GPA and your school

[RHPF]

Unrelated to my GPA (atleast in the context of me applying for BDCP; this is not a "I have a low GPA bc I go to a hard school" type thing).

With that said... Do you guys feel that they should compare GPAs straight across the board regardless of school?

This came up over Easter weekend, when a bunch of family was together and asking about my grades. Their take (and I have heard this many times before, from students at other schools) was that private schools give out a lot more A's, in part because people pay so much to be there. Despite the fact that the world is not fair , do you think they should take into consideration whether the school is a public university, or private, or a technical school?

I personally dont really know, I know my 3.2 would be more like a 3.7-3.9 at a CSU instead of a UC. But seeing as the GPA # is not a subjective thing, but that weighting it IS, I dont really know if I think it should be (weighted). What is your take?

 

[Kycntryboy]

No, because then a) you would have to do research on every individual college and I don't mean university, I mean the individual school because my teachers may or may not be "harder" than the business building teachers or the biology teachers. You would then have to come up with a standardized formula to plug that number and their is no doubt some will b!tch about that that being unfair. To me I think that we have to rely on teachers to give the appropriate grades the same way the Navy or any branch for that matter look to officers to give the correct evaluations about their personal, those are no doubt over inflated and so are these (gpa) but it is something that we can compare everbody to on "level" ground.

 

[Brett327]

Anyone who knows anything about statistics (like the Navy) pays more attention to your Z-score, or how you did compared to the average student in your class. If you're in the 98th percentile in your class, there's a good chance that you're a good student, regardless of how many As your profs give out. The Navy has access to all that stuff, so you can stop worrying about it.

Brett

 

[nugget81]

I don't believe that there should be some magic formula to compute and equalize all the scoring systems. I wish that the grading scales were the same across the board, however. At my school the grading scale is as follows:

92% and above - A
84% to 91% - B
76% to 83% - C
60% to 76% - D
59% and below - F

This doesn't really bother me in terms of my grades, but I feel that it may give other students at other schools an unfair advantage (not just in any military service, but prospective employers, internships, etc.) This also applies to schools that use the plus/minus system. Overall there is just a lack of consistency. That's my beef...

 

[vegita1220]

No, because then a) you would have to do research on every individual college and I don't mean university, I mean the individual school because my teachers may or may not be "harder" than the business building teachers or the biology teachers. You would then have to come up with a standardized formula to plug that number and their is no doubt some will b!tch about that that being unfair. To me I think that we have to rely on teachers to give the appropriate grades the same way the Navy or any branch for that matter look to officers to give the correct evaluations about their personal, those are no doubt over inflated and so are these (gpa) but it is something that we can compare everbody to on "level" ground.

Like the man said...

At my particular university, we have about 5-6 different colleges.
Mine happens to have an avg GPA of about 2.8.
The other schools are around 3.4 or so.

Hmmm....I'd get shafted pretty bad then.

On the other hand...I realize there is a definite HUGE disparity between some schools. A lot of good friends did not get into schools where they belonged due to affirmative action and ended up in avg schools. So they got shafted...you'd think. Except they're completely blowing the curve and barely busting a sweat doing it. Big diff between George Mason University and MIT.

 

[RHPF]

I don't believe that there should be some magic formula to compute and equalize all the scoring systems. I wish that the grading scales were the same across the board, however. At my school the grading scale is as follows:

92% and above - A
84% to 91% - B
76% to 83% - C
60% to 76% - D
59% and below - F

This doesn't really bother me in terms of my grades, but I feel that it may give other students at other schools an unfair advantage (not just in any military service, but prospective employers, internships, etc.) This also applies to schools that use the plus/minus system. Overall there is just a lack of consistency. That's my beef...

Yea that scale would be highly annoying to be honest. But the Plus/Minus system hurts as much as it helps btw. Say you were to get a 92%, you would get a 4.0 for that class, where as on the plus/minus system it would only be a 3.7.

There was a comment that I was worried about it (things being unfair), im not. I even tried to put a disclaimer. I was really just curious what other people thought about it.

 

[Chris Hill]

They already take your major into account (although it's only a small difference between engineering and, say, "women's studies"). Besides, for aviation, your ASTB score counts a whole lot more. It doesn't make sense to adjust for schools. If they did that, why not adjust for each class? Even different Prof's grade differently. Bottom line is you should check what your school is like before applying, then accept the consequences. Oh, and I say this after going to a college just like vegita1220 where the average GPA is also around 2.8 (whereas the rest of the University's is much higher).

 

[RHPF]

They already take your major into account (although it's only a small difference between engineering and, say, "women's studies"). Besides, for aviation, your ASTB score counts a whole lot more. It doesn't make sense to adjust for schools. If they did that, why not adjust for each class? Even different Prof's grade differently. Bottom line is you should check what your school is like before applying, then accept the consequences. Oh, and I say this after going to a college just like vegita1220 where the average GPA is also around 2.8 (whereas the rest of the University's is much higher).

Oh, and I am not even engineering, so no real excuse for a low GPA. Again, this was more of a removed thought process from my circumstances.

As for your schools average GPA, where did you get that?

 

[vegita1220]

Most schools have it around somewhere...just gotta look around.

 

[wink]

The Navy does give some consideration for the grading curves and reputation at various instituitions. As brett said, class standing also means alot. As an extreme example, back when I was an active duty recruiter I got a MIT EE student with a 2.6 GPA selected for NUKE when they wouldn't talk to anyone else with less then a 3.4 from all the other colleges I covered. Bottom line, don't sweat it. Get your best grades, ace the ASTB, put togather a killer package and roll the dice.