In addition to your cumulative GPA, science GPA is often one piece of criteria health professions programs look at when evaluating your academic strength and readiness for admission. Your science GPA is based on the grades you earned in science-focused coursework. You may also hear science GPA referred to as “BCPM” GPA or “BCP” GPA. This refers specifically to courses taken in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Math. The course classification page can help you determine which courses you have taken that may be part of your science GPA.
Some health professions programs, such as Physician Assistant (PA) programs calculate your prerequisite GPA rather than a science GPA. As it sounds, the program calculates your prerequisite GPA from the grades received in the required prerequisite science courses.
From time to time, a student may receive a poor grade in a prerequisite course and will choose to retake a course. Some schools will accept the higher grade, while other schools will average the two grades. It is important, therefore, to know the policy of your target professional schools to learn how they review applications and calculate GPAs.
Note: Your umich transcript only includes grades from the courses you have taken through one of the University of Michigan campuses (including Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint). If you have taken science courses at other institutions, these grades will be factored in your cumulative GPA and sGPA in the application.
If you are looking at your transcript and wondering what certain notations mean, here is a good place to start.
If you’re interested in figuring out a projected Grade Point Average (GPA), you’ll need to know what Michigan Honor Points are and how they are used to calculate your GPA.
Very briefly, you arrive at your term GPA by dividing the total number of Michigan Honor Points (MHP) by the total number of Michigan Semester Hours (MSH) during the same term. That is, GPA = MHP / MSH.
