I never understood why colleges use the complicated GPA system, where its different all over the country. Yeah, with a numeric average, there are some discrepancies with numeric, but its generally the same all across the board. I just wanted to know.
I think the rationale for keeping the 4.0 system alive is accounting for discrepancy in schools across the country. Whereas a 97 at one institution might be the equivalent of a 95 at another, by assuming both are As and thus treating them equally eliminates the need for pedantic inspection of each school’s grading policies. Of course, this doesn’t help in cases of extreme grade inflation, but it does help eliminate things that can depend on chance.
The GPA system is not complicated.
Wouldn’t that system just increase anxiety and pressure for everyone? Rather than aiming for 92-94% in every class to get that 4.0 UW GPA, you now have to aim for 100% to be valedictorian.
He’s talking about how colleges evaluate GPA, not each individual school. Mine, for example, uses the 100-point system, and since it’s applicable to all at the school, it’s fair (at least in terms of determining rank, with the exception of transfer students coming in with inflated grades).
Thank you sirpepsi. Some universities use a 5.0 system, while most use a 4.0. Also, the way universities do their GPA’s are also different. Some do a complex GPA (A+=4.0, A=3.7, A-=3.5, etc.), while others do the simple ones (ALL As are 4.0, no matter if its a 90 or 100). For example, my school doesn’t do GPA’s so our Valedictorian is based off of numeric average, which IMO is fair; because after all, my 100 in science should not be looked at the same as someone who got a 90, or my 89 in social studies should not be looked at as drastically different then someone who got a 91. By going based off of Numeric average, it would eliminate these LARGE discrepancies (for example, My GPA is the exact same as one of my classmates for a particular college, even though my numeric average is nearly 3 points higher.)
And you feel this puts colleges at what disadvantage???