huyichen wrote:So, in the application for MIT, it asks you to describe the grading system of your college. My college uses the standard 4.0 grading system, so A+=A=4.00, A-=3.67, B+=3.33, etc. How should I describe this grading system more formally?
huyichen wrote:I have checked my official transcript, there is nothing about what percentage does each letter grade stand for. So, what should I say in that section?
grae313 wrote:I thought this always varies from class to class? A hard test could have an average of 30%, that doesn't mean everyone should fail the class. Do you mean percentile rather than percent?
I'm not sure this is what the application means... the 4.0 scale is not standard across the world and they may just be giving people an option to explain any different or unusual grading systems. I would just call them up and ask.
grae313 wrote:Mine had no problems failing people either, it's just very difficult to write test after test across every single class and subject where the difficulty is perfectly normalized such that the standard for a certain grade is always equivalent to the same score on the test. I had very few classes that didn't apply some adjustment factor to the raw grade distribution to go from percentage to letter grades.
Grades as scoring percentages are essentially meaningless to outside evaluators because they don't know how difficult the tests or assignments were. More typically, grades are used to show where you are relative to the rest of your class. "A" means, perhaps, that you were in the top 10% of your class. Outside observers can more easily make conclusions about what it means to be in the top x% relative to your peers than what it means to score x% on a test of essentially arbitrary difficulty...
But even that is not standardized across most universities. Schools don't force the grade distribution into a Bell Curve -- they leave it up to each instructor to determine what level of knowledge constitutes which letter grade. I honestly think MIT is just asking if there is anything special or different they should know about the grading system in cases of other countries or unusual schools. The standard 4.0 scale doesn't have any meaning in terms of percentages at most schools (which is why we have the PGRE).
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