GPA as an international student

[cynder]

Most graduate schools ask for your GPA as part of the application process. Im wondering how heavily this GPA is being weighted for international students, most countries have different grading scales than the US, and the grades dont always scale well with the GPA system (From my country fe. I do not know anyone who has a scaled GPA of more than 3.6). I reckon that the graduate schools will be aware of this, but should you do something in your application to address the issue?

For example, you could take a GRE subject test, even when it is not recommended, or you could mention in your SOP that the grade in your national scale corresponds to the top xx% of the class.

Im curious to know how other international students dealt with this issue. Personally I didnt do anything about it finally, and Im wondering if I should have.

[Bumblebee]

I didn't do anything special. Some schools had a special form for international students where you could write down your GPA in your country's scale, but there was no room for writing comments about the grading system.

However, when I did the campus visit to my current school, one of the professors in the ad com told me that they knew exactly what my GPA meant, that they already had experience with them.

My guess is that schools with a large international student population like mine are familiar with the different grade systems, so I wouldn't worry about it.

[Frozenroses]

UK MA here - I just sent them my transcripts - they didnt ask about my GPA (this is to Canada

[Crix]

I had the same problem. I have a converted GPA of 3.14, even when I was at the best 15% of my class. At least in my school, I don't know anybody having a converted GPA greater than 3.4. What I did is to ask my school a transcript that included my relative position for each course.

[cynder]

I had the same problem. I have a converted GPA of 3.14, even when I was at the best 15% of my class. At least in my school, I don't know anybody having a converted GPA greater than 3.4. What I did is to ask my school a transcript that included my relative position for each course.

Thats a good idea!

[sam_1]

This is a very useful thread, just sorry I didn't come across this forum last year! Completely agree that the US GPA student can give

a very poor reflection of your performance - my GPA certainly doesn't indicate mine, and this really hurt my application process. It

can be soul destroying to actually be a very good or above average student, and then get rejected by programs because you're (e.g.) 3.5 and not 3.6 - seems

so trivial and inaccurate!! It doesn't indicate the difficulty or relevance of some of your courses, or take into account that one or two stupid subjects can bring you down. If it wasn't for my first year I'd have near 4.0, but so much for that...

[alr234]

I was told that foreign offices usually know how to translate grades, so I didn't enter in american GPA but gave my grades with my national scale.

I also had the school write a letter with my rank for each year in the school, and wrote a separate letter that I included in my application to explain my situation.

[rkg2012]

I'm currently doing my MSc in London, where 70% is a high mark. Most schools will probably understand the conversion, but if you are worried, have your recommenders talk about it. I wouldn't advise mentioning it in your SOP. Also, I thought that transcripts usually include some sort of explanation on the back or on another page, but maybe that's mostly a US/UK thing.