<p>This may be a dumb question, because I’ve searched and can’t find the answer, so maybe everyone knows so there is no need to spell it out, but how do you know which classes to include when an application asks for your Major GPA? Daughter is applying to graduate school, and a couple of applications are asking for her undergrad GPA and her Major GPA. I’m assuming by major GPA they don’t mean all the classes on the degree plan, because that would be all 131 hours. So how do you know which ones to include? On daughter’s official paperwork her Major is listed as BFA Art: Printmaking - Teaching. So would her major GPA include all art and education classes or would it depend on the graduate field. She can either do a MFA in Studio Art; an MFA in Studio Art with an Art Education track or a MA in Art Education. Does she figure her undergrad major GPA based on what’s on her diploma/transcript or based on the graduate program she’s choosing? Help please, neither she nor I can find any guidance on this issue.</p>
<p>I am guessing that anything in her major-- art and education is included.
They are interested in her current major GPA, not her future concentration.</p>
<p>She should contact her advisor or the registrar at her college to ask…they should be able to steer her in the right direction and have likely fielded that question beofre for others going on to grad school.</p>
<p>At son’s school, there’s some online application (I think the progress towards degree report) that provides this number.</p>
<p>Not a dumb question! I work at a university in the IT area, and write a lot of reports. A few years back I was asked to include a student’s “major GPA” on a report. I asked the person requesting the report to provide me a definition. She acted like I was an idiot and responded that I should know what that was.</p>
<p>After a lot of research I was unable to find an industry standard. After discussing it with some colleagues, we decided to key it off a value our administrative software uses in degree audits. Our registrars’ office defines the requirements for a program in the software. It includes things like general education requirements, distribution requirements, foreign language, major, etc. </p>
<p>So we use whatever classes go into the “major” area for the “major gpa”. That way we don’t have to worry about maintaining it, and it will be consistent with what is displayed when a student or advisor runs an on-line degree audit.</p>
<p>I still think it’s appalling that they left it up to an IT person define this, but SOMEBODY had to make a decision.</p>
<p>It certainly should be on the transcript and should be defined. I know in my UG we had X number of classes in different categories to fulfill the major’s requirement (as compared to the graduation requirement). Those should be the ones considered in the Major GPA.</p>
<p>I have not noticed most transcripts providing this. I’ve read gzillions and at least in my (increasingly bad) memory I can’t recall seeing it. </p>
<p>I agree with Erin’s dad that it should be required classes for one’s major, but i imagine that definition must vary. </p>
<p>I suspect it probably won’t matter either way what boundary you use.</p>
<p>If your D can access something called her “audit” through WebAdvisor or similar program, she can find her major GPA and her cumulative GPA somewhere at the top of it.</p>
<p>If she can’t, she can call the Registrar’s office and get that information.</p>
<p>Every year the Registrar’s office of the college I work at contacts the departments and asks them to reconfirm the list of courses in their discipline that are NOT included in the major GPA. Examples would be lower level general education and foundation courses (i.e. most English majors would not have Freshman Comp included in their major GPA).</p>
<p>Call the schools admissions office at the school she is applying to to clarify this for her. My son has to have major GPA on his resume for internships, and I think he it includes every required course he has to take for his major.</p>
<p>Yes, she did contact the two schools on her list that asked for major GPA and they both told her whatever classes were considered major classes by her undergraduate school. They are not designated on her official transcript, classes are only listed by semester and there is just 1 GPA. That’s when she contacted me. The problem is further complicated by the fact that Texas has this thing called the Texas Transfer Plan, where if a student takes a certain number of accepted classes from each group that is specified by the state at a 2 year college, they are guaranteed to be core complete no matter what public Texas university they transfer to, as long as it is noted on their transcript. It only works for transfers to public Texas universities, but the 1st two years can be done at a private school. </p>
<p>She went to one of the few, if not only, private 2 year college in Texas (I wasn’t even aware there was such a thing before she applied), it was very tiny, less than 500 kids, which meant that the number of the classes that would qualify for the plan was very limited. The Texas system does not do a very good job of getting the information out to students in the 2 year colleges, leading to a lot of problems for kids trying to transfer and still stay on track to graduate in 4 years. Luckily the Dean of the Art Department was her adviser, and told her about the option. She did have to take a few classes that were not required for her AFA degree and I ended up having to get involved with her university to make sure she was core complete. They made it really difficult, when we 1st checked on the plan, she was told that all she needed to do was to make sure that it was noted Texas Transfer on her transcript. Well, it was, but it was overlooked when they transferred her courses and it actually took a visit to get them to pull her transcript out of her records, see it was noted and then change her degree plan to reflect it. I do not understand why some schools make it so hard to students to actually graduate, no wonder some of them just give up. But the bottom line is there are some classes on her transcript that would not have counted toward her degree had she started there, but do count because she was core complete when she transferred in. </p>
<p>She can still log in, so we’re going to see if she can get in and do what her school calls a degree audit, see if that tells us any information and if not, calculate it manually using the art and education classes as listed on her last degree plan and go with that.</p>
<p>My son’s school only includes upper level courses in his major, including those he takes as electives within the major. It is listed on his degree-progress report online. I suggest she call her academic advisor in her UG major (or the administrator in that office) for info on how her U does it.</p>
<p>Just look at the school website to see what classes are required for the specific major.</p>
<p>When a student transfers, the new school does not include transfer credits in the GPA calculations, only in the total credit count. So your D’s official major GPA is only in the courses she has taken at her current school (even if it’s only one course).The institutions she attended before are irrelevant as GPA is not a transferable concept. However, she can estimate her GPA in the earlier courses and maybe write a memo/addendum to that effect (that she had this GPA at College X, and this GPA at college Y). What she probably doesn’t want to do is end up looking like she is inflating her current GPA in the major at her current school.</p>
<p>Was your D ever given a course catalog that lists all majors and the courses required for each particular major? You will see all the courses she has had to take to fulfill her “Major”. Sure, each college will require different courses, but the application/grad school just wants to know how she did grade wise in her Major field of study. They don’t care about gen ed requirements, electives she might have taken for fun, etc. They just want to know, in the field she wishes to pursue (which is typically a person’s major) how she did. Hopefully, her Major GPA will be higher than her Cum GPA if she ever had trouble with any class (like an art person might struggle with math. So the math could have brought her overall GPA down a bit, where as, her art courses would all show high grades, high GPA for Art.)</p>