<p>I'm currently a Student at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, which is arguably one of the top schools in Canada for social sciences/humanities, according to several sources. I'm worred about my graduate school application, (I will be applying next year in my final year of study). I am in second year, but I took extra summer courses, and I am taking a 120% courseload and will have completed the 20 credits required for a four year honours degree in three years. Do you think that will affect my application, considering it is tougher to take an increased workload?</p>
<p>Secondly, my average at the moment is something like 78% to 80%. I believe that converts to about a 3.8-4.0 GPA? We do not generally use that system in Canada and I'm unfamiliar with it. =/ Do you think a GPA in that range with a decent GRE mark would give me a good chance to get into an Ivy league grad school, like Yale? If not, do you think I could get into a semi-ivy school like MIT?</p>
<p>I'm very interested in Political Theory/Philosophy and will be applying to Ph.D programs in the United States in that field...I am also going to apply to U of Ottawa in Canada and a few others like U of T.</p>
<p>Anyway, thanks in advance for any responses..I am quite nervous already as I really see grad school as part of my career path.</p>
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I am in second year, but I took extra summer courses, and I am taking a 120% courseload and will have completed the 20 credits required for a four year honours degree in three years. Do you think that will affect my application, considering it is tougher to take an increased workload?
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<p>Probably not. Graduating early is a decision you make as a student. You won't get any brownie points for it from grad programs. In fact, outside of med/law schools, your college courses will matter a great deal less than your research credentials.</p>
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Secondly, my average at the moment is something like 78% to 80%. I believe that converts to about a 3.8-4.0 GPA?
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<p>wrong. it's not. it's a lot less than that.</p>
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...would give me a good chance to get into an Ivy league grad school, like Yale? If not, do you think I could get into a semi-ivy school like MIT?
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<p>The ivy league is a sports league. Their members happen to be some of the best undergraduate colleges, but really for grad, aim for department, not ivy (most of them are extremely lacking in specific areas of study). Oh, and there's no such thing as a semi-ivy. MIT has never been, nor ever will be, in the Ivy League.</p>
<p>I don't think MIT would want to be considered an Ivy let alone a semi-Ivy.</p>
<p>78%-80% is most probably within the 2.0 GPA. That would be a tough call. But then again, I'm not sure how they assess applicants with international degrees. Something that puts me on the edge.</p>
<p>Wow I didn't know GPA was calculated that way...I don't know how people can possibly get a 4.0 GPA then, considering the highest mark usually give in a social sciences essay course is around 86%...</p>
<p>i'm canadian too - it's a lot harder to get high percentage marks in canada so gpa is calculated differently. try to find a conversion table on your school's website. i don't remember exactly how grades convert here at queen's, but i do remember that 70-74 is a 3.0, if that helps. so i think you'd be about a 3.3 to 3.7, but it could be different at western.</p>
<p>Nah, this is all wrong. I went to a canadian school, my average was about 82% (80%and above was first class and the average was typically 65%). Anyway, many US graduate schools converted my 82% to a 4.0. </p>
<p>It's apples and oranges and you can't directly compare the way people attempt to on here.</p>
<p>Graduating early, as has been said in other threads on this forum, can actually be a negative if it prevents you from expanding upon (or starting for the first time) your research. Moreover, that extra time is usually good for building up your LOR. What will matter for your admissions isn't your overall "GPA" as much as your "GPA" in the political science course-load. What area in political science are you specifically interested in? (Most of the Ivies, in this case, have pretty good Political Science Graduate Schools, however, what is more important is that you go to a school that has an adviser studying in your specific area.) If you don't have someone in your field to work with then developing as a researcher can be very difficult.</p>
<p>I think more research experience is always better. Since graduating early always shaves off potential research time, I would advise against it. Grad school adcomms care much less about your "future promise" than their undergrad counterparts. They will take the 24-year-old M.S. student who has accomplished and learned most over the 19-year-old whiz kid who is merely ahead of his class. A PI is like a boss: they want the student they don't have to train, who is most experienced and already proven, and they don't care how old that student winds up being. Unless your research experience and publications are so great that you don't fear competing against masters students, stay in school.</p>
<p>Well sure. But the 19-year-old whiz kid will have to have accomplished more than 98% of the applicant pool, which includes many students in M.S. programs. Just being ahead of schedule is not sufficient.</p>
<p>It's silly to just sit here and pontificate. I think the best evidence is to check out many profiles of people who were accepted or rejected at the departments you like, and see what qualifications they had. A good place to find such profiles is Applycorner:</a> place for graduate school applicants. If you have the same number of papers, years of research experience, coursework/grades, etc. as the admitted applicants, maybe you are ready. Otherwise, stay in school and keep working on it.</p>
<p>Looks like the original poster is long gone, but I wanted to bring up to the Canadian posters the fact that most American schools have crazy mark inflation. Their average course marks are usually over 80%. That is partially why they need over 90% to get a an A.</p>
<p>Here at the University of Toronto the average grade in my major is 69%. That would be like a GPA of 1.7 at many American schools. We have to hope that admission committees aren't so stupid that they convert our grades to standard American GPA's.</p>
<p>I personally know alot of students from Toronto and McGill, two notorious grade deflators, who had alot of difficulty getting into good grad schools after their UG due to the fact that they had the equavalent of 2.8 GPA's even though their class average was way below that in some cases. Both UT and McGill are good schools but they arent so well known south of the border that admissions commitees, especially at top schools, will automatically give them a free pass. As I said, it is a bit of a tough spot for alot of people at those schools, because their grades are drastically lower than they would be if they went to an an American school or even a school like Western Ontario or Queen's, yet they rarely benefit from the name of their school when they apply to grad schools (save for a few specific programs where each school excels.)</p>
<p>Are Toronto and McGill the only grade deflators? I know someone in Waterloo who has 95+ average, probably 98-99% major average. Waterloo is maybe not as good as the two forementioned schools, but it's a decent university in Canada..</p>
<p>I went to Waterloo for electrical engineering, and it seemed that the class average was in the 70% to 75% range. I agree that most American grading systems give higher numerical grades than Canadian systems, and not just at the university level. I went to junior high in the U.S., and 90% to 100% was the range for an A (not counting + or -). In Canada, it was 80% to 100%.</p>