<p>Hello.
My university assigns 4.33 as A+, 4.00 as A, and so on..
I know most universities are on a 4.00 system.
How do prestigious top grad schools like MIT and Harvard deal with 4.33 GPA system?
Which, 4.33 or 4, do they regard as better?
For example, if person A has 4.33 GPA in 4.33 system, while person B has 4.00 GPA in 4.00 system, who is considered to have a higher GPA by admission judges?
Also, how do person with 4.00 GPA in 4.33 system and person with 4.00 GPA in 4.00 system compare?
Please tell me.
Thank you.</p>
<p>I don't think they would care in the least whether it was a 4.33 or a 4.0. Committees reviewing applications understand that many (if not most) schools will not offer an A+ grade, especially if it is for no additional GPA points. Once you get to a certain level on your GPA, departments will view them as equivalent and go on to other factors to discriminate between the applications (most commonly the statement of purpose and your letters of recommendation).</p>
<p>On many graduate school applications, you're asked to give your original GPA and the scale it is on -- in this case, the GPA would be a 4.33 out of a possible 4.33, and would be equivalent to a 4.0 out of 4.0.</p>
<p>And I agree with ophiolite that discrimination between GPAs is not done with a particularly fine-toothed comb.</p>
<p>Wouldn't it be unfair for people getting 4.33 in 4.33 system to have their 4.33 GPA treated as an equivalent as 4.00 in 4.00 system, because it would be more difficult to get 4.33 in 4.33 system than it would be to get 4.00 in 4.00 system? I'm confused of how this works..</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wouldn't it be unfair for people getting 4.33 in 4.33 system to have their 4.33 GPA treated as an equivalent as 4.00 in 4.00 system, because it would be more difficult to get 4.33 in 4.33 system than it would be to get 4.00 in 4.00 system? I'm confused of how this works..
[/quote]
Working in a 4.33 system is always an advantage over a 4.0 system.</p>
<p>Wouldn't it be unfair to people on a 4.0 system if it wasn't, since nobody has given them the opportunity to have a 4.33, and it's easier to earn a 4.0 in a 4.33 system?</p>
<p>yes its easier to earn a 4/4.33 than a 4/4, but those are two different scales. that people mistakingly equate them doesn't make it unfair.</p>
<p>No, you're missing the point. If a 4.33 system was given an advantage, it would be unfair to all the people in 4.0 systems, because they aren't given the opportunity to earn higher than a 4.0. I know that if my school had been a 4.33, several of us would have gotten higher GPAs. A grad school will simply see that a 4.33/4.33 is as high as you could get, the same as they treat a 4.0/4.0.</p>
<p>Besides, you guys give way too much weight to the GPA. Do you seriously think a few percentage points will matter at the A level?</p>
<p>Haha, I went to a school with a GPA out of 5.0, and I assure you that nobody let me into grad school because my GPA was a 4.4 and was therefore higher than all those kids from other schools with 4.0s.</p>
<p>All applications will require you to state the scale on which your GPA is based. Many applications require you to convert. That's how you make it fair to everybody.</p>
<p>"that people mistakingly equate them doesn't make it unfair" = "if a 4.33 system was given an advantage,..." you assumed what i concluded because you can only be given an advantage if you relate them somehow, as when molliebat said that that clearly didn't happen to her. it is not as if the system is intrinsically better. besides plenty of people have 4.0's but a 4.33 is virtually impossible.</p>
<p>hey molliebat how many people get a 5.0/5.0 because there is a poster here who actually did that at your school. it seems absurd to me.</p>
<p>I honestly have no clue -- I personally know one person, but people don't talk about their grades too much at MIT. (Particularly if they're really good.)</p>
<p>One thing that makes it a little easier is that MIT doesn't figure plus/minus modifiers into the GPA, and first term freshman grades aren't figured into the GPA, so someone with a 5.0 technically could have gotten straight C's first term freshman year and straight A-'s afterward. :)</p>
<p>Ha, I don't/didn't go to MIT and I know TWO! Other than the guy who posts here, there is another who is studying materials science at Berkeley right now.</p>
<p>At Berkeley, there are A+s given out, but the UC GPA does not go above a 4.0. However, some grad schools, when calculating GPA, will count those A+s on the transcript as 4.33s, if their system is calculated based on a 4.33 system.</p>
<p>im sure quite a few people know this already, but law schools weight gpa in that way.</p>
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hey molliebat how many people get a 5.0/5.0 because there is a poster here who actually did that at your school. it seems absurd to me.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, that IS absurd! :)</p>
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Haha, I went to a school with a GPA out of 5.0, and I assure you that nobody let me into grad school because my GPA was a 4.4 and was therefore higher than all those kids from other schools with 4.0s.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's really funny ... I have a friend who half-jokingly tells people that he got a lucrative finance job partially because of his exact 4.0 GPA since the employers didn't know that MIT calculates out of 5.0. But yeah, now that I think back on it, calculating GPA on a 5.0 scale is kinda weird. It reminds me of high school AP classes with 5.0 A's ... ahh old days ...</p>
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people don't talk about their grades too much at MIT
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<p>Great point, Mollie. The lack of grade competition/pride was one of my favorite aspects of the academic environment at MIT (hmm, i should be posting this to the MIT forum, but oh well). There is no such thing as graduating with honors, distinction, magna/summa cum laude from MIT.</p>