International Students and Grade Conversion

[thewesternsky]

Apologies if this has been asked before in this forum; I did a quick search and it wasn't too fruitful. To international students (especially Canadian) who applied to U.S. schools-- how did you address potential grading scale differences? My undergrad institution graded on a 0-100 scale where 80-100 was an A, but I know an 80 in the States is generally scaled much lower. Did you include conversion charts with your transcript? If you didn't, do you think this had any effect on your application?

Last year I received interviews at 3/4 Canadian schools I applied to and NONE of the US schools, and I'm wondering if this might have been a reason for the difference. I'm also trying to determine what to do for THIS round of applications.

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[JockNerd]

That's a weird scale.

So you get a number out of 100? So, can't you just do a straight conversion with
x/100=y/4.0
where x = your grade in the course and y = your converted score out of 4.0 (or whatever)? So if you got an 85,
85/100=3.4/4

 

[WaitingKills]

Do you mean that on your transcript you only have the percentage, or do you actually get a grade? If you only have the percentage marked, say 84%, I believe the universities you are applying to will just base that on their grading scales.

If you get an actual letter grade on your transcripts, most universities have procedures that they use to make the grades equivalent to their own (I discovered this last year when I was applying). Also, most universities put info on their grading scheme on the back of the transcripts.

With that being said, I don't think it would hurt at all to include a short explaination of your grades. I did it last year because the year before most of the schools converted my grades wrong, and I think it may have played a role in my acceptance.

 

[thewesternsky]

Yep, all our grades are numbers.

But translating an 85 to a 3.4 would imply that it's a B when it's really an A. I'll ask whether we include grading scheme info on the back of transcripts, and will probably include a grading explanation with my applications as well. Thanks!