Calculate GPA From Canadian university to 4.0 scale

[mathematics-physics]

Hello,

I am a little bit unsure on the calculation of my GPA into to 4.0 scale. The reason, is because I have visited various sites and some of the info varies dependeing on where you go.

First of all, I am in Ontario, so that the grading system is :
A+ = 10
A = 9
A- = 8
B+ = 7
B = 6
etc...
The one thing that I am uncertain is if I count an A as a 4. Some universities state that A = A+ = 4, but others dont specify. Also, we dont have credit hours at our university. I saw that on the Duke web site, this number varied depending on the rade that you got, but on other sites, they said to assign 3 credit hours for each course.

Anyways, I will post my grades so far, in case anyone has suggestions.


I will be applying in septembre to various universities. Thanks.

[TheBeast]

First of all, I am in Ontario, so that the grading system is :
A+ = 10
A = 9
A- = 8
B+ = 7
B = 6
etc...

Be careful not to generalize; your statement would seem to imply that all universities in Ontario follow that system and that is simply not true. It varies from school to school and some use a 4.0 GPA.

To answer your question, the generally accepted conversion is A=A+=4.0. There are some schools where an A+=4.3 on a 4.0 scale, but that is not the norm. I know that some admission committees will renormalize applications that have a GPA in this form into one where A+=4.0.

With regards to credit hours, 3 credit hours per course is a good rule of thumb. If you have a half-weight course or some course that is counted differently in your GPA, use the same multiplier that course gets when determining your GPA against the 3 credit hours.

Edit: extraneous word.

[cartonn30gel]

Here's an idea (which does take some time to implement for the first time)
I recommend doing this in excel

1) go through all your classes and put your letter (or number) grades in a column (in your system)
2) convert each grade to a 4.0 system (i.e. A+,A=4; A-=3.667; B+=3.333; B=3; etc)
3) do a weighted average:
i) multiply each grade by its course weight (full or half)
ii) add them and divide by the sum of the course weights you used

That's how my gpa is calculated.

[negru]

Rule 1: follow each school's instructions (which will be either:
a) just write the gpa in your own system and explain said system
b) just convert it using the magic formula x= YOUR GPA * 4 / 10
Rule 2: lacking specific instructions just do 1.b
Rule 3: welcome to the 21st century, the century of the automatic internet browser spell checkers which automatically spell check for you so automatically that in fact I've never seen a single browser to NOT automatically spell check which makes me wonder WTF is wrong with some people in this day and age


cartonn30gel's suggestion has merit but you'll never need to convert individual grades to A,B,C. Your transcript will be in your own system. The only thing you might have to change as explained above is the GPA. The magic formula will never fail

[TheBeast]

I agree with negru that the first thing to do should be to follow whatever directions are given by the school that you're applying to. If your current institution doesn't have a conversion table of sorts to obtain a 4.0 GPA, I would be wary of using a direct proportionality. It might be acceptable as a last resort, but I think that if you can convert a non-4.0 GPA to a letter grade and then convert that to a 4.0 scale, you will get a more realistic result.

I'm not sure what school the OP goes to, but here's a table I found from a random Ontario school that uses a 10 point GPA scale:
http://web5.uottawa.ca/admingov/regulations.html#r41

At this particular school, a GPA of 8 corresponds to an A-. A straight-up proportionality calculation would yield 3.2 on the 4.0 scale (which isn't all that good a score). But, an A- generally translates to a 3.7 on the 4.0 scale. So, I would be more inclined to think that an 8 on a 10-scale is equivalent to a 3.7 on 4-scale, for this particular school.

I should probably point out that I've only attended schools with a 4.0 GPA scale, so I've never personally had to do these conversions.

[Blinky]

Here's a table that will help you convert your GPA from any Canadian university to a 4.0 scale:
http://careers.mcmaster.ca/students/edu ... sion-chart

Note that although at UofT they say both A and A+ are equal to 4.0, it's not the case according to this chart, A=3.9 and A+=4.0, which makes sense, since to get an A+ you need 90%+ and only 85%+ for an A.

[negru]

I violently disagree with converting individual grades to compute the GPA.

Mainly because there is no unique system in the US. My school used to have A+'s but they counted as A's for the GPA (which actually didn't exist). Converting my grades individually would then have lead to a higher GPA. While it may seem more fair to get the higher GPA, it is not our business to modify the value of the grades we get. The school has its own system, and you must assume that all grades received take the system into account. Or what's next, if I get a B in class although I had 96% total, should I put that as an A? Leave grades as they are, just scale the GPA, that's the only consistent way to do it. At least lacking an official conversion system provided by each school you're applying to.

Regarding the 8/A- example, why do you find it necessary to convert to letter grades and back again? That only introduces more uncertainties and subjective decisions. According to who is A-= generally 3.7? If you got 8 out of 10, that's a 3.2, it doesn't get any simpler than that.

[midwestphysics]

to get an A+ you need 90%+ and only 85%+ for an A.

Seriously! That's friggin' nuts. An 85% equals an A, where I came from that was a 3.2-3.4 and 96%+ was an A+. I even had a hardcore prof once who made 100% a 4.0 because as he believed "you're only perfect if you perform perfectly". Wish I had that system where an 85% was an A.

In any case, I agree with Negru, never convert the class grades just the total GPA. Just contact the school, or even ask your own if they do conversions for you.

[bfollinprm]

to get an A+ you need 90%+ and only 85%+ for an A.

Seriously! That's friggin' nuts. An 85% equals an A, where I came from that was a 3.2-3.4 and 96%+ was an A+. I even had a hardcore prof once who made 100% a 4.0 because as he believed "you're only perfect if you perform perfectly". Wish I had that system where an 85% was an A.

In any case, I agree with Negru, never convert the class grades just the total GPA. Just contact the school, or even ask your own if they do conversions for you.

So the argument here is that the schools in Canada (and Europe) grade harsher--the students aren't expected to get 100% of the questions. It's debatable if it works this way though; I averaged a 94% on physics courses at my home school, took an E&M class abroad in Europe, and got a 94%. There was a difference in where that put me in the distribution, but i didn't notice a change in the difficulty.

[3ch03s]

OK just to have some fun here.

Most (I won't willingly say all) Australian higher education institutions use a seven point grading system. With a few variations they look like this

7.0 = High Distinction (HD)
6.0 = Distinction (D)
5.0 = Credit (C/Cr)
4.0 = Pass (P)
1.5 = Fail

Notable variations include the concept of a 'conceded pass', usually awarded after an applicant passes a supplementary exam that they were made to sit due to failing grades and weighted at 3.0, and 'low' and 'high' passes (usually given the weightings of 4.0 and 4.5 respectively).

The percentage grades cutoffs for each grading band often differ between but usually not within Australian institutions (I'm looking at you Canadian universities ). A generic example would look like this:

85-100 = HD = 7.0
70-<85 = D = 6.0
60-<70 = C = 5.0
55-<60 = P1 = 4.5
50-<55 = P2 = 4.0
<50 = F =1.5

(Aside:) By not distinguishing between fields of study, this system inflates the grades of Maths/Science students when compared to Social Science students or increases the pressure on the former faculties to increase the difficulty of their examinations. This is somewhat amusing because grading systems were introduced specifically to bring parity to scores across fields of study.

Unless I've messed up on my maths, it is impossible to accurately compare academic merit across disciplines and institutions without some sort of auditing of examinations offered at each institution.

In my opinion, relative marking (ie. how is your academic performance compared with your classmates) is probably more instructive.

Long story short, each institution you apply for will probably want to use their own system of conversion. So long as you provide a transcript and a grading system, you should be set

[3ch03s]

And to give you a better idea of the craziness of it all, here are four Canadian grading systems that all differ.

Acadia University
Percent Grade Grade Point Value
94-100 A+ 4.00
87-93 A 4.00
80-86 A- 3.67
77-79 B+ 3.33
73-76 B 3.00
70-72 B- 2.67
67-69 C+ 2.33
63-66 C 2.00
60-62 C- 1.67
57-59 D+ 1.33
53-56 D+ 1.00
50-52 D- 0.67
0-49 F 0.00

Bethany Bible College
Letter Grade Quality Points Percentage
A 4 95-100
A- 3.7 90-94
B+ 3.3 87-89
B 3 82-86
B- 2.7 80-81
C+ 2.3 77-79
C 2 72-76
C- 1.7 70-71
D+ 1.3 67-69
D 1 62-66
D- 0.7 60-61
F 0 0-59

University of Guelph
Grade Percentage
A+ 90-100%
A 85-89
A- 80-84
B+ 77-79
B 73-76
B- 70-72
C+ 67-69
C 63-66
C- 60-62
D+ 57-59
D 53-56
D- 50-52
F 0-49

Simon Fraser University
Letter grade Definition Numerical equivalent
A+ 4.33 excellent performance
A 4
A- 3.67
B+ 3.33 good performance
B 3
B- 2.67
C+ 2.33 satisfactory performance
C 2
C- 1.67 marginal performance
D 1
F 0 fail (unsatisfactory performance)

Try finding some consistency there