Canada vs US grading, what i see..and a shocker to americans about ontario high schoo

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
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<p>enjoy: (some parts refer to other thread in another area of college discussion)</p>

<p>Alright, i went did Ontario canada public schooling all my life till this year i am a freshmen engineer at cornell university, in engineering physics and play varsity squash. </p>

<p>For those private school canadian kids bickering throughout this thread about which high school is better in canada, ive never heard of any of those school, who cares about high school? To be honest theres very little private schools at least in non- highly populated areas (toronto would be highly populated) . So all us "regular" school kids to be honest yeah alot of ppl think of private kids as rich, snobby, and wasting money on a very similar education except you guys bring laptops to class..oooh...oh and you have many sports and stuff that are well funded(by your parents pockets). Then you also live in dorms?No more living at home? And also you have classes late, mandatory studying, saturday classes i dunno its crazy..I dont mean to put you down but thats how all the public schools i know see private schools, sort of.</p>

<p>Now, as for the grading, i was tearing out my hair trying to figure out american grading all senior year and never did understand it till my 1st prelims were over here at cornell. As for high school grading i cannot say much because i dont know american high schools. </p>

<p>Let me clarify americans, in ontario at least NOBODY ever talks about or writes their grades as A, B or A- etc. NEVER! EVERY single assignment, test exam etc you get your mark based out of 100%, your average then would be average % of the classes you take, so your average would be something like a 90%.</p>

<p>Now in my school, only about 10 ppl out of i think 350ish students per year get more than 90%. usually 8 are in the range from 90-93% the other 2 are those no lives easy course taking ppl.
We DONT have GPA, ive never heard of a normal public school having them, and in fact when cornell had our guidance counsellors(which literally do nothing) fill out my gpa, the guy said, well, we know this kid is in top 33% of the class, who cares what the actual thing was(fact was it was 3rd out of the 350ish, and then said, well, 33% of 4.0gpa = whatever it is, and filled it out...mass havoc in cornell admissions(and it even says on the sheet do not include gpa if u dont have it, stupid guy)</p>

<p>about 50kids if i remember correctly make the 80% mark, and thats called honor roll, if your in that, ur probably pretty much gauranteed admission to all ontairo universities, which are good quality. and that 80% onlly needs to be in your like grade 11 second semester and grade12, if you get 100% the only difference between that and 80% in terms of admissions is like small 2000$ entry scholarship per year, and first crack at housing first year at SOME universities. Even if you had a 51%(bare minimum) junior year, you can get into high quality ontario university if you get even like 80% last 3 semesters and thats to be safe, you can get like low 70s and your MOST likely to get 1-2 of your top 3 choices at the universities...i know a guy who had low 60s till 2nd semester senior year, and then 74 that last semester, got into mcmaster, good school..(and there is no admission process, extracurriculars, nothing else counts towards admissions, all it is is simply a 5 minute process, 1-pay 99$ (about 80US dollars) 2- check account made for you to ensure your grades on there from senior year are accurate 3- click which 3 universities you want to apply, in order, and which program 4- wait till may to be accepted/denied </p>

<p>that is LITERALLY it, application takes 5 minutes...no strings attached</p>

<p>so back to grades, for high school to high school comparison, my guess is to base it off my stats for number of ppl with 80% above, and 90% above, almost everyone else gets 70%s in high school ontario....</p>

<p>as for ap's, again we dont have them, i dont even really know what they are too much xept for being here at cornell...
from what i know, and can think, our ontario education in high school is standard throughout, and basically if you take university stream courses in ontairo, you're taking the AP'S equivalent...its like its already built into our system i guess, at least for math, phys, chem, bio, languages and stuff i donno</p>

<p>now for grades comparing from can high school and us college, i finally understand:</p>

<p>in cornell, you get your work handed back in grades, like 43/54 or whatever, teachers add up all your percents, and then heres the main difference, they decide based on bell curve which percents will get which lettering, so if the mean is say 60%, then that is a B, or B-, or A+ whatever the prof decides...so basically just aim to be average and you will get those grades consistenly, even if you get 30% in the course, and everyone gets 30%, you get B, or whatever prof makes it....most make it in B- to A- range i think...its harder then because of the curve to get much higher than average and thus into the A grades...its not proportional effor to get into the A's in engineering at least...you need to better the mean by like 15-20% to get an extra letter grade...sort of. then, for some reason, these letters once assigned are converted to gpa by the same explanation in the course roster book, 4.0=A, 3.0=B, etc, and then gpatotal=credits course is worth times the gpa in that course... so if you get grades, you dont want to be stuck in the + range for any lettering, as its HUGELY different GPA than the one letter grade up to - (Ex. B+ and A- is not much different in actual course , but if you get B+ you only get a 3.3gpa, if you put in little bit more effort, a few questions on exams, and get A-, you get a huge boost to a 3.7 gpa...go figure.</p>

<p>why americans dont just keep all into percents, i donno
many things about americans are strange, but to americans, i see there are far greater things about canadians that are weirder and stranger...</p>

<p>i think thats all i needed to say</p>

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<p>Haha, I take that you haven't taken your freshman writing seminar yet.</p>

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<p>I wish the IB kept to percents too. I mean, in my mocks I missed a 7 in physics by around 0.7%. Hope that doesnt happen in the final.</p>

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<p>A lot of things in this world are indeed puzzling. For example, why the Korean government keeps a Ministry of Feminism on a budget of half a billion bucks a year just so that some feminist can bash me for being male amazes me. It's called inertia, tradition, inefficiency, or whatever you want. It's there, and people are too lazy to do anything about it. Why bother? At least this one isn't costing anyone anything. And the system has worked, so far, without too much of a problem. In fact, alphabetical grading has some advantages, like the ease of recognition (What's a good grade? Duh, an A.)</p>

<p>A random post, this one is, yes.</p>

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<p>Um... I don't get the point of this post. </p>

<p>But... My school grades out of 20 (because it's French) and it's practically impossible to get over 16. Our school is literally about 10 times harder than an American HS-- Our curriculum is harder than the IB, as we take the regular French Baccalaureat (and I have the Option to the International Baccalaureat on top of that). Then we stick the American curriculum on top of that. I'm afraid colleges won't know how hard it is for us.
Oh, and there's no curving. If the best grade is an 11 and everyone else gets under 7, then that's how it is. It's happened to be several times to have the best average but have it be an A- or a B+.</p>

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<p>JackBauer, are you going to go through prepa and apply to the grandes ecoles?</p>

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<p>no wonder people say canadians are dumb ;x</p>

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<p>wow...I didn't catch a word of that, and I honestly tried to read it. There were like three periods and 5200 commas. Now, I myself am a comma-whore, but my, you need comma counseling or something!</p>

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<p>
[quote]
no wonder people say canadians are dumb ;x

[/quote]

What an ignorant post . . .</p>

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<p>fudgemaster-- I might to that if I decide to go to France. I want to stay in the US, but you never know... Prepa's a killer, though. I don't wish it upon anybody. Usually, the grades are horrible and all people do is work. There's so much work involved it's unbelievable.</p>

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<p>I have three things to say.</p>

<p>Yes, the curricula of schools in other nations are harder than the ones in the U.S.</p>

<p>Yes, the 4.0 system seems arbitrary, and a percentage system makes more sense in the way that it shows more realistic grades (89 versus 90 or 3.0 versus 4.0; even revised systems still have, as was pointed out, a large gap from 3.3 to 3.7 for going from B+ to A-). The problem is that the 4.0 system is practiced at most high schools and all colleges across the U.S. Trying to change it would be like asking us to use the metric system - it's better, but adaptation to it is a looooong way off.</p>

<p>Finally, at least there's one other country in the world whose students are as bad at writing as ours (cme2345 really hit the nail on the head here).</p>

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<p>i dun get the point of this post either.</p>

<p>although i have to comment that waterloo is the probably the best university in canada (according to macleans rankings), and its quite alot harder to get into then... "macmaster". ie 6 300word essays + 1 letter of rec.</p>

<p>although the admissions rate is still sky high. 20 000 undergrads.</p>

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<p>Yea, I have some friends from Toronto, and they were totally shocked when I explained to them how the American school/college system works. Likewise, I was totally shocked when they explained to me how theirs works! They said that there's really no emphasis at all placed on EC's. Also, they told me that colleges only look at their best classes, or they won't count their worst class, or something like that. It just makes so much more sense to me. It's so much more realistic to realize that people aren't perfect at everything. I think that the American system emphasizes grade inflation and striving for the points rather than the knowledge, whereas the sense that I got from my Toronto friends was that they pretty much know that the'yre getting accepted to their schools, and so they just learn and have fun. I'm sure if that's true for the entire country, but from what I heard from them, I really like their system. Oh yea, and no SATs :)</p>

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<p>ECs only have this much emphasis in the US. In other countries, if you get amazing grades and have no life, they couldn't care less and you'll be admitted. No SATs is the best part.</p>

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<p>I go to Private School in Ontario, and I strongly disagree with a guy who wrote that **** above.. >80% = guarantee admission? Hello? you need at least 92% to get in to Queen's Commerce, Western's Business (Ivey or whatever it is called) and McGill Science. It seems like he/she went to public school and I bet he/she does not even know what private school life is like maybe? Why don't you just shut up? I don't care where you went even if you went something 'special' school but I am not at least making fun of or being sarcastic of publics or other types of school like YOU. I've never seen anyone got into good schools with 60% average. Maybe that guy applied for religion or something that really unpopular compare to other majors? (not being mean to whom studying religion, sorry) </p>

<p>We have APs at our school, yea true maybe because it is private, but my friend who studies in Vancouver who goes to a public school is taking Honors and APs this year. Please just do not generalize something only because you never had them or seen before. Attending Cornell doesn't mean that you are better than other typical Canadian students. Just go study and finish your essay or paper or whatever you need to be working on right now if you have time to mock about us.</p>

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<p>If you think about it, is it even fair to expect two countries to have the exactly the same system in something like education? So, actually there's nothing really shocking about what the OP is saying, maybe except his ignorance.</p>