Williams vs Wellesley vs UC Berkeley Dual Degree

ucbalumnus
Wed, 23 Mar 2022 02:37:38 +0000

AustenNut:

If you are still really interested in the Sciences Po program, find out from Cal how the grades transfer. If it’s like a typical French university, they grade on a 20-point scale. 20 is for God, 19 for the professor, and 18 for the best student in the class, maybe. If Berkeley is doing straight conversions (i.e. 18/20 is 90%) then your college GPA could really be in shambles. Most American universities doing exchange programs have a more generous conversion rate (I think 14/20 converted to an “A” back in the day for my college).

Wouldn’t most colleges just consider transfer courses as passed or not passed in terms of calculating GPA for their own purposes?

Of course, if the student later applies to graduate or professional school, the conversion of French university grades for the purpose of such applications can matter for that purpose.

In terms of the French language, the Sciences Po part of the program requires French language course work, unless the student already knows French to the (CEFRL) B2 level or higher (in which case the student can choose another language to study): https://sciencespo.berkeley.edu/academics/sciencespo