<p>Thanks to all you great parents and students, I now feel I understand American college much better. However, I still don't get GPA. Are students graded from 1 to 4? What is an A plus worth? Do all courses count, even electives? If you have more credits than you need, can you take the worst grades out?
Oh, one other think which intrigues me. What is Greek life? It sounds quite perverted when I read the threads...</p>
<p>Grade Point Averages are calculated differently by different schools. Generally speaking, an A=4, B=3, C=2 and D=1. Then some systems have little additives for + and - grades. The high school may average grades for all courses. Colleges may recalculate GPA based on their own criteria -- perhaps only academic core courses, not electives, not art and music. Some systems give an extra point or half point for honors and
AP courses, and a lesser point level for remedial course work. You could theoretically then have a 4.6 GPA on a 4.0 scale.</p>
<p>Lost:</p>
<p>The 4.0 scale is the most common and converts into As and Bs as cnp555 explained. In college, however, one would not expect "weighting" and 4.6 GPA on a 4.0 scale.</p>
<p>There is another scale, the 100 scale, that is roughly:
95 and above: A
91-94: A-
87-90: B+
84-86: B
80-83: B-
77-79: C+
74-76: C
70-73: C-</p>
<p>On a 4.0 scale, the letter grades are as follows:
A=4.o
A-=3.7
B+=3.3
B=3.0
B-=2.7
C+=2.3
C=2.0
C-=1.7
D+=1.3
D=1.0
D-=0.7</p>
<p>And so on. Students could pass a class with a D-, but would likely be warned about their performance and perhaps put on probation.</p>
<p>In many classes, especially in math/sciences, grades are "curved" so, that, even if the majority of students received less than 70 on a quiz worth 100 points, their grades on average will be a B or something like that. Some profs still think of C as average, but many have moved to a B average, illustrating the phenomenon of grade inflation.</p>
<p>Thanks. I've nearly got it. But as much as I can understand A and A+ in science, do people really get as much as 95 on essays? Marite will understand my query as she knows that in France a 16/20 is the maximum most high school and college teachers will give in humanities, and only a handful of students will be awarded such a mark.</p>
<p>I also understand your confusion. I am from Europe also and back in the stone age, when I was in school, 70s and 80s were considered excellent grades - it was next to impossible to get 90s and definitely not possible to get over 100% (our local HS some teachers give bonus points which results in kids having 102% - crazy).</p>
<p>To answer your other question - You cannot take bad grades out if you have more credits than you need.</p>
<p>I'm feeling much better about all those 16s I got the year I was in France! </p>
<p>Greek life - hmm probably the best thing to do is read about sororities and fraternities on Wikipedia: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_life%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_life</a></p>
<p>Lost:</p>
<p>I remember how bemused my sons were when my niece whooped with joy because she'd gotten a 16 in biology at the Bac. They'd converted it to a 100 point scale and thought she'd done rather poorly. 16/20 = 80/100.</p>
<p>In college, essays are graded on a point scale if written in class (as in final exams). Then the whole exam is graded on a letter scale. Term papers are usually graded on a letter scale and it is possible indeed to get As (I do remember how impossible a grade of 18/20 seemed in literature or history!)</p>
<p>What was the original rationale for the compressed 4-point (and so, effectively a 1.8 point) scale in the USA that requires 2 decimal place precision for understanding of the results? It hardly makes sense when the grades in each class are imprecise to start with (at most 10-15 possible outcomes), and nonlinear as seen in Marite's conversion chart above.</p>
<p>I see why European students have a hard time applying to college in the States! On the other hand, it's much more satisfying to get all those As than the miserly grades the French seem bent on giving out. My eldest D was #1 at the toughest pr</p>
<p>European and other international students are at a disadvantage when applying to selective US schools below the very top (or selective scholarships at lesser schools), because their credentials are not understood clearly at US universities that don't see large numbers of foreign applicants. </p>
<p>There are even differences between the international magnets such as Harvard and MIT, and places like Brown and Cornell, in their ability to process the foreign credentials. The admissions office is just more experienced with international matters at the better schools. I think the gap narrows over time but is still there.</p>
<p>Lost: US GPAs are very overrated, having suffered from inflation for decades.</p>
<p>My youngest D (the one who is going to college in the US) spent half an hour looking at the posts here on cc and freaked out: "God, they're all so brillant, they have perfect grades, and have so many ECs, I'll never fit in. " I tried to explain to her that even though 38 hours of school a week and a minimum of three hours of homework very evening leaves very little time for other activities (plus the fact that apart from babysitting and dogwalking, under 18s are precluded from getting a paid job), she has learnt a certain number of skills which others may not have acquired. I think she will find this thread very reassuring.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Oh, one other think which intrigues me. What is Greek life? It sounds quite perverted when I read the threads...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It is perverted, but not in the manner you imagine. "Greek life" has a different meaning in American English than in European idiom; it refers to alcohol, not les pedes. Keywords for a Wikipedia (English language) search: fraternity, sorority, hazing, beer pong.</p>
<p>Think of the "+" and "-" as being a bit better or worse than the letter grade, but not so much better or worse to give an entirely different letter. Son's HS did not use + and -, only whole letters. The + adds a 1/3 to, the - subtracts 1/3 from the points assigned to the letter grade, when calculating GPA's the extra decimal place(s) help avoid losing/gaining points due to rounding down or up. I like the vagueness of the 4 point scale (for A-B-C-D) because it avoids too much precision. Grades give a general picture of the student's accomplishments, it is not important to know the precise percentages. Remember that the C, or average, student is not likely to be thinking of college and the B student in HS may be the average student in the average college student to generalize. You could think of C, B, A as "good (enough), better, best" and a D as passing. Unlike some European HS's, all US students go to the same high schools to get the same diploma regardless of their plans after graduation. The coursework taken at the HS will determine the elegibility for college - one can take "college prep" or various technical courses beyond the core requirements for HS graduation.</p>
<p>"Greek Life" refers to social fraternities and sororities; they use combinations of Greek letters for their names, that is where the "Greek" comes in. They are social clubs, hence the "life", as they influence the social lifestyle of their members. The term has nothing to do with alcohol; despite the fact that the students may indulge in drinking. The hazing and beer pong are stereotypes that may exist but are not necessary to belonging to the organizations. I am not a fan of them as I believe in a more egalitarian experience, not one limited by membership in a social club.</p>
<p>While the OP can read about Greek trigrams from the joking pointer to Wikipedia, it is absurd to say that fraternities are merely "stereotyped" in their connection to alcohol, just as Chinese citizens (who in principle can be blond and blue-eyed) have a "stereotype" of black hair etc. </p>
<p>I think the percentage of non-alcohol-fueled parties at fraternities that have the ability to openly purchase and serve alcohol (i.e. outside of Utah, religious colleges, or on-campus fraternities regulated by their host universities) is quite low. The percentage of "dry" fraternities is even lower.</p>
<p>The OP may also enjoy the classic American movie Animal House, which is a parody of the college fraternity scene.</p>
<p>wow, wis75, the percentages may not be precise, but you sure are! I suppose, like everywhere else, some schools inflate the grades, either to get more HS graduates or to get more students into college...probably the former since SATs are as important as report cards. Another thread mentioned that some colleges/universities wanted to stop using SATs. While I still consider that Multiple Choice Questions are not an adequate way of judging someone's potential college skills, wouldn't this system make it even tougher for non-elite HSs because their grading system would be considered too lenient? French students demonstrated massively against the suppression of the baccalaureat for that reason.</p>
<p>Thanks, siserune. I thought that in many states drinking under 21 was illegal. Can a 20yo be thrown out of college for drinking? As you no doubt know, the French have their priorities mixed: wine and beer may be purchased at 16 but you can't drive before you are 18!</p>
<p>Lost:</p>
<p>A student will not be thrown out of college for drinking in moderation. Most colleges in fact will put a student who is drunk to the point of incapacitation on probation (after the student has dried out, usually in the campus infirmary). I would not worry about the student who drinks a glass of wine on occasions!</p>
<p>As for the SATs, the colleges that have made it optional usually have a smaller pool of applicants and thus can spend the time scrutinizing each application. I do think that the SAT provides an extra means of validating curriculum and GPAs, but its coverage is not as complete as the bac (only math, verbal and, if SATIIs are required, a couple of subjects).</p>
<p>Marite:
I'm not comparing SATs to the bac. I feel (perhaps wrongly) that since MCQ are cheaper and easier to grade, a country the size of the US would have to spend fortunes on teachers to mark the papers, money that would be better spent in teaching them more in the first place. I have my doubts however about the relative values of grades from different schools, and about how much help an average American student gets on the essays he/she sends for college application. I appreciate that there is a strong honour code in the US, but isn't there a post on CC where applicants can submit their essays and ask for advice?</p>
<p>Lost:</p>
<p>There is a difference of opinion about how much help students should get on their essays. I just read an article where the author said: none. He was going against the advice of the Dean of Admissions at Yale who said that students should not deprive themselves of comments about spelling, etc... and observed that the essays are intended for adcoms to know more about the student rather than to evaluate their writing skills.</p>
<p>I have helped students who sent me their essays.</p>