<p>I'm having trouble calculating my US GPA with WES, because of the situation of my previous studies. I followed courses of my 3-years Bachelor in 2 countries: Italy (the first 1.5 years) and Switzerland (1.5 years), where I got my bachelor. I'll make it clear that, when I moved in Switzerland, all my previous courses were validated by the Swiss Uni, thanks to the Bologna process.</p>
<p>During my italian studies, my GPA in italian method was 24,3/30 on a scale of 30 and I was around the 25th percentile; please, consider that the median of the class in many courses was typically 17/30 where 18/30 is considered the minimum to pass the exam. My italian percentage GPA is 24.3/30 = 0.81%
In Switzerland, the GPA of swiss courses is 5.4/6 on a 6-swiss scale and my % GPA (for swiss only courses) is 90%. :)>- </p>
<p>That given, I used WES to convert my partial GPAs to US ones and I had a surprise.
While my swiss GPA became 3.67/4.00, which looks reasonable, because 0.90<em>4=3.60, my italian GPA turned into 2.78/4.00; therefore, I actually can't understand how can it be so low, as I expected something like 0.81</em>4=3.24. :-/ </p>
<p>I think this can have a huge impact on the overral credibility of my application, so I would like to understand it better.</p>
<p>How do you envalue WES system? Is it compulsory for an international student to use it to apply for a US master?
And what should I do if I think my GPA hasn't been converted in a proper way?</p>
No, it isn’t. Most larger universities would not ask you to get European college transcripts evaluated by WES because they receive enough applications from Europe that they know how to interpret European transcripts.</p>
<p>
You have two options, I think:
Don’t submit the WES results unless required.
Get your transcripts re-evaluated by another evaluation agency and see if they will grant you a higher GPA.</p>
<p>Ok thank you! :)>- I’ll make it clear I think WES is a good tool and my only concern was how to explain that huge difference between the 2 performances, since in both unis I was around the first 25% of the class and, beside a slight natural improvement of grades due to experience, I’ve always studied in the same way; therefore, I’ll leave the original grades and I’ll leave the convertion to them </p>
<p>No, I think you do have a real concern. A top 25% class rank should NOT convert to a 2.78 GPA. That would be like bottom 20% in the US. </p>
<p>For reference: The median GPA at my undergraduate college was 3.4. Many universities won’t even consider graduate applications from applicants with a GPA below 3.0…</p>
<p>The best advice I can give you is not to send the WES evaluation results to universities. If a university doesn’t ask for an evaluation, don’t send one. If they do require an evaluation, either don’t apply or get your transcripts re-evaluated from another company. </p>
<p>Sure, I meant that, italian and swiss original grades. That said, I’m not that surprised to find these difficulties in convertion of ITALIAN GPAs, because it’s really difficult to compare them among italian universities too; can you believe… in some universities the median is 29/30, in others 21/30 or less, if you don’t know the institution is impossible to know that. And tipically engineering is one with the lowest gpa. Another user told me that I should send the median of my uni, for the first year’s class, but an exact figure doesn’t exist; I can ask the univesity the final gpa of three years of bachelor ( given in x/110 - another scale), but this wouldn’t be rapresentative at all, because it partially include the gpa of all the previous courses, but adds many extra-bonus points for the thesis, time you need to complete it and others; plus, I just attended there 1,5 year. </p>
<p>On the contrary, I can send them all the info they need for the swiss institution, position in class, median and so on.</p>
<p>I only want to be equally considered: if my grades are high enough for an american university, I’m happy to leave the place to an applicant with more merit of course, but I hope it would be a matter of merit, not convertion. </p>
<p>I have a question Barlum: can you in America give an exam twice, 3 times or more just to improve the mark of the course?</p>
No, you can’t just repeat a university exam. Students <em>can</em> retake an entire course, but the old grade would stay on the transcript in addition to the new grade. (Students don’t usually retake a course unless they failed it the first time around. College courses in the US typically involve weekly homework and 2-3 exams or papers, which is a LOT of extra work. It also costs a lot of money. US universities charge between $500 and $5,000 for every single course.)</p>
<p>On the other hand, college admissions exams (SAT, GRE, LSAT, TOEFL, etc) can be retaken as many times as you want.</p>
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