So the, just to mention the gpa, all the stuff that you enter, the GPA calculations and the experience stuff, it's all free.

That's all free.

The only part that would be something that you would have to pay for would be if you want to continue with a one on one advisor.

So that's really cool.

I think there are similar things out there in the prepa world that are not as great for putting your information in and saving it.

And I've been skeptical of those because of how they were presented.

I'm not going to name names, but the this tool because it is so robust and again also free I think is a great option that pretty much everyone should be using to at least take advantage of getting that GPA calculated and keeping all of your information in one place.

I mean we have downloads you can get on the PA platform as well if you just like an Excel sheet and you want to put in your drive.

But I'm a fan of things that can't get lost or deleted because I'm bad about that.

So yeah, if you have any questions about that, let me know and we'll put that special link so you can get the extended advising in the description and yeah, okay.

I think that's all I have to say about GPA right now.

I hope I answered your question, Grace.

You're probably not.

This is probably more than you barring for.

Sorry, but you know it's, it's something that we'll keep talking about.

I know people have more questions.

If you have additional questions, let me know on social media on our post about the podcast on Instagram, I'm at the PA platform there or you can find me on TikTok at physician assistant and we will see you next time.

For our next episode, check out the links in the description and have a great week.