Converting %age marks (ICSE and CISCE) to USA equivalent Letter Grades

Applying to College
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My question is specifically about the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE, Class X) and the Indian School Certificate (ISC, ClassXII) conducted by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE).

A bit of general background would be relevant though:-

Not just the CISCE, many Indian school examinations still follow the system of giving %age marks rather than letter grades.

Even where letter grade are awarded, these are on the basis of a pre-specified range (e.g. 90% and above is “A” etc.) which may not necessarily correspond to the USA systems.

The question of grading on a curve is thus even more far-fetched in the current Indian school context (as of now, but many Indian systems are evolving & playing catch-up to the world at large; so hopefully it might happen sometime in the future).

Hence my query:-

Which are the US University-approved methodologies (or website convertors etc.) to convert %age marks (ICSE and CISCE) to USA equivalent Letter Grades?

Thanks!!

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In almost every case, the university does not want you to convert.

For the few that do, they will tell you how.

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US colleges that regularly admit Indian applicants will have their own specific way of coming up with an internal academic rating for those applicants. There is no standard way of converting those grades to a 4.0 GPA that will actually track whatever those colleges are doing privately.

People want to do it anyway, because they think data or anecdotes involving US grades will then be helpful information. But I really think you need to understand you need data or at least anecdotes from Indian applicants with similar credentials.

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As do many US and other schools around the world.

My daughter’s school here used percentages as well.

Again, not uncommon.

Not everyone grades on a curve.

As mentioned by the posters above, there’s no need for you to convert your percentages.

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What you can do is have your GC indicate something like
90% : top x% nationally
80%: top xx% nationally
75%: top x% in region/state
70%: top x% in school
65%: top x% in school
60%…
55%…

You use whatever numbers are relevant :slight_smile:

Currently, roughly 40% get a grade of A in the US.

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As noted the schools will recalculate it themselves, but you can get some idea from some of their websites. For example, Arizona specifies a minimum recalculated (their calc) GPA of 3.0 is required, and then they give you what that minimum translates as. So it’s not exactly what you’re asking, but it’s a ballpark idea.

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