GPA scale cuts the edge

In May 2011, Queen’s will implement a grade point average (GPA) system in addition to the existing letter grade system on student transcripts.

According to the Senate Committee on Academic Procedures, which proposed the change, 95 per cent of North American universities currently follow the GPA system.

The Commerce Society objected to the transition, with 98 per cent voting to maintain the hundred-based grade system currently in place. Regardless, the University Senate voted in favour of moving ahead with the change to a GPA scale.

Unifying Queen’s transcripts with the GPA system at other universities is a positive move toward a cohesive standard for evaluation. The system’s universality will benefit Queen’s students applying to graduate schools abroad.

It’s disappointing the GPA scale relies on a murkier granulation of grades than the current percentage-based system. When percentage grades ranging from 85 to 100 all fall into the GPA category of 4.0, it’s difficult to distinguish between top candidates.

For students in this top bracket, it’s hard to reconcile the large difference in study time required to move from a percentage grade of 85 to a grade of 100 with the reality that both intensities of effort end with identical results on a GPA-scale transcript.

But the range presented by the GPA scale isn’t all bad: it reflects the natural flux in a student’s performance. Just as having an essay marked by two different TAs would likely yield two different results demonstrates, the judgment of academic ability can be subjective and is better expressed as a range of performance, rather than a constant percentage.

The GPA scale naturally downplays the importance of exact academic rank, but this can also be seen as a way to place more emphasis on a candidate’s extracurricular activities and personal qualities when considering applications to graduate schools.

However accurate, the implementation of a GPA scale isn’t without its effects on academic motivation. Without the granulation of single percentage points, the competition for that one per cent edge disappears.

With the new GPA system our transcript format may become more universally identical, but the same shouldn’t be said for the way it will reflect our academic performance.

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to content