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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: aldo_14 on January 09, 2005, 09:49:52 am

Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: aldo_14 on January 09, 2005, 09:49:52 am
Is it some merkin thing?
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Martinus on January 09, 2005, 09:52:00 am
[color=66ff00]You been watching StrongBad? :)
[/color]
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: aldo_14 on January 09, 2005, 09:57:06 am
No, I was filling in an application form for Motorola.

The most ****ing irritating thing I've ever seen, may i add.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Hippo on January 09, 2005, 10:07:23 am
Its a number from 1 to 5 with your average grades... A is a 4, B is a 3, C is a 2, D is a 1, and F is a 0. You average all your final grades from high schoo or college, not both together, and you get a number, usually between 0 and 4, only over 4 if you take college level class in high school.
Title: Re: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: IceFire on January 09, 2005, 10:26:52 am
Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14
Is it some merkin thing?

Yep...some American thing for sure.  Its been explained and you hear it as a point of achievement but eh... :)
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: aldo_14 on January 09, 2005, 10:32:28 am
Y'see, college Us is entirely different from College in the UK for one thing.... plus it was asking for GPA on university qualifications, and you don't get a banded grade for those anyways.

Just supremely irritating... that and I really hate these application forms that ask for a grade and list 'A*', which wasn't even a ****ing grade when I was at school.

Grr.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Rictor on January 09, 2005, 11:07:57 am
A wasn't a grade? How does that work?
Personally, I prefer a percentage grade, it so much less vague (though in my case, there are certain advantages to vagueness.)
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: vyper on January 09, 2005, 11:21:00 am
He means upper band and lower band As. Ja?
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Liberator on January 09, 2005, 11:32:39 am
I don't know about elsewhere but GPA in the Alabama College System are so FUBARed that the students can't figure it for themselves because you're actual grade doesn't have anything to do with it.  You earn X number of quality points for each successfully completed credit hour of study and then they work some kind of magic equation to figure the GPA instead of the normal way which involves calculating an average of all the grades and then dividing by 20.  100 -> 5.0 ect.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: aldo_14 on January 09, 2005, 11:41:06 am
Quote
Originally posted by Rictor
A wasn't a grade? How does that work?
Personally, I prefer a percentage grade, it so much less vague (though in my case, there are certain advantages to vagueness.)


Quote
Originally posted by vyper
He means upper band and lower band As. Ja?


Aye; The grades listed are F (and some other wierd letters), then D, C, B, A and A*.

Back in my time, there was no 'A*' grade.  Otherwise I'd have one.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Stealth on January 09, 2005, 12:15:01 pm
keep in mind that there's different GPA scales.  you can have GPA on a 4.0, 6.0, etc.  

my college uses a 4.0.  high school used a 6.0.  it's confusing :-/
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Ace on January 09, 2005, 01:11:03 pm
Most places on the west coast use a 0-4 scale.

Also GPAs are overated. In order to get into a master's/doctorate program you only need to have above a 3.0+ GPA. So all of the kids and parents who freak out about not having perfect 4.0s are idiots.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: aldo_14 on January 09, 2005, 01:38:11 pm
And shouldn't most universities, etc, be letting people in based on their ability at the core subject of their (applied to study) degree, anyways?

(there's a UCAS 'point' system in the UK which I think has some similarity to this GPA malarky, but normally the key qualifiication is grades in a particular subject; i.e. i needed at least a B in Maths and Computing for my course IIRC)
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Hippo on January 09, 2005, 01:41:08 pm
Meh... My GPA is just depressing

Spoiler:
2.225 on a 4.0 scale
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Corsair on January 09, 2005, 01:53:44 pm
My high school is on a 4.0 scale....but you can get above a 4.0 if you take AP classes. Technically, if you took all APs, you could have a 5.0, however, the school only lets us take 3 APs max (special permission for 4, it rarely happens) so the top GPA would be 4.6.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Taristin on January 09, 2005, 02:01:26 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Hippo
Meh... My GPA is just depressing

Spoiler:
2.225 on a 4.0 scale
[/B]


I knew someone would post theirs sooner or later.

Spoiler:
<-- Has a 3.69 on a 4.0 Scale
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Liberator on January 09, 2005, 02:26:50 pm
Cheer up hippo, I'm right there with ya:

Spoiler:
has a 2.32 on a 4.0 scale.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Hippo on January 09, 2005, 02:33:11 pm
Yes! :p
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: phreak on January 09, 2005, 03:04:47 pm
Spoiler:

HS: 3.9 on a 4.0 scale
Uni: 3.857 on a 4.0 scale (going into junior year)
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Clave on January 09, 2005, 03:11:10 pm
Trust the US to make something more complicated than it should be...
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Corsair on January 09, 2005, 03:15:56 pm
Well, why make it easy?
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Deepblue on January 09, 2005, 03:25:25 pm
3.9 on a 4.0 scale, at least right now (the semester is not over).
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Knight Templar on January 09, 2005, 10:34:10 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Clave
Trust the US to make something more complicated than it should be...


How is it complicated? You get the number based on an A - F grade. It only gets weird with inflated GPA. Or if you're from the South.

Spoiler:
Fear my 3.8!!!!
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: aldo_14 on January 10, 2005, 03:23:55 am
Quote
Originally posted by Knight Templar


How is it complicated? You get the number based on an A - F grade. It only gets weird with inflated GPA. Or if you're from the South.
 


It is complicated when you look at it - you go from an exam percentage (I presume), to a alphabetic grade (a-f), to a number (0-4), to an average.  You're actually reducing the accuracy / precision of the mark each time.

If you're going for an average, why not just go for an average percentage?
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: vyper on January 10, 2005, 03:30:06 am
Because then people might realise their actual level of ability.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: icespeed on January 10, 2005, 03:32:13 am
that doesn't sound so bad. in nsw australia, for high school they get you to do subjects which are assigned unit numbers, then they take your marks for each subject, scale them (which means move them up or down according to your school's performance compared to other schools in that subject) and then they average all your scaled marks. which means you can never work out your own marks because it's based on how well everyone _else_ does.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: vyper on January 10, 2005, 03:35:15 am
Which sounds absolute ****e.

If I may say. :D

*proudly waves little scottish flag and points to education system*
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Ghostavo on January 10, 2005, 03:38:50 am
So you are screwed if you get stuck in a class of geniuses?

What happens when everybody does a subject perfectly? Do they all get the average score?
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: aldo_14 on January 10, 2005, 03:53:36 am
Quote
Originally posted by vyper
Which sounds absolute ****e.

If I may say. :D

*proudly waves little scottish flag and points to education system*


Mind you, they scale the higher grading bands based upon performance, so that they always get the same approximate numbers of people in each band.........

****ing stupid system, that is.  Especially as you have to actively go and seek out your percentage marks.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Liberator on January 10, 2005, 01:02:47 pm
Quote
Originally posted by icespeed
that doesn't sound so bad. in nsw australia, for high school they get you to do subjects which are assigned unit numbers, then they take your marks for each subject, scale them (which means move them up or down according to your school's performance compared to other schools in that subject) and then they average all your scaled marks. which means you can never work out your own marks because it's based on how well everyone _else_ does.


So you go to bed every night praying that someone, somewhere didn't upset the apple cart grade wise?

That's like a bad joke.  A bad joke that obscures the actuality of how well your educational system is functioning.

Kind of like the old one about the Liberal/Democrat guidelines for teaching math to 1st graders.  The teacher asks the class what 2+2 is.  She calls on one of the students and they answer 3.  Instead of correcting the student and teaching them the proper way to determine the solution, the guidelines emphasize feelings and self-respect over actual learning and knowledge, so the teacher patronizes the student and tells them that it's okay and if they think that's right then it's right.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: vyper on January 10, 2005, 01:11:52 pm
Nobody said democracy and liberalism was perfect... :p
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Black Wolf on January 10, 2005, 01:40:50 pm
The system Icespeed's describing is the same as the one we have here (Western Australia). It's not designed to compare your personal  marks with the rest of the class, but your classes mark with the rest of the state's. The idea is that it balances out the harder/lighter marking teachrs so that no teacher can award 95% to everyone in his or her class and skew the entire system.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: adwight on January 10, 2005, 04:15:17 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Raa


I knew someone would post theirs sooner or later.

Spoiler:
<-- Has a 3.69 on a 4.0 Scale
[/B]


3.992 on a 4.0 Scale...

Damn the Ap Calculus.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Hippo on January 10, 2005, 04:19:54 pm
*still has lowest gpa*


Here's something to chew on: I got an above average score on the SAT's (1150), and have grades of OVER 100% in science classes, for the last 3 years... SO how bad do you think i'm going in other classes :D ...
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: aldo_14 on January 10, 2005, 05:04:18 pm
How can you get grades of over 100%?

Oh.... maybe it's your math that drags you down then, eh? :p
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Hippo on January 10, 2005, 05:07:12 pm
Well, they only get recorded as hundreds... And my math averages aren't TOO bad... (C range usually)
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: adwight on January 10, 2005, 10:18:24 pm
Hippo your like me.  I took the ACT (which is i guess like the SAT out here), and score a 35 out of 36 on the math and science areas, yet sucked it up on the English portion, which means if I could do english, I'd be getting some big time scholarship offers :(.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: Knight Templar on January 11, 2005, 12:22:27 am
Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14
If you're going for an average, why not just go for an average percentage?


They do that for individual classes fine, unless you have a teacher who doesn't like grading by numbers. They give you a grade point average though because it would sound dumn to say "I have a 95% percent in school." I know it's the same thing as a GPA, is just doesn't sound as awkward / dumb.
Title: What the feck is Grade Point Average?
Post by: aldo_14 on January 11, 2005, 03:44:56 am
Quote
Originally posted by Knight Templar


They do that for individual classes fine, unless you have a teacher who doesn't like grading by numbers. They give you a grade point average though because it would sound dumn to say "I have a 95% percent in school." I know it's the same thing as a GPA, is just doesn't sound as awkward / dumb.


Awkward?  It's a percentile; It's only 2 bloody digits! (3 if you're good...)

:D

They (and I mean education in general) should have abandoned grading and went onto percentage marks a long time ago.   It's just that much more explanatory.