A very general question about university transcripts & GPA

[rcwlhk]

Hey guys,

I asked this question in several threads before but never got around to getting a definitive answer. So, if I may, I would like to ask again.

Question: In your undergraduate university transcript, what does it show?

For instance, mine has the following columns:
(1) Term (i.e. first or second semester)
(2) Course Code
(3) Credit Value
(4) Course Title
(5) Grade (my grade) in percentage
(6) Letter Grade corresponding to the above percentage
(7) Credit Received (same as (3), unless you failed or withdrawn from the course)
(8) Class Size (how many students were there in the class)
(9) Class Average (the average grade of the the students in the class), in percentage

I would like to explain my motivation of asking this question.
-I haven't seen other universities' transcripts, so I'm just purely curious

-A lot of members on TM seem to emphasize the importance of getting that absolute value 3.9 - 4.0 GPA. Unfortunately, from my university, we don't use the GPA system; we use percentage. So, quite frankly, I have no idea where I stand against this so called 4.0 GPA.

-Then, a follow up to the above is, do your transcripts show class average grades? In other words, does your transcript show comparative information? If it does not, then what is the value of a A+ / 4.0 GPA in a course? (i.e. what is the value of your high absolute value grade if everybody in that course can get a high grade?)

-And more importantly, how do you adjust for the differences in faculty grading? Namely, in our university, it is known that the Engineering and Physics faculty have absurdly low marks (i.e. in the ~60% range, or about a C- to C), whereas in the biology / life sciences side, it is not uncommon to hear people with 90%+ grades (A+). Hence, without comparative information (i.e. class averages shown on your transcript), how would the adcoms evaluate (i) your grades; (ii) the difficulty of your course / program; and (iii) the grading scale used by your faculty?

Bottom Line: I just want to see how transcripts are done and from this, I want to know how do adcoms evaluate a student's academic performance (i.e. absolute value basis or comparative basis).

Thanks!

PS. For the sake of this current discussion, I will omit the details regarding the non-linearity of the GPA system and the linearity of the percentage system and how percentage grades cannot be compared to GPA grades.

[Karina 07]

I'm too lazy to look up what *all* the columns on my undergrad transcript were (I know I must have a copy somewhere or other but gosh knows where). But I can remember enough to answer the bulk of your question: we had the median grade listed beside our (letter) grades for each course.

I have, however, known people at other institutions, where that was not the case, and people could just go and search out the easier math/econ courses at their university and typically nobody would know the difference, all else equal.

I'm not sure what the ratio is between the schools that list the median and those that don't. I think it's slowly catching on to combat grade inflation....

[TruDog]

I've never heard of (American) schools using percentages and class averages before this. Mine, and no other schools in my neck of the woods, did this.

[rcwlhk]

Originally Posted by TruDog

I've never heard of (American) schools using percentages and class averages before this. Mine, and no other schools in my neck of the woods, did this.

That's quite shocking to me... (PS. I'm from a top Canadian university)

Then, you could theoretically (not that I'm saying you would), hunt down classes with fancy titles, easy grading profs, etc. and get a 4.0? Wouldn't this encourage grade inflation?

I mean, in our case, grade inflation is kind of "pointless". Sure, you could push everybody's grade up, but that would be reflected in the class average as well. Then, any sensible adcom can just look at your grade vs. the class average grade and say, "Ah, Johnny here got a 4.0 here in this course.... but wait, the class average was 3.95? Hmm....."

[TruDog]

Originally Posted by rcwlhk

That's quite shocking to me... (PS. I'm from a top Canadian university)

Then, you could theoretically (not that I'm saying you would), hunt down classes with fancy titles, easy grading profs, etc. and get a 4.0? Wouldn't this encourage grade inflation?

Sure, you could. I come from a LAC with pretty substantial grade deflation, so listing the class median would have been helpful to me.

[tangsiuje]

I studied abroad at a farily good Canadian university. In addition to the information above, the transcript also shows the percentage of the class obtaining marks in the 80-90, 90-100, etc. ranges. Since it was not uncommon that about 30% (or more) obtained an A grade (80+), this would obviously be quite beneficial if you score in the 90-100 range. Similarly, obtaining a grade in the 80s would be alright if it was obvious that no one scored in the 90-100 range (not uncommon).

[rcwlhk]

Originally Posted by tangsiuje

I studied abroad at a farily good Canadian university. In addition to the information above, the transcript also shows the percentage of the class obtaining marks in the 80-90, 90-100, etc. ranges. Since it was not uncommon that about 30% (or more) obtained an A grade (80+), this would obviously be quite beneficial if you score in the 90-100 range. Similarly, obtaining a grade in the 80s would be alright if it was obvious that no one scored in the 90-100 range (not uncommon).

That would be interesting information too! Unfortunately, my university transcript doesn't show this.

May I ask, which Canadian school is this?

[jeeves0923]

Yeah, it does seem to be encouraging grade inflation not to have class averages and % scales. It seems to be the norm in American schools. I think what substitutes for that is school reputation. Also, many graduate applications ask for which books your course used.

When the A-F scale was first contrived, I believe it was assumed that the class was normally distributed with a mean of C and a standard deviation of one letter. That is, a B would be one standard deviation from the mean, an A two standard deviations, etc.

Of course, this causes problems for small, non-normally distributed classes. That problem is not avoided by listing the class average. For example, my Real Analysis class had 12 students. The prerequisites for getting into the class are very stringent. Consequently, all 12 of the students in the class were top notch. In the end, there were probably 6 A's and 6 B's. However, every student was of a caliber capable of completing PhD's in math from good institutions. I don't think that this scenario is that far-fetched. I think a student getting a grade of B should not be dismissed because he is below the class average. This is different from grade inflation seen in large lectures. Of course, those freshmen level lectures have little value to admissions committees anyway.

Moral of the story - reputation of the school and LORs are more important than how much above the average you were in your classes. You shouldn't be rewarded for being in classes full of morons, and you shouldn't be punished for being in classes of geniuses.

[rcwlhk]

Originally Posted by jeeves0923

Yeah, it does seem to be encouraging grade inflation not to have class averages and % scales. It seems to be the norm in American schools. I think what substitutes for that is school reputation. Also, many graduate applications ask for which books your course used.

When the A-F scale was first contrived, I believe it was assumed that the class was normally distributed with a mean of C and a standard deviation of one letter. That is, a B would be one standard deviation from the mean, an A two standard deviations, etc.

Of course, this causes problems for small, non-normally distributed classes. That problem is not avoided by listing the class average. For example, my Real Analysis class had 12 students. The prerequisites for getting into the class are very stringent. Consequently, all 12 of the students in the class were top notch. In the end, there were probably 6 A's and 6 B's. However, every student was of a caliber capable of completing PhD's in math from good institutions. I don't think that this scenario is that far-fetched. I think a student getting a grade of B should not be dismissed because he is below the class average. This is different from grade inflation seen in large lectures. Of course, those freshmen level lectures have little value to admissions committees anyway.

Moral of the story - reputation of the school and LORs are more important than how much above the average you were in your classes. You shouldn't be rewarded for being in classes full of morons, and you shouldn't be punished for being in classes of geniuses.

I agree completely.

I'm not saying that you can EITHER have (i) school & LOR reputation; OR (ii) grades (esp in the comparative context). I agree that both factors are important (and probably the former is more important).

However, just from the replies above, can I conclude the following (I know I'm taking a very bold move by generalizing here.... but just for the sake of discussion):

(1) Grade inflation is a problem

(2) Known institutions and with good grades from them will mitigate by the grade inflation problem; by telling the adcoms that if you're good enough to attend a known institution and get top-notch marks from them, even with grade inflation, you would still be good.

(3) For unknown institutions or smaller institutions, however, adcoms have no idea whether the problem grade inflation OR deflation exists or not. Hence, this is when showing the class grades distribution would be more beneficial. I guess this is also when listing out the course textbooks used in the course would also provide more comparative information to the adcoms.

(4) In the end, all information should be comparative and not absolute. I just find it frustrating sometimes that members on TM, regardless of how goodhearted when they give advice, suggest that without a 3.9 - 4.0, you are doomed. What about people who don't use GPA systems? Or when the conversion from one system to the GPA system generates huge conversion flaws, that lead to artificially lower converted GPA? But then again, I couldn't blame them now could I? Considering that there are probably more American based TM members here, who do follow the standard grading system, than non-Americans.

[TruDog]

In case anyone's curious about the global distribution of TMers, here's a relatively recent poll on the topic:

http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-econo...tion-poll.html (TMers Geographic Distribution Poll)

So a plurality of us in the forum are Americans, but we've got the whole world here. From Madison to Milan, Tokyo to Tel Aviv, we pretty much rule the world.