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Canadian Grades to GPA?
 

Shadow Rider's picture
 
Points)
 on 1/11/13 at 1:00am
canadian grades.png

I'm currently averaging an 83.3 at Queen's Commerce. If I apply to a bschool for my MBA in the US, what would my grades convert to on a GPA scale for any of the top schools like Harvard, Wharton, Columbia ect? All my grades are above 80 except for one and next to my transcript all of them say "A" and my one 77 grade says "B."

I have heard that Canadian grades are curved up to American grades during the admissions process, is that true?

Mod Note (Andy) this is an old old post, but still ranks very high on search for related terms so i'm bumping it back up to get some fresh responses

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yesforone's picture

GPA

(Monkey, 55
 
Points)
 on 10/6/07 at 5:05pm

Most schools do not report GPA and the conversion to GPA is difficult. A lot of schools take the following approach which is an approximation using the Ontario Medical School Application Service scale

90 to 100% 4.0
85 to 89% 3.9
80 to 84% 3.7
77 to 79% 3.3
73 to 76% 3.0
70 to 72% 2.7
67 to 69% 2.3
63 to 66% 2.0
60 to 62% 1.7
57 to 59% 1.3
53 to 56% 1.0
50 to 52% 0.7
< 49 0.0

yesforone's picture

Queens

(Monkey, 55
 
Points)
 on 10/6/07 at 5:06pm

Given my understanding on Queens Commerce and its difficulty, I think an 83% is probabaly comparable to a 3.7/3.8 in the U.S., which is consistent with the table

eric809e's picture

Whao, those conversions are way too high

(Orangutan, 355
 
Points)
 on 10/6/07 at 6:01pm

When comparing GPAs, most b-schools look at the same way they score undergrad scores. In general, Canadian grades are curved DOWN (more leinient scoring and lower passing grades).

Generally 94+ = A = 4.0
90+ = A- = 3.7
87+ = B+ = 3.3
etc.

See this link:
http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mba/admissions/apply/...

However, keep in mind undergrad GPA is a small factor of what MBA programs look at. More importantly, it's what you did after college that matters. A 3.3 won't sink you, you do add international experience. Focus on scoring 720+ on the GMATs, building great leadership skills and writing the perfect essay.

Shadow Rider's picture

Really? Canadian grades are

 
Points)
 on 10/6/07 at 7:42pm

Really? Canadian grades are curved down? The highest average in my year right now is 90, with someone with an 88 being ranked 3rd in the class. While I have a friend at Penn who says 30% of his class is curved to be above 90%. Seems kind of strange that canadian grades are curved down even more even though there's no curve.

CDNmonkey's picture

Curving Canadian grades down

PE
(Orangutan, 348
 
Points)
 on 10/6/07 at 8:28pm

Curving Canadian grades down like that makes absolutely no sense. All the top Canadian undergrad business schools mark in a way that makes it nearly impossible to get high 80's, let alone a 90. With that system, the absolute top students at my school would have a 3.2-3.5 GPA at best.

ssb101's picture

Canadian schools have

IB
(Orangutan, 286
 
Points)
 on 10/6/07 at 9:32pm

Canadian schools have lenient scoring and lower passing grades?.....dude come on. This is only true for our highschools.

I assure you that the grading systems in Canadian university programs are just as tough, if not tougher, than our American counterparts.

If that converting scale is true, then I don't know a single person in any year of my program who has a 3.3gpa.....

jdizz's picture

Ignore eric's post

(Chimp, 7
 
Points)
 on 10/6/07 at 9:55pm

Ignore eric's post. It is completely irrelevant. yesforone's post is spot on. It'd be a 3.7/3.8

Shadow, what's your approx rank in the class?

mark klein MD's picture

to the OP: just becuase

 
Points)
 on 10/6/07 at 10:06pm

to the OP: just becuase you're canadian doesn't mean you can go around saying shit like "how does canadian grades convert?" if you were russian or something, i'd give you a break, but you['re not. you're just a fucking idiot.

_______________________________________
http://www.drmarkklein.blogspot.com/

Shadow Rider's picture

Ah ok. I'm currently in

 
Points)
 on 10/7/07 at 12:04am
jdizz:

Ignore eric's post. It is completely irrelevant. yesforone's post is spot on. It'd be a 3.7/3.8

Shadow, what's your approx rank in the class?

Ah ok thanks for making that clear. I'm currently in second year and class rank is not assigned to us on our transcripts. I assume that some people know because they asked the office. But I do know that the highest average is a 90 and exactly 2 people have that. Roughly estimated though, I'd say somewhere between 20-30 out of 300.

mark klein MD:

to the OP: just becuase you're canadian doesn't mean you can go around saying shit like "how does canadian grades convert?" if you were russian or something, i'd give you a break, but you['re not. you're just a fucking idiot.

To mark klein MD: Thanks for pointing that out, I did in fact notice the grammar mistake right after I made the post, but I didn't think there was a way to edit my topic. However, I'd suggest that you watch your own sentence structure, typos, punctuation, capitalization, run-ons, and related errors. If I was going to slam someone else's single grammar mistake, I'd make sure I didn't make 15 times the mistakes in my flame post. As for being an idiot? Well, apparently I have a 3.7 GPA.

eric809e's picture

okay, let me explain. When I

(Orangutan, 355
 
Points)
 on 10/7/07 at 2:22am

okay, let me explain. When I said curved down, i meant the "A" with an 80 will not be taken at the same letter grade value. They generally won't mark that down anymore. I know there are a lot of canadians on this board, but don't take it personally that American's don't think of Queens or Ivey when they think of top-tier business schools.

Comparing Wharton and Queens is not fair. Wharton is much more selective and has significantly more applicants. Although Canada and the US have roughly the same area, the US has about 10x the population. Canada by population is about the size of a large US state (like California or Texas). Just because Queens is one of the top schools in Canada, doesn't mean it's on par with the top schools in America. Take a look at endowment and funding. Wharton is a private school, and gets a lot more money from tuition and endowment per student than Queens (publicly funded). Wharton has more resources to educate their students. In addition, Wharton has a much higher recognition among MDs and recruiters. Ask all the MDs and recruiters in North America, I can guarantee you more will have heard of Wharton than Queens. That might convince students admitted to both schools to choose Wharton than queens.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but people from Queen's have told me their passing grade is 50. On Colubia's table, passing is 60 (and generally holds across US undergrad schools). In terms of grading, I've seen exams from the commerce department from queens, and they were not too difficult. That is a totally subjective view, but that is where I'm basing my comments.

Now, MBA admissions could take Canadian grades at letter grade listed,all As, except for one B. But they could very well take them at their percentages and convert them. Columbia's MBA admissions published a conversion table for percentages to GPA. If the OP was applying to Columbia like he said in the first post, I would suggest that he bases his decision off Columbia's table and not Ontario's medical table.

I know a lot of you are still in college and have not gone through the MBA recruiting process. When I was in college, I worked at a major test prep company and I've seen plenty of qualified candidates not get accepted at their top choice. I'm not trying to start an arugement on a forum, but admissions to top MBA programs are tough, and I want to provide a more realistic view.

Alex_Kap's picture

It all depends

IB
 
Points)
 on 10/30/07 at 10:16pm

Each program is different, Ivey has a scale of 70% to 87%, nothing else. I'm at Schulich, here you can fail or get an A+, but there is no exact grades so we scale it on a 9 scale which I hate.
When I converted mine for U.S. Apps it looks like this:
A+ 9.0 4.0
A 8.0 3.8
B+ 7.0 3.3
B 6.0 2.8
C+ 5.0 2.3
C 4.0 1.8
D+ 3.0 1.3
D 2.0 0.8
F 1.0 0
It's a hassle of a system because we don't get exact grades, like in one class I got 88, but had 8.0, another class I got 79.4 and got bumped to 79.5 or 80 and got an 8.0, but techically thats 8% difference, and could have a big impact on your GPA.

mattown's picture

Canadian Schools

O
(Chimp, 10
 
Points)
 on 11/3/07 at 5:37am

I think it depends really on your program. I took astrophysics and my department was the best in Canada, at least from the research side.

I didn't have a super high GPA by the standards on this forum (~3.3ish) but I knew I was in the upper 10% of my class, actually I lied, I was the class when I graduated o_0. Plus a lot of my courses were on a bell curve, i.e. only x amount were to receive A's, etc. I didn't know a single person with a GPA above 3.8 in the honours program. Close? Yes, but the system was brutal. Definitely not the same in other departments so really, how can you compare GPAs?

I had a 3.8 in the beginning but I attribute that to not working. During my 2nd and 3rd year my GPA dropped because I devoted a lot of time to my two businesses and my radio personality on campus. I'm glad I engaged in these activities despite missing some assignments, resulting in B's instead of an A's. Again, how do you compare my situation to someone who got a 3.6 instead, yet developed less business acumen and had worse work experience? The fact I engaged in these activities made me stand out and obtain positions the kids with 4.0s, but with no experience were trying to get.

I find with the sciences, to truly do well you must devote a *shitload* of time to learning the material, however with classes like economics, english, etc it's much easier to balance work/school. So I don't think my point is really applicable in those areas, but I think it is for really difficult programs.

I remember I had one lab prof who insisted on never handing out a perfect mark on our labs. He told us, if you get a 10/10, it means you have performed the experiment better than anyone else in history. Not surprisingly, the %'s were very low in the class.

How in the world do you convert a GPA score with a course ran by someone like that, I mean the highest mark was a 84%? Does that kid really deserve a 3.7?

GPA is just a number and it's really hard to compare it with others, obviously the higher the better but it really depends on the program and school. The GMAT is nice because it's standardized, and that is why it matters a whole lot more in admissions.

So I don't think it is the be all end all to one's success but I can understand why BB's may prefer to use it as a hiring gauge however when it comes to b-school applications, it certainly is only one factor of many that they consider.

I think GPA conversion should really be the last of every applicant's worries. So OP, don't even worry about this GPA conversion shit. If you really have the business talent worthy of a top business school like Wharton, I'll assume you've demonstrated *it* in some way, GPA or not.

That is what I would be most worried about, but hey, what do I know, I haven't applied to business school...yet maybe? Haven't decided yet.

Senior Peon's picture

My longest post ever...

IB
(Chimp, 4
 
Points)
 on 11/6/07 at 11:01pm

I'm a Queen's Commerce grad and currently at a top-3 US MBA school. I wouldn't worry about this very much. I recommend using the scale below, unless the school has provided specific instructions to use a different scale (as described above for Columbia). It is basically the "standard" scale for calculating GPAs and thus completely justifiable (far more so than a random medical school scale or "I think 83.3% looks like ...), but it will also position you more positively than any of the alternatives discussed.

"A" (i.e. 80% and over) = 4.0
"B" (i.e. 65% and over) = 3.0

Obviously it's easy for someone to say, "But you can't possibly equate a 65% with a 3.0!" I agree it seems a little "messed up," but that's the way Queen's shows grades on its transcripts and you should use it to your advantage. Your job is to convince the admissions committee to accept your application. It is the admissions committee's job to evaluate your application and make any adjustments they see fit to compare grades across schools. My understanding is that they take a quick look at your school, grades (including class rank in most cases, which is probably the more comparable metric for academic perfomance across different schools/programs), GMAT, and work experience. If you meet the threshold here, they take a longer look at your essays and recommendations. Interview results are usually only used on the margin. They will be familiar with Queen's Commerce and could calibrate your average relative to past/current students who went to Queen's, but probably wouldn't bother.

Of course, I can't resist throwing in my two cents on the debate between Queen's and Wharton either. Wharton is clearly the stronger global brand and this is probably the most important measure of a business school in my view. If money wasn't an issue, I would have gone there for undergrad over Queen's. However, Queen's was a great business education also and I think the quality of teaching/students at least matches that of any other school. The brand and network isn't as strong as Wharton globablly, but you won't run into many MDs who haven't worked with colleagues from Queen's and come to respect the school. If you do well at Queen's you will end up with the same job as someone who did well at Wharton and have the same shot at a top MBA. As for grading, the "Wharton curve" probably means its harder to get an A on your transcript than it is at Queen's. However, scoring a high percentage on an exam or in a class (e.g. greater than 90%) is probably harder at Queen's.

mattown's picture

Senior Peon, With your scale

O
(Chimp, 10
 
Points)
 on 11/7/07 at 6:53pm

Senior Peon,

With your scale I now I have a GPA of 3.57!

ha! show me a link to this scale, I think I may have an excuse to raise my GPA on my resumes

ssb101's picture

I think its just the

IB
(Orangutan, 286
 
Points)
 on 11/7/07 at 10:16pm

I think its just the standard 4.0 system:

A+/A= 4.0
A- =3.7
B+ =3.3
B =3.0
B- =2.7
c+ =2.3

pc's picture

in defense of canadian grades

VC
(Chimp, 1
 
Points)
 on 11/20/07 at 12:38pm
CPA guy's picture

Canadian GPA conversion chart

IB
(Chimp, 15
 
Points)
 on 12/4/07 at 12:23pm
x's picture

Look at how UK universities

O
(Baboon, 112
 
Points)
 on 12/5/07 at 3:49am
ratul's picture

Queen's grades are hard to

(Gorilla, 580
 
Points)
 on 12/12/07 at 5:23am
x's picture

I agree that a 83 from

O
(Baboon, 112
 
Points)
 on 12/12/07 at 6:50am
LBJ's picture

I agree with this post. Yes

IB
 
Points)
 on 3/14/08 at 9:16pm
nauru's picture

Please do not abuse the term

 
Points)
 on 3/18/08 at 11:09am
StrangeLight's picture

...

O
(Chimp, 1
 
Points)
 on 5/12/08 at 12:13am
yellowtop's picture

....

CO
(Chimp, 3
 
Points)
 on 7/31/08 at 2:40pm
iveyleaguedipshit's picture

dear nauru

IB
(Chimp, 1
 
Points)
 on 11/25/09 at 11:32am
ssbank's picture

Ivey isn't "ivy league" lol

IB
(Chimp, 14
 
Points)
 on 5/29/10 at 3:16pm
Bi-Winning's picture

http://www.queensu.ca/artsci/

(Gorilla, 708
 
Points)
 on 1/8/11 at 12:09am

I win here, I win there...

TDA IS ME's picture

yesforone wrote: Most schools

(Chimp, 1
 
Points)
 on 3/19/12 at 7:54pm
roofstreet's picture

I have to agree. I had the

PE
 
Points)
 on 1/11/13 at 3:03am

"...the art of good business, is being a good middle man, putting people togeather. It's all about honor and respect."

mehp's picture

Oh great, another canada vs

 
Points)
 on 1/11/13 at 9:15am
Outsider's picture

lol @ op, canada eh? u r like

 
Points)
 on 1/11/13 at 3:10pm

How big is yours?

GS_McK's picture

The exiting QC class of 2012

(Chimp, 5
 
Points)
 on 1/21/13 at 10:01pm
Macro Arbitrage's picture

GS_McK: The exiting QC class

HF
(King Kong, 1,369
 
Points)
 on 1/24/13 at 11:22pm

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

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