"Average undergraduate GPA is 4.1"

[Barry B. Benson]

Hello, so this is kind of a random question, but I was perusing through UNC's admission website (I don't think I'll be applying there, but a professor told me to at least check them out) and came upon this: "We typically have 185-200 applicants, for a target class of 13-15. The median GREs for students admitted for the fall 2018 semester were 92nd percentile (verbal), 75th percentile (quantitative) and 89th percentile (writing). The average undergraduate GPA is 4.1" (https://politicalscience.unc.edu/graduate/admissions/). The GRE percentiles seem normal enough, but I was confused by the average GPA. Now, I am an international applicant, so I'm not completely familiar with the US grading system. However, I was under the impression that the scale went from 0 to 4. So what gives? Is this a typo? How can someone have a GPA of 4.0+, let alone the mean be higher than an A?

Edited October 4, 2020 by clesanbar
typo

[uncle_socks]

Every school in the US has their own way of calculating GPA. Some give extra points for an A+ (and for example law schools calculate undergraduate GPAs this way), and that's usually how averages can be above a 4.0. That being said, I doubt that their real average is actually that high: anything above a ~3.8 good for similar programs. 

[Barry B. Benson]

Oh, I had not thought about A+s. That could explain it. I am still pretty skeptical about an average GPA that is as high as a 4.1. However, I really doubt that they are making it up, like, why would they do that? 

[uncle_socks]

my pet theory is that they took a sloppy average or something. Maybe there were international GPAs included (I know India is out of 10) or there were some MIT grads (GPA is out of 5 there), or maybe they had some people with masters and undergrads and summed both of those but only divided by the amount admitted. The 4.1 average is so obviously suspicious  and incorrect though when you compare with data from UCSD or Duke. 

[smug-face]

Yeah OP, this is probably a mistake.