Now supposing the student took more than 17 credits, I am assuming we take the highest grades on qualifying 17 credits. However, the Math Department will neither confirm nor deny this
The Math department says it doesn’t matter which courses are included in the Minor because the transcript does not provide the Minor GPA. I told them that it is an official statistic if the Students Rules Handbook describes how it is calculated. However they disagree. What would you do in a situation such as this?
The transcript doesn’t list the minor GPA. We just calculated theirs ourselves & listed it on resume supported by the transcript. Do whatever is best, backed up by the 17 credit rule sheet, no one really questions it. Grad school & formal job application also did not question that method either. Just know how you calculated it - we keep notes.
it seems to me the department is hiding it’s policy on how it decides which courses are included in the Minor from students and parents. So instead of simply saying we are not going to tell you the policy by which we decide which courses we include in the Minor, the Advisors talk nonsense such as the Minor GPA does not exist etc.
It is hard to believe, this is what the university is officially doing to students and parents at Texas A&M. I’m going to talk to people higher up in the department and university administration to find out. Why can’t they be simply honest and say we have a committee or a professor or some other policy?
Thanks AGmomx2. Sorry I didn’t see you post before I posted my last response.
You know the department does track the courses in the Minor on the planner. In addition, the Minor GPA is an official statistic as it is in the Students Rules Book. Therefore there is an official Minor GPA. Finally, why doesn’t the college say what you just said?
I guess I’m just upset that I had to drive all the way to College Station to find out they do not want to disclose their real policy. Do they not have computer engineers who can fix their software? I guess I’m just a stupid parent whose time means nothing to them.
I think it can be to your advantage to self-calculate without conflict. If they don’t officially declare a number you are free to write your own on any document requiring it. I’ve helped out a few kids with the calculating… none of them had any issues. The ones I’ve helped have sent their info to : employers, government, grad schools & med school. No problems - one was even a math minor too
My son has completed a Math Minor too. He has AP credit in Calc l. He has A from TAMU college station in Calc ll, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Probability 411 and Math 485. He has a B, I in MATH 220. So which courses would form the Minor? What would be his Minor GPA in your opinion? I think it could be 4.0 or a 3.7 depending on whether one includes the B or not.
I know when they declare a minor the students get the paperwork of what is needed. In your case, go with the 4.0 if you didn’t need the Math 220 to fulfill the minor. Since the school will not provide a calculation, just pick the most advantageous courses for your student – that’s what I did for everyone I helped - I often review resumes for my kids friends & help them out. He shouldn’t be penalized for taking a bonus course is my opinion. I actually think most reviewers of resumes/applications just don’t bother to check the math, nor the policies for each school. There is usually a statement that basically says ‘you’ve told the truth’ - which in this case would apply since you’ll use the correct amount of units/courses required to calculate a minor GPA.
I think it is phony to exclude a course from the GPA on the grounds that it was not needed for a minor, just speaking personally. My interpretation of “minor GPA” for a student minoring in math is that it would be the average of all grades it math, weighted according to course credit, if that was variable.
AGmomx2, thanks again. Son doesn’t need MATH220 for the Minor. That is a new requirement for those for those joining A&M after 2016. My son joined in 2013. I agree with you, but I don’t understand why the school wouldn’t clarify it
QuantMech, I understand your point, but different schools have different guidelines for GPAs. For example MIT uses Pass / Fail for classes taken in freshmen year. Does that make an MIT GPA phony? Is a Caltech GPA phony? I don’t know. That is a whole other topic. .
By the way, if you think that some non Math major kids can come steal a 4.0 in a Math Minor at TAMU because it is easy to earn As in 17 credits, please don’t
In my opinion the Math department at A&M serves a very large and highly competitive engineering program. The math courses here serve as weed out courses. Consequently these courses are deliberately taught in a way that makes it very difficult to pass let alone earn As in them. So for someone who is not a Math major or has never taken a Math course in college it is very difficult to earn an A here. Also, in the end nobody can earn a 4.0 without earning As in a specified number of very difficult 300 & 400 level Math courses in College Station. So personally I would discourage people from sending their non Math major kids to A&M with the hope that they will earn an easy 4.0 in a Math Minor here.
AGmomx2, I agree on the 17 credits. The student planner also calculates the Minor GPA based on 17 credits. Any courses over 17 are ignored by the planner. So the question is which 17 credits? It seems you feel that it is okay to choose the courses with the highest grades. I just don’t understand why TAMU doesn’t clarify this.
No, perazziman, I don’t think that a GPA becomes phony if a college has a pass/fail policy, for the freshman year or beyond. I do find one aspect of the MIT GPA to be dubious: The internal transcript shows + and - modifiers of grades, but the external transcript just shows unadorned letter grades. A transcript with all grades of A- is not the same as one with all grades of A, in my view–to say nothing about a transcript with mixed A and A+ grades.
I have no thought that math at A&M is easy. I don’t think advanced math is particularly easy anywhere.
My daughter took more credits than she needed to graduate from college. Can we go through her transcript and eliminate low grades in courses that were not needed to meet any graduation requirement? Nice thought, but I don’t think so. At A&M, 17 credits are required for the math minor. Additional math courses beyond that are not needed for the minor. But I would still say that they are part of the math GPA.
QuantMech, please keep in mind that we are talking about the Math Minor GPA, not his Math GPA.
For example, if I were to claim that I had a certain Economics Major GPA, would that mean the gpa on all my Economics courses? Not really. The Economics major may include Accounting, Info Systems, Econometrics, Statistics and Calculus etc in the gpa, depending on the college requirements for the Economics Major. This is why it is better not to overthink these things in my opinion and just follow the University guidelines
My problem with A&M is with the fact that they have not clarified their policy. I don’t care if son’s gpa is 3.7, 3.8, or 4.0. They are all fine.
By the way, son’s biggest achievement in Math in my opinion was not the gpa, but his professor inviting him to do research with him. He invited him not just for earning As but according to his prof, having the highest score in class and understanding what was being taught in class. The professor also recommended that son Major in math and do graduate work in it. In addition this didn’t just happen in one class with one professor
I’m still waiting for a response to my email. The administrators continue to act as if A&M has no obligation to help students correctly calculate the Minor GPA.
The Minor GPA is mentioned on both the student planner as well as the Student Rule Handbook. Yet the Administrators act as if there is no Minor GPA. Way to go for a university to teach its students to cook up their own GPA. Well done.
Here is a tip to A&M Administrators:
If you don’t want to help students figure out their Minor GPA correctly, then don’t talk about it in your literature such as the Student Rule Handbook and planner etc.
