x/4.0 GPA or x/100 avg?

spydermann
Sat, 16 Oct 2010 13:53:50 +0000

I personally think that the 4.0 GPA system is pointless and innacurate. There is no reason to turn a number grade into a letter grade back into a number grade (i.e. 95 = A = 4.0). Besides, it’s possible to have a person with a higher 100 point average to have a lower 4.0 average (I could prove it mathematically, but I don’t feel like it right now :P), even though the person with a higher 100-point average was smarter.

Finally, 4.0 scales range from school to school. Some schools have just ABCDF, others have +/- in addition to ABCDF (A-, C+, etc). Sometimes a B is 92-85, other times its 89-80. In my school, an A is a 3.75, A- is 3.5, B+ is 3.25, and so on. So a D at my school is a 1.5 but it’s a 1.0 at any other school. With a 100 point scale, it’s a matter of percentages, what percent of the material you knew. Percentage is constant from school to school, because a 90 on a test at one school is a 90 on a test at another school.