I mean a lot of schools calculate their GPA very differently, so wouldn’t using percent be more uniform?
Because most schools don’t give grade %.
If the college is going to recalculate GPA, using percents (assuming they’re available, even though they usually aren’t) isn’t much more uniform than just using the letter grades provided by the school.
Many components of a final grade (such as class participation or essay assignments) are not easily and fairly graded with the precision that a percentage expresses. The GPA is a convenient way to average out all the letter grades received over a period of time on a 0-1-2-3-4 scale that corresponds exactly to an E-D-C-B-A scale.
It doesn’t matter. They just convert percentages to a 4.0 scale. They use the 4.0 scale because it is the most commonly used grading scale in the US.
@intparent
What is the 4.0 scale?
I’ve been hearing different things about it…
I have bunch of A-'s and very few A+'s and A’s and wondering if this will hurt my gpa alot ._.
Using my school’s GPA 4.0 scale, anything above a 90%+ in the class is considered a 4.0
But I heard colleges use A- = 3.7 A = 4.0 A+= 4.0 scale?
Is this true? Then this significantly lowers my gpa from a 4.0 to 3.8 ish
Yours is one form of grade inflation.
My kids’ school doesn’t give +/- grades. So any A translates to a 4.0. A starts at 93 in most classes, though.
Yes, the 4.0 scale most colleges use is about 3.3 for a B+, 3.7 for an A-, 4.0 for an A. But grades aren’t the be all and end all for admissions.
Most universities and colleges are using 4.0 scale on the transcripts, not %.