<p>While on exchange, I found I had to take a greater courseload and that the class was a lot more challenging than I expected. My GPA prior to exchange was a 3.6. After my grades from exchange have been factored in, my GPA dropped to a 3.2. I am wondering will admissions view classes taken on exchange in a different light?</p>
<p>No. Unfortunately for you, that semester just gets lumped in. If you had a specific, explainable, not whiny reason to write about (how you got dysentery or didn’t speak that dialect of Urdu), then maybe you’d get some slack. But not “the courseload and courses were tougher than I though they’d be”.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon is partly wrong on this.</p>
<p>If you pass the first review and make it to the adcoms reading of your application, then if all of grades other than over the exchange are good, the reader will wonder why.</p>
<p>If you make it to the interview, an answer such as “my exchange was in Paris and I spent alot of time visiting with French students and learning Paris than doing my subjects” you will get a pass for the grades. Ad Coms want people – not Doogie Howards.</p>
<p>Would having the Cs on the transcript impact the possibility of getting an interview? (ie, is there an evaluation step between “pass(ing) the first review” and getting an interview?)</p>
<p>I wonder if the Cs from exchange, which changed GPA from 3.6 to 3.2, would screen that applicant out at the first pass (if, say, first pass is GPA and MCAT based, which I suspect).</p>
<p>Then for Princess’ dad, that would be a “specific explainable reason”. (It would be for me, too.) But the point is the OP had others reasons listed that I don’t think P dad would like any more than I did.</p>
<p>I agree. But it is how he explains it on the interview :-)</p>
<p>thanks guys</p>
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<p>Ahh, there is the rub. An unhooked 3.2 ain’t gonna pass allopathic med school’s cutoffs for an interview. There are just too many students with better grades. But sure, once one obtains an interview, the grades are of much less importance.</p>