On SDN, one of the DO Adcoms posted:
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“Effective May 1, 2017, AACOMAS will include all course attempts in the GPA calculation. This change applies to students matriculating into the 2018-2019 academic year. In the event of multiple attempts of the same course, AACOMAS will no longer drop initial course attempts from the GPA calculation.”
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Interesting, if true.
I wonder if this has to do with the eventual combined residency matching.
Interesting, indeed.
I doubt it has anything directly to do with the residency unification. (Eliminating the COMLEX and requiring all DO grads to take the USMLE would make more sense.)
It may have more to do with the increasingly competitive admissions to osteopathic schools (median GPA of DO matriculants is ~3.6 and rising) and the discussion of possibly unifying COCA and LCME.
LATE EDIT: I just checked AACOM’s website and this change to the grade replacement policy was reviewed and approved by the Council of Osteopathic Medical Admissions Officers (COMAO) way back in 2011.
So this has been in the pipeline for a while.
Wow, so we have to retract all our previous advises.
Here’s the official announcement:
Interesting factoid–
AMCAS recently signed a contract with Liaisons Internationals, the data processor who handles applications for AACOMAS.
It certainly looks like there is a movement towards a unified MD-DO application system in the works…
Interesting.
What else do you think is going on?
And why do you really think they got rid of grade replacement?
Do you think it’s because they have enough qualified applicants w/o allowing for that? Do you think it’s to remove any perceptions?
For the last 2 years, AACOMAS has been very picky about allowing grade replacement. It appeared that unless you retook the same class at the same institution, you were mostly SOL where grade replacement was concerned. Supposedly AACOMAS was the subject of an investigation by the Dept of Education into inconsistent application of its grade replacement policy–which was the reason AACOMAS gave for becoming much more discriminating about allowing it. (And arguably about discontinuing it altogether.)
But I think also AACOMAS no longer allows grade replacement because they don’t need to.
According to the DO adcomms on SDN, <10% of DO applicants use grade replacement. (IIRC, it’s more like 5-6%.)
With the increased competitiveness for MD admissions, DO schools have more than enough quality** applicants to fill all of their seats. In fact in terms of number of applicants vs. number of available seats, DO programs are actually more competitive than MD programs. (More applicants per seat for DO schools than there are applicants per seat for MD programs.)
**If you look at the historical data, the average stats of DO matriculants today are approximately the same as MD matriculants were 10 years ago.
I think that we are seeing the early stages of a complete unification of MD and DO programs–with a single application system, a single medical school accrediting body, a single residency match (already in process) and single residency accrediting body (already happened). Functionally, there is already no difference between a DO and a MD degree in the US.
One of the drivers of this unification is that US med schools are closing ranks against Caribbean and other international med schools. Other drivers are largely about increasing political clout with funding bodies.
Aside from the GPAs and MCATs of the incoming classes, the distinction between DO and MD training is essentially dead. Makes sense to eventually coalesce them into one.
I just saw this on SDN and truly believe the gap between MD and DO has been closed.
The thing I got out of the posting is that “studying MCAT for one month is not enough”, I am glad that D took a quarter off for MCAT prep.