<p>I think the takeaway is to avoid rounding–your application might be read by an engineer.</p>
<p>With all my kids in grad school, I can look back at this with a light heart. 3.66, 3.67, 3.7. whatever, she/he is a good student. That’s all that matters.</p>
<p>On the other hand when DD with a double major applied for grad school she needed to state her GPA in each major and overall. That was a major project, which classes count where, what about a class that counted for both majors, etc.</p>
<p>I think rounding could mean 3.45 > 3.5 > 4.0 :D</p>
<p>Our HS grades on a 4.33 scale, it’s possible to get an A+ in every class and get that GPA. HS does not weight.</p>
<p>So…when reporting, say, a 3.86…does it matter that a 4.33 is possible even though straight As would still be 4.0?</p>
<p>Just curious about that, I don’t know if many schools have the 4.33 chance.</p>
<p>OHMomof2, at your school a 4.0 is a 4.33. That is, perfect grades. At many schools there is no A+.</p>
<p>Correct. I wonder if it necessary to do the conversion to a 4.0 scale for the purposes of reporting GPA on an app?</p>
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<p>As a math major who deals in some pretty heavy stats stuff, I’m constantly telling my stats person to round stuff off, because there’s a difference between the numbers that a computer spits out, and what’s actually meaningful.</p>
<p>This is why I always tell my kids to get a 4.0. Rounding is so hard!</p>
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<p>I think my one kid who didn’t follow my advice rounded to two decimal points the normal way. If a school wanted to invent new math it should spell out the rule right next to the question. The way I see it, if a school would consider such triviality “lying” it must have many other obnoxious rules in store for the students. It’s better to find out now. I mean, can you imagine the punishment for skipping the middle initial when they are asked to give the full name to sign out a football? Off with their heads!</p>
<p>The 4.33 for A+ is an interesting conundrum, as many universities do not give extra points for an A+, an A+ in a class is still a 4.0, it does not offset an A- and give you and average of 4.0 (average of 4.33 + 3.67) so if one has a 4.0 (all As) out of 4.33 (all A+) are you supposed to list your GPA as 3.695? (3.7!)?</p>
<p>It seems to me that the school needs to instruct their students so that all apps are completed consistently</p>
<p>When S put his GPA on apps he put his actual GPA, as if on a 4.0 scale, though it was on the 4.33 scale. Until this topic came up here it hadn’t occurred to me that this might be construed as dishonest…schools did get his transcript, of course.</p>
<p>My older daughter just sent out 5 graduate applications where she reported a GPA of 3.5/4.0 on her resume (instead of 3.496 as it shows on her transcript) It didn’t occur to her that it might be wrong to round up and shorten the GPA. But on the actual application she put the 3.496 so hopefully this won’t matter. Plus it’s on the official transcript also. The resume goes out to other people and places and it seems simpler to put 3.5/4.0 by rounding up.</p>
<p>^^^It didn’t occur to her that it might be wrong to round in this case because it isn’t wrong! At some point, common sense ought to prevail. We are not talking about designing rocket ships here. The difference between these two numbers is not meaningful for the purpose of deciding what kind of student your daughter is.</p>
<p>absweetmarie–but it CAN make a difference in some cases like people have pointed out-job applications and in our situation, several THOUSANDS of dollars in scholarship money.</p>
<p>If a recruiter is that concerned to the 2nd decimal pt of GPA, you have to wonder if the firm has its priority straight. I would twice about working there.</p>
<p>On my son’s transcript his gpa is 3.2958. Am hoping he does well this quarter to push him up over the 3.3 mark so I don’t have to worry about rounding up!</p>
<p>oldfort–look back at other poster’s experiences-that .001 could make the difference in being ALLOWED to apply for a job via the college recruiting process. In the regular business world where kids send off transcripts and go on job interviews, probably not a big deal, however, for on campus recruiting for various majors, they may not be allowed to apply.</p>
<p>The reason I even become aware of this issue was reading a discussion in 2005 about engineering students being locked out of internships because of a 2.98 or 2.99 GPA and bemoaning the fact that if they had known about the 3.0 cut-off for some firms, they would have easily been able to bring it up. I therefore let S1 know, who was also an egineering major, and he found that information to be helpful.</p>
<p>The cut-off, where used, is likely written into the HR job description and will be confirmed by the transcript. So even if a student is able to get an interview, I have heard of students having offers pulled for this reason. The hiring manager’s hands are tied. There certainly are companies that don’t care about GPA at all, those who use different cut-offs both higher and lower than 3.0, and some companies that say x GPA level is “preferred” as opposed to required. There also may be colleges that round rather than truncate. The take-away is that students should be aware of the situation for their college and their industry. I double checked and S2’s college shows GPA to three decimals on DegreeWorks and two decimals only on the unofficial transcript, truncated.</p>
<p>I get what you’re saying, SteveMA, about it making a difference for scholarships. If someone rounds up on a resume, however, as in the case above, it’s not “wrong” or lying. It might not meet a technical threshold for a particular job or scholarship, but in those cases I would think the “deciders” would look to the official record.</p>
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I’d hesitate accepting a job from a company with such stupid management.</p>
<p>Hunt, that is assuming the student has choices. </p>
<p>My older one (engineering major from UVA, good GPA, good internship) had exactly one offer when he graduated in 2010. The younger one had only a single internship offer very late last spring and no offers the prior summers, which was not for a lack of trying. The internship went great, as confirmed by a strong performance evaluation, but it was not a large enough firm to give a post-summer job offer. He hasn’t been able to get a single interview yet during fall recruitment, despite doing absolutely everything he can. He is a senior and has a GPA comfortably above a 3.0 so that isn’t the issue, but it’s a tough job market, even for engineers, at least in my anecdotal sample of two. </p>
<p>Thankfully, one offer is all a person needs. The older one loves his job, has been promoted twice, and is doing fabulously. I am confident the younger one will do equally well because he is a hard worker and has a lot to offer an employer. Thank goodness they can check off the GPA box and have one less thing that makes them less competitive than the next candidate because clearly neither of my two boys were/are in a position to turn their nose up at an interview or job because they are too good for a company’s hiring practices.</p>
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Of course. It’s still awfully stupid. It’s probably a warning of other stupidities to come.</p>