3 ms·

Over a 4.0 GPA? Man, are grades that badly inflated now that they have to add extra points to the GPA to make people seem better? No knock on you at all, but j

by zedshaw 16y ago

Over a 4.0 GPA? Man, are grades that badly inflated now that they have to add extra points to the GPA to make people seem better? No knock on you at all, but just curious what the scale is.

ced 16y ago
At my uni (University of Montreal), A was worth 4.0 and A+ was worth 4.3. I don't think it comes from grade inflation, though. Just a different convention. According to Wikipedia, the 4.0 scale is anything but standard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(education) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(education)
steveklabnik 16y ago
I graduated my high school with a 4.7. They add in the 'bonus points' for taking AP and honors classes after the division, not before. Oh, and everyone over a 4.0 was reported as valedictorian.
- wahnfrieden 16y ago
  The problem is, without knowing the cap on "bonus points," I can't know how far under 4.0 your GPA might have been without the bonus. Maybe your GPA was "only" a 3.7 before adding 1 bonus point? It's ambiguous at best, deceptive at worst.
  - grandalf 16y ago
    On the other hand, if a school doesn't give extra points for more advanced classes, someone who took the hardest curriculum possible and did pretty well might have a lower GPA than someone who took the easiest curriculum possible.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      This happened to one of my friends.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    It was possible to get a 4.9. I don't remember exactly what I got, but it was mostly As, a few Bs. They've since decreased the 'bonus' quite a lot.
endtime 16y ago
Well, an A+ is worth 4.3, so if you're some kind of superhuman I suppose you could get a 4.3 overall, though it's not really practical when you're taking 3 classes a quarter and being a TA or RA. I managed to get three of those, and honestly I think I earned them - I worked extremely hard throughout my MS and that occasionally resulted in very strong results. There are some classes with inflation-compatible grading schemes (Pat Hanrahan's 148 comes to mind, in which, when I took it, 7/8 projects offered 25% extra credit each, and each project was 10% of one's grade, meaning the maximum grade for the course was 117.5%...though I didn't get an A+ in that course, since I didn't do well on the exams), but they're the minority.

by zedshaw 16y ago

Over a 4.0 GPA? Man, are grades that badly inflated now that they have to add extra points to the GPA to make people seem better? No knock on you at all, but just curious what the scale is.

ced 16y ago

At my uni (University of Montreal), A was worth 4.0 and A+ was worth 4.3. I don't think it comes from grade inflation, though. Just a different convention. According to Wikipedia, the 4.0 scale is anything but standard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(education) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(education)

steveklabnik 16y ago

I graduated my high school with a 4.7. They add in the 'bonus points' for taking AP and honors classes after the division, not before. Oh, and everyone over a 4.0 was reported as valedictorian.

wahnfrieden 16y ago
The problem is, without knowing the cap on "bonus points," I can't know how far under 4.0 your GPA might have been without the bonus. Maybe your GPA was "only" a 3.7 before adding 1 bonus point? It's ambiguous at best, deceptive at worst.
- grandalf 16y ago
  On the other hand, if a school doesn't give extra points for more advanced classes, someone who took the hardest curriculum possible and did pretty well might have a lower GPA than someone who took the easiest curriculum possible.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    This happened to one of my friends.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  It was possible to get a 4.9. I don't remember exactly what I got, but it was mostly As, a few Bs. They've since decreased the 'bonus' quite a lot.

endtime 16y ago

Well, an A+ is worth 4.3, so if you're some kind of superhuman I suppose you could get a 4.3 overall, though it's not really practical when you're taking 3 classes a quarter and being a TA or RA. I managed to get three of those, and honestly I think I earned them - I worked extremely hard throughout my MS and that occasionally resulted in very strong results. There are some classes with inflation-compatible grading schemes (Pat Hanrahan's 148 comes to mind, in which, when I took it, 7/8 projects offered 25% extra credit each, and each project was 10% of one's grade, meaning the maximum grade for the course was 117.5%...though I didn't get an A+ in that course, since I didn't do well on the exams), but they're the minority.