Competitiveness / Doing good at Pomona

brassmonkey
Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:56:23 +0000

Just divide (multiply) by 3.

It’s basically the 4.0 scale, but an A is 12, an A- is 11, B+ is 10, and so forth. This has nothing to do with admissions, just while you’re here.

If you’re curious why:

It’s because there isn’t a non-repeating decimal equivalent of 1/3.

For example, say you took 4 classes in a semester, and got two B-'s and two B+'s. With the twelve scale, this is simply [(8+8)+(10+10)] /4 = 9.0 average which is a B. When you divide by 3, this converts to a GPA of 3.0 for the semester.

With B- = 2.66, and B+ = 3.33 you get [(2.66+2.66)+(3.33+3.33)]/4 = 2.995. It’s trivial, but it makes sense from a mathematical point of view.

Similarly if you have B+ = 3.4 and B- = 2.6 (to try to get them to sum to non-repeating decimals), then you implicitly favor ‘plus’ grades over ‘minus’ grades.

The 12-point scale just makes the most sense, and it’s so easy to convert (just divide by 3) that it doesn’t cause any confusion with grad programs/jobs, who are familiar with our use of it anyway. I’d imagine most Pomona students list their GPA on a 4-point scale on their resume either way, and our transcripts show both.