What GPA do I need?

Hello everyone, I am a high school student, grade 11, attending in Ontario, Canada. I have that heard there is an inflation in the grading system for Ontario versus USA GPA. I am intending to major in computer science. what are the grades needed for me to possibly get accepted to Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, and UCSD? I’ve heard that a 80% in Ontario is a around a 90 or something? Like they add 5 percent more for the inflation.

What is the grade requirement for Carnegie Mellon and the other listed schools I’ve said for computer science needed?
Would an 85+ be okay?

Thank you!

For Carnegie Mellon CS you would need pretty much a 4.0 or essentially straight A’s. The Onrario equivalent would be like a 99. You would also need an SAT of 1500 or higher. It is extremely competitive. An 85+ would not be OK.

As for the UC’s there requirements are also high and you would be full pay, no financial aid for out of staters.

Admission is also holistic. They would look at your essays, letters of rec and essays. They would not compensate for low stats.

An 85 would not get you admitted to Waterloo, McGill or UToronto in CS.

Our school doesn’t like to give averages of over 95%. The teachers will remove marks for no reason and when the students and parents complain to the board, they told them they couldn’t do anything. So now what? I can’t get into any good university with 93%?

Our school says an A is 80% and up.

What are your test scores? What are your extracurriculars? You’d have to show some degree of brilliance to be admitted, not just solid good grades. These aren’t just “good schools.” You WILL be judged in context with your school environment (Admissions officers are aware that some schools are more competitive than others) but grades alone won’t get you there.

Grade Inflation or no, if an 80% and up is considered an A in your school you are still in the lowish end of an A. My daughter is a 4.0 student in the U.S. (higher, if you count weighted grades) but there is no way that she would be admitted to Carnegie Mellon. Zilch. None. Much more is needed.

SCS has an average GPA of 3.96 on a 4.0 scale. If an A at your school is 80-95, then that means a 94.4 would correspond to the school’s admission average.

It could be a bit lower if you exceed the SAT average of about 1550 or better the average top 2% class rank.

Yes, it’s quite competitive.

Why do you want to attend university in the US? Both the US and Canada have many universities which are very strong for computer science.

However, assuming that you are a Canadian, universities in Canada will be a lot less expensive. Also, once you graduate, if you are not a US citizen or permanent resident then getting a job in the US will be tough. If you are a Canadian, then it will be a lot easier to get a job in Canada if you got your degree there also.

As others have said, both Carnegie Mellon and UC Berkeley will be exceptionally competitive for admission, particularly for computer science.

You mention an 85 and a 93. From your info, those are 93 and 98 “equivalent” on a 90-100 A scale. If accurate, both can certainly get you into “any good university”, but the competition gets stiff at the CMU/Berkeley level - top 5 in the US.

My average from 9th and 10th grade was close to 97%, but now in 11th grade, I currently have a 93%. I said 85% because I looked around on college confidential and saw that an Ontario student with 80s can get to Carnegie Mellon. I grew suspicion since that is a very low mark and I knew that answer was not a fact. I am trying to raise my mark to at least 98% by the end of the year.

Clubs I currently am in:

  • DECA
  • Debate
  • Computer Science Club
  • Created my own club: A company-sponsored me to “help get students into programming”. This club has raised over eight thousand dollars.
  • Cross Country
  • Track and Field

I have attended Hackathons at Waterloo and other places.

I’ve lived in the states my entire life, but my family moved to Ontario, Canada for my highschool due to work reasons.

Carnegie Mellon has different admission averages, depending on the school a student applies to. An 85% definitely won’t get you into the School of Computer Science. They have an admission rate of around 5%.