LSDAS GPA

[meggo]

jumpthemoon, I also have this issue, though not with failing or not failing. Since canadian (and British for that matter) uni's tend to mark lower or have less grade inflation, it seems as though our gpa's are significantly lower. I have an 84 average, my school considers this to be an A, though I'm guessing on my score report it will be issued as a 3.0 instead of a the 3.6+ that it should be. Is there any recourse for Canadians or do we just have to rely on the school to understand that there is a difference? I completed my first year of university, took 2 years off to work abroad, and then returned to Canada and transferred universities and programs and since then, improved my average by roughly 10% to what it is now. Again, i'm assuming my first year will have negative consequences on my LSAC gpa but if and how will it affect my admissions chances?

eta: Ah limegreen, just reread your post. So you're saying if my uni considers my mark in a class to be an A, that's the mark I enter for the LSAC gpa? I'm still confused since they have A, A+, A-. My uni only has A (80-89) and A+ (90-100).

[limegreen]

I don't know if they do it differently because it is from a different country, but within the US I believe an A from one school is weighted the same as an A from another school (4.0) even if the first one was a 95 and the other one was a 92.  As long as it is an A on the transcript, it is going to be counted as an A I would think.

I have never seen a transcript with number grades on it, it wouldn't make much sense because different places have different scales and it's all relative.

Anyone agree/disagree?

[sheltron5000]

I don't know if they do it differently because it is from a different country, but within the US I believe an A from one school is weighted the same as an A from another school (4.0) even if the first one was a 95 and the other one was a 92.  As long as it is an A on the transcript, it is going to be counted as an A I would think.

I have never seen a transcript with number grades on it, it wouldn't make much sense because different places have different scales and it's all relative.

Anyone agree/disagree?

LSDAS computes international transcripts differently: they know. I'm not sure how they do it exactly, but they do have a system for "normalizing" international grades for the adcomms. It would definitely be worth asking if any other canadians know exactly HOW LSDAS reports scores from canada.

[JumpTheMoon]

I called in and asked and they said pretty much the same thing as you. Which is a huge relief, because looking at the LSDAS calculator, I would have like a 1.5 GPA if I went by how they calculate Our grading system is so different! A = 80-100, B = 70-79, C = 60-69, D = 50-59 and an 80 avg is quite respectable.

[meggo]

ah jumpthemoon, I just posted in the Canadian section but glad to see you here! So if we have an A then what is that considered a 4.0? or a 3.6? It still kind of sucks since there is a big difference between an 89 and an 81 yet they both fall within the same spectrum....

[raxel]

I just did my own LSDAS calculation and it looks like I will go from a 3.75 to a 3.9 because my UG didn't factor in previous schools (amounting to 40 credits of A's) and counted A+'s as 4.0's.
Still waiting on confirmation from LSDAS (one school taking their time to hand in transcripts).
Has anyone else experienced such a dramatic positive shift? I'm hoping I'm not mis-calculating...

[dudel59]

here's a nit picky point that may interest only me...

if you look on the LSDAS summary academic report, you'll see under "Grades Earned" that the numeric value assigned to each letter grade only goes out to 1 decimal place (an A is a 4.0, not a 4.00, etc).  Then in the calculation of your overall GPA they take it out to 2 decimal places (cum UGPA is a 3.67, not a 3.7).

As far as I can tell, this is a violation of signifigant digits, because the numbers associated with each individual letter grade are the "limiting" data source.  by going out to two decimal places, LSDAS is implying that the data used to compile that final number has precision out to that many signifigant digits.

Thoughts?

[sheltron5000]

They may only be printing out to two digits, but actually storing (many) more . We all know LSAC would NEVER do anything to violate SIGNIFICANT digits. Insignificant digits are another story, they may simply disagree with your "interpretation" of these events.

[Gone]

They may only be printing out to two digits, but actually storing (many) more . We all know LSAC would NEVER do anything to violate SIGNIFICANT digits. Insignificant digits are another story, they may simply disagree with your "interpretation" of these events.

That's true, otherwise minus grades would help you more and plus grades help you less. (If I'm totally messing this up, please don't criticize, I don't do math)

[meggo]

raxel - I've seen that sort of jump on some people's LSN. Again, I don't understand how people think LSAC's system of converting all grades on their gpa system is somehow more fair than just giving a school a transcript. As people have said, not all number/letter grades are the same. I know, schools generally understand that a 3.9 from Harvard is harder to achieve than a 3.9 from certain state universities, but there are a lot of LAC's for example that don't get that benefit. An A from Harvard is weighted as equally as an A from Vassar as an A from State U. How does that make the playing field even? Regardless, raxel, some people have complained specifically of what you say. Their schools don't even offer A+ so the maximum they could achieve is a 4.0 wheras perhaps if they attended another school that did offer them, they would have a 4.33.  I'm not saying I have a better solution to the system, but I think there are a lot of flaws in it unless I'm vastly misunderstanding something...