GPA conversion

[Kathleen Novak]

Hello,

I am trying to fill in some gaps so I can upload and/or post our CDS.

Almost every student reported their GPA with the 100 scale, and I have looked everywhere for a formula to convert it to the 4.0 scale. I haven't found anything that looks reasonable. There are charts out there with ranges, but they don't match the ranges in the CDS so they are unusable.

Am I missing something obvious? Can someone with a similar situation tell me what they did?

Thank you!

Kathy

[John Dennis]

The approach we take:

You can calculate a 4.0 scale value from another scale by reducing the reported GPA value to 1 unit of that scale. So for a 100pt scale I would take a GPA of 86 and divide it by 100, then multiply that by 4 to produce a 4.0 scale equivalent.

86 / 100 = 0.86 to 1 , or 86% of a perfect score.

0.86 * 4 = 3.44 GPA on a 4.0 scale

We struggle with these conversions when the scale is not accurately recorded and it is then even more of a headache when schools allow students to exceed the max scale at their institution. So when we get incomplete information and I see a student with a 5.0 GPA I am left to wonder if they really achieved a GPA that high above 4.0, or if the school has a 5.0, 6.0, 10.0 etc grading scale.

Hope this helps a bit.