Hey,
I was wondering if someone could help me in understanding the gpa grade system as i am going to start my college now and i want a clear picture of the grade system so as to calculate my gpa and also to know my corresponding percentage.
Every school (both high school and college) has its own system. Colleges generally make their calculation methodology public. For example: http://catalog.uark.edu/undergraduatecatalog/academicregulations/#gradesandmarkstext
You do not calculate your GPA; you take it from your transcript. For those rare colleges that ask you to calculate a GPA, they tell you how to do it.
If you want to know how your school calculates GPA, you would need to ask your GC.
Ditto on the grade report/transcript having the info at the end of each term. There is not usually any “corresponding percentage” when letter grades are given. Every class should let students know what will count for the final grade and how any test percent scores fall as far as an A, B, C… go. There does not need to be consistency within a college for what percent equals an A et al or what weight any given test/assignment carries. It is most common for HSs that use a percentage to convert that to the letter grades, not the other way around.
In college you are not competing against anyone else- you are there to learn what you wish. No class rank, it is irrelevant.
My son actually did have to calculate his GPA, or at least it was in his interest to do so. Tufts refused to give him grades for any of his study abroad courses and he’d gotten straight As. There were a number of internships where he needed a slightly higher GPA than his Tufts only GPA. Mostly he left his GPA off his resume and just put down that he was on the Dean’s List senior year.
Calculating your GPA is quite easy. Take the grade you received in a class times the number of units for that class. Add all those products and divide that sum by the total number of units you have. That’s your GPA. The number values for your grades are: A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0. If you school uses a plus and minus grade system, add or subtract 0.3 to the number value as appropriate.
If only it were so easy.
Unweighted grades are at least comparably the easiest. Weighting for +/- can be .3, .33, .25 (that I’ve seen, maybe others), and whether an A+ gets weighting (or even exists) differs by school. Our HS doesn’t have + and -, which makes it easy.
Weighted probably isn’t even worth dealing with. Each college typically re-calculates your weighted GPA in their own way, to provide consistency in the admissions process.
For example - top students at our HS typically have a 5.7-5.9 weighted GPA. I know that last year a 4.85 wasn’t even in the top 10%. Many schools top out at 5. Comparing them is pretty much meaningless.
OP was asking for a college GPA so weighted is moot, just not used by colleges. Besides weighted GPAs don’t really mean much, so one can usually ignore them ( unless you want the ego boost they sometimes provide).
I am not familiar with any college that doesn’t use the 0.3 for the +/- grades and most colleges don’t use a +/- system at at all. It is easy enough to ask and find out what value, if any, is used.
If someone is asking how to calculate a GPA I figure it is best to keep it simple.
I never bothered to count, but +/- is very typical in college. Not having +/- is also common.
Columbia, just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are others.
https://www.college.columbia.edu/academics/gpacalculator
UIUC also got rid of the +/- system when I was a grad student there in the late 1990s.
UW (Madison) instituted A, AB, B, BC… grades instead of just A, B, C back in my day. Schools can choose to grade however they want to. It all becomes ancient history eventually (thank goodness).
UW Madison still has that grading scale. An a/b is a 3.5. Not great for A- kids in the world of grad school admissions ?
I wouldn’t worry about the grading system for grad school. I’m sure grad school programs look at the institution and not just gpa when evaluating candidates. They will know the schools and caliber of them.
I know when I was doing grad school admissions at the architecture school (as a student member eons ago) we saw the whole transcript. I didn’t pay any attention to the overall GPA, I scanned down and got a general sense of whether we were dealing with mostly A’s or mostly B’s and whether the A’s were in courses we cared about. Nobody was saying let’s take Johnny over Susie because his GPA is 3.7 vs 3.6. (And to be clear this was how I was told to look at grades.)
I had no idea that colleges gave A+ grades. How do law schools and med schools convert that to an even playing field with schools that top out at an A?
Question - Do college transcripts contain a school report with the grading system, like HS?
Depends on the college. Here’s one example of one that does:
https://www.rochester.edu/registrar/assets/pdf/TranscriptKey.pdf
There are quite a few unique systems out there. Stanford undergrads who take a class at the GSB may receive one of the following grades:
H – Counts as GPA of 4.14 on undergrad transcript
HP – Counts as GPA of 3.54 on undergrad transcript
P – Counts as GPA of 3.24 on undergrad transcript
LP – Counts as GPA of 2.94 on undergrad transcript
A 4.14 GPA grade of H is not the highest possible GPA. Stanford undergrads may receive A+ grades in regular undergrad classes, which corresponds to a 4.3 GPA. This makes 4.3 is the highest theoretical maximum GPA… although I doubt anyone has ever had a cumulative GPA that high before.