International GPA

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Just my 0.02:</p>

<p>There is a marked difference between US and international school systems. In all honesty, the international standard for regular kids is higher than the standard for regular US kids; for example, my normal compulsory classes covered practically the whole of the AP curriculum. And most international grading systems are harder on students, coupled with demanding examinations: my chemistry certificate theory paper took three hours. THREE. And I needed every single minute. Grading curves are practically non-existent. Grades don't even exist. You just have marks out of 10 or 20 or a hundred - marks that you SLAVE for (in my high school and several others at the top of my head, getting an average total score of ninety was whizkid level. Get up to ninety-five? You're Einstein). Up until my senior year I took twelve subjects - courses, whatever - EVERY TERM. THERE WERE THREE TERMS IN A YEAR. I'm not kidding. Math, English Language, French, Hausa (yes, three languages were compulsory up till final year), Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Further Math, Foods and Nutrition, Economics, Religious Studies, Geography. And I wasn't pushing myself or anything - the minimum you could take was eleven, and Further Math was pseudo-compulsory for all the science kids. Mind you I was in a boarding school, so there was basic living stuff to worry about in addition. At least I was a science student, and could wrestle my way through (although I had to cram about half of the periodic table because my utterly sadistic teacher would never think of providing one with the test booklet): the humanities kids were at the mercy of women (for some reason, they were all women) who would dish out seventies and low eighties for literary dissertations and twelve-page history papers.</p>

<p>So please, please, it would be awesome if you kept in mind that for an international applicant, a perfect average is practically unattainable, that the majority of us don't have weighted grades and find 4.65 GPAs freaky, that we're take honors classes cunningly disguised as "ordinary", and that most colleges understand this and upscale the applicant's grades accordingly (I think an 80 from a British-styled system is considered an A). So please, please, please, when an international posts their GPA here don't immediately whip out the "That's too low for so and so school you're not going to get in kthanxbye chance me back" guns. You're crushing people's hopes unnecessarily.</p>

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<p>Then again, not every country has unattainable perfect averages… students from countries subjected to A-levels can (and sometimes do) achieve perfect A-level averages, in letter grade terms.</p>

<p>And let’s not forget that perfection is subjective, as well.</p>

3

<p>@Catria Exactly. In letter grade terms. I’ve received letter grades only twice in my life - my junior and senior certificate exams. For all my internal examinations (and thus my “GPA”) I received raw scores, and those raw scores were bloody. Pun intended.
And even with US high schools that use the 100-point system, you see kids popping up with 99 averages. 99? The last time I saw a total average like that was in like first grade!
And that’s another thing. I tutor a kid who’s in the fifth grade at the moment, and his word lists this term has included, and I am not joking, “febrifacient”, “effervescent” and “ameliorate”. Those were words on my SAT flash cards. He gets twenty of them EVERY WEEK.</p>