LSDAS gpa seems unfair.. Forum

[daesonesb]

there are schools that do not give A-. they give As for 90s and Bplus for 89. And we're competing against the absurd inflated gpas these schools create

This to me seems much, much more unfair than schools that don't award A+s. Or, at least, it's much, much more likely to realistically impact most people's GPAs than the availability of an A+ does.

You just ranted about the unimportance of a .33 difference in a grade, yet you say that? After that whole thing where you went through, and claimed that if I got .33 higher on a class a semester it would make no real difference on my T-14 chances?

A random person might be more likely to bump from an A- to an A, but we were talking about me, and in my specific situation there have been about 8 A+'s. As you pointed out, they haven't boosted my GPA too much (From about a high 3.7 to mid 3.8's). But... it seems just as unfair in my situation that I have access to those .33 extra points as it would be if I'd gotten the bump from A-'s turning to A's.

I don't dispute that having the no A- policy will bump more people's GPA's, but you were just saying to me that the magnitude wasn't significant in my particular case. Just seems a bit hypocritical after you were just acting like a dick about it...

I don't see it as hypocritical at all. I wasn't talking about your particular case with that comment, I was talking about the big picture, where when you're looking at the numbers of people with a lot of A-s that'd be affected it makes a much bigger difference than when you're looking at the very few people with the huge lot of As that might turn into A+s

Understood. I guess the whole "you" thing confused me. I was probably just mad because I am borderline admit/reject at about half the T-14's.

I agree with your basic point. Most people aren't greatly affected by the absence of an A+. I think OP was likely just mad on General Principle.

[postitnotes]

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[vanwinkle]

I just realized something funny about my UG grades.

It's been years since I was in UG, and I wasn't planning on going to law school when I graduated, so I never really cared that much about the system they used to calculate my GPA. But after this whole thread and a few before it, something finally occurred to me, and I went back and logged into my UG's website and pulled up my grades.

I never received anything but whole letter grades.

For four years, I got one of the following grades: A, B, C, or F. I was never awarded any + or - grades. The current GPA system listed on my school's website indicates that they have a grading system that awards those grades, but that's valid now, not necessarily when I graduated six years ago. I don't think they were awarding + or - grades at all when I was there, at any letter value.

I mean, what are the odds that I always fell neatly at a whole letter grade just coincidentally? I don't think that's possible. No, I think they only gave whole letter grades back then. How many B's did I get that would've been B+s? On the other hand, how many A's did I get that would've been A-s?

I don't know how much and in which direction this would've affected my GPA, but it's definitely something strange I just noticed after all these years.

[thalassocrat]

Studying for the physics exams I had took waaaay less time then researching for the papers I had to write for poli sci classes.

Cue the douchebaggery:

And honestly, "I had took"? Where the hell are you getting your liberal arts degree from anyway?

Ever hear of the word "taken"?

As shadowfrost brought up, taken would be more fitting for this situation.
Perhaps phrasing it like "I took less time studying for the physics exams than researching for the papers yada yada" would be much more reasonable... Normally, I am not a member of the grammar police, but seeing a liberal arts major trying to rip on science majors while making such a silly phrasing gave me no choice

"I had TAKEN way less time than I had (TAKEN) for researching?"
I didn't even criticize him. It was just your attempt at attacking someone else with obvious stupidity that annoyed me.

EDIT: Should probably just be "took" instead of either though.

You science majors should try replacing the superiority complex with a basic grammatical primer before law school. Unbelievable.

Yea, I don't think they realized it was "Studying (for the physics exams I had) took ..." rather than "I had took." Still not necessarily the best way to phrase it, but whatever.

I've only got one grade that isn't a whole letter grade, a B+, and LSAC didn't even count it. I might say something about it after I update my grades.

[ashleej]

I think that there are people who it particularly hurts. I started UVA intending to pursue science classes and I consequently had a horrendous GPA after my first year. Once I switched to English, I made a 98 or above in several courses. . . but I didn't get awarded an A+. Had I been awarded an A+ for all of the classes that I got at least a 98 in, my GPA would be a 3.52, not a 3.41. This puts me in a completely different bracket for most schools. I know that the difference between GPA would generally not be this substantial, but in 10 of my 13 English classes (as well as 4 of my 6 Latin classes), I would have been awarded a 4.33 instead of a 4.0. That's a pretty sizeable difference. I am thinking that my LSAT might compensate for it (?), but it still sucks that I have to try to compensate for it when I feel like I should be considered in that 3.5 range. Not that a 3.5 is fantastic or anything, but it's substantially better than not even hitting the mark! This has definitely affected the caliber of law schools which I am applying to.

[vandalvideo]

You know what, this guy may have a point. I have found that at my university, which has the "90+ is an A, what you talkin' bout?" grading rubric, tends to have a mentality that an A is an A, whatever that A may be. They may feel more inclined to grade lower to the belt at around a 90 or so just to meet their quotes and still feel happy about how "hardcore" they are on grading. I had one professor like this, where I was the only student to make an A in his class, and that A was a 90. I complained to him and he ended up saying something like, "Be grateful, I rarely give out As". He couldn't understand the significance of an A- to someone like myself.


While I can't personally comment on the mindset of professors in schools with a more varied grading rubric, I would posit that they would be less inclined to engage in these types of activities.

[Sauer Grapes]

....

[MC Southstar]

Seriously, what schools give out A+s anyway. If anything they should just eliminate A+s from their scale to make it fair.

[Stringer Bell]

This is obviously well known and I didn't read through the 4 pages, but put me down as a +1 to any commenter that expressed discontent that their university gave out A- grades but not A+.

[Stringer Bell]

I just realized something funny about my UG grades.

It's been years since I was in UG, and I wasn't planning on going to law school when I graduated, so I never really cared that much about the system they used to calculate my GPA. But after this whole thread and a few before it, something finally occurred to me, and I went back and logged into my UG's website and pulled up my grades.

I never received anything but whole letter grades.

For four years, I got one of the following grades: A, B, C, or F. I was never awarded any + or - grades. The current GPA system listed on my school's website indicates that they have a grading system that awards those grades, but that's valid now, not necessarily when I graduated six years ago. I don't think they were awarding + or - grades at all when I was there, at any letter value.

I mean, what are the odds that I always fell neatly at a whole letter grade just coincidentally? I don't think that's possible. No, I think they only gave whole letter grades back then. How many B's did I get that would've been B+s? On the other hand, how many A's did I get that would've been A-s?

I don't know how much and in which direction this would've affected my GPA, but it's definitely something strange I just noticed after all these years.

Due to my great deductive reasoning skills, I'm assuming you went to UT for UG. And yes, they award +/- now, but I think that only started two years or so ago.

[09042014]

Seriously, what schools give out A+s anyway. If anything they should just eliminate A+s from their scale to make it fair.

My school gave it out, but counted it at 4.0, so no courses actually handed them out.

[Philaw]

Forgive me if this is repetitive, but I don't have time to scan through. At an A+ school, an a+ is a 4.3, but an A- is a 3.7, so it balances out. It's actually in favor of those who go to a non A+ A- school.

[Stringer Bell]

Forgive me if this is repetitive, but I don't have time to scan through. At an A+ school, an a+ is a 4.3, but an A- is a 3.7, so it balances out. It's actually in favor of those who go to a non A+ A- school.

Right, but at a school like mine they give out A's and A-'s w/o an A+ grade. So it puts me at a disadvantage with students that could get A+'s or students at schools that only had whole letter grades.

[antonin]

Forgive me if this is repetitive, but I don't have time to scan through. At an A+ school, an a+ is a 4.3, but an A- is a 3.7, so it balances out. It's actually in favor of those who go to a non A+ A- school.

Almost all schools give A-, but few give A+. As i mentioned before on this thread I believe, my 2 cents is that this does not matter that much.
But the fair thing would be to count A+ merely as an A. The reason being that an A+ merely means between 97-100; in most of the schools 97-100 means an A, so it is not as if the A+ are singled out and not recognized for their are academic achievements. They are merely treated as all other 97-100's in the nation.

[Derrex]

I agree that LSDAS's system is a bit unfair, but I think schools probably realize this, too. If they see someone with a 4.20, hopefully they realize that is comparable to another person's 3.99 because the majority of schools do not have A+s.

Not actually so sure of this, most schools I'm aware of do give A+s.

Out of T14 law schools:

The following don't give A+s

Harvard
Yale
NYU
Chicago
Northwestern

The following do:
Stanford
Columbia
Berkeley
Virginia
Michigan
Cornell
Duke
UPenn

Georgetown doesn't have +/- system

Obviously, just a small sample, but I'd hazard a guess to say that most schools DO have A+'s.

* The grading systems are just gleamed off websites/personal recollection. May not be completely accurate.

[ashleej]

Wait, Virginia DOES? I only received A-'s at Virginia. I'm pretty sure that it's strictly an A/A- school.

[ashleej]

Oh wait. Scratch the previous post. You're talking about law schools. I meant UVA undergrad. But, to be fair, the undergrad-calculated difference that an A/A+ distinction would make is what frustrates me. Sorry about that!

I did, however, benefit from some B+'s when I was originally a Biochem major. So I shouldn't complain that much. To reiterate, though, if I recalculated my GPA with my English/Latin/Psychology A+'s, I'd be a full tenth of a point higher. Oh, well. I guess it's not such a big deal. But I'm certainly not going to apply to any top 20 law schools with less than a 3.5. Also, I really just wanted to join the bandwagon of those who feel slighted by this A+ business.

Another chip in: Although I do think that it is unfair that some universities only dole out A, B+, B, C+, C, etc. (you get the picture), as far as I know, this doesn't occur even remotely as frequently as the A+/A business. Just my two cents' worth.

[Derrex]

Wait, Virginia DOES? I only received A-'s at Virginia. I'm pretty sure that it's strictly an A/A- school.

http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/col ... ystem.html

Seems to say that it has A+s that counts as 4.0s at school. Am I looking at the right thing?

Its also the case that usually A+s are given only to the top student in a small class or top 2 in a large class. Some professors might not give A+s at all for whatever reason, but its usually not in a standard curve.

[Quine]

Studying for the physics exams I had took waaaay less time then researching for the papers I had to write for poli sci classes.

Cue the douchebaggery:

And honestly, "I had took"? Where the hell are you getting your liberal arts degree from anyway?

Ever hear of the word "taken"?

As shadowfrost brought up, taken would be more fitting for this situation.
Perhaps phrasing it like "I took less time studying for the physics exams than researching for the papers yada yada" would be much more reasonable... Normally, I am not a member of the grammar police, but seeing a liberal arts major trying to rip on science majors while making such a silly phrasing gave me no choice

"I had TAKEN way less time than I had (TAKEN) for researching?"
I didn't even criticize him. It was just your attempt at attacking someone else with obvious stupidity that annoyed me.

EDIT: Should probably just be "took" instead of either though.

You science majors should try replacing the superiority complex with a basic grammatical primer before law school. Unbelievable.

Yea, I don't think they realized it was "Studying (for the physics exams I had) took ..." rather than "I had took." Still not necessarily the best way to phrase it, but whatever.

I've only got one grade that isn't a whole letter grade, a B+, and LSAC didn't even count it. I might say something about it after I update my grades.

I actually think shadowfrost was getting at the replacing "I had took" (which is ambiguous enough to justify the confusion) with just "took". He wasn't concluding that the original quote was correct. It should read:

"Studying for the physics exams took waaaay less time then researching for the papers I had to write for poli sci classes."

If you are worried about somebody asking themselves, "But whose physics exams was he studying for?!", you can clear that up by replacing the underlined "the" with "my".

[Quine]

Wait, Virginia DOES? I only received A-'s at Virginia. I'm pretty sure that it's strictly an A/A- school.

http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/col ... ystem.html

Seems to say that it has A+s that counts as 4.0s at school. Am I looking at the right thing?

Its also the case that usually A+s are given only to the top student in a small class or top 2 in a large class. Some professors might not give A+s at all for whatever reason, but its usually not in a standard curve.

It doesn't matter what number the school assigns to a particular letter grade... this whole thread is predicated on the fact that LSAC assigns its own numbers. All that matters is that there is an A+ on the transcript. This is why peoples' GPAs can change between what LSAC and their school gives them.

[Quine]

This is a little different, but related. I have a friend that attends a UC school which awards +.5 for + grades and -.25 for - grades. For example, a B+ is a 3.5 and a B a 3.0 and a B- a 2.75. Now that's some bullshit. And they award A+(at 4.5, naturally).

This obviously isn't important in law school admissions, but it sure as fuck makes a difference in the larger market, where every UC student (at least from this school, if my friend is correct) is getting a substantial GPA boost. You can say what you will about that particular school being more difficult or something, but the idea that someone can get a 3.5 GPA without ever getting an A is outrageous.

[ashleej]

Yeah, LSAC determines its own GPA with the plus/minus system. So even though it was a 3.5 at that particular person's school, it's only going to be a 3.33 from LSAC. I agree about the larger market. It's nice that LSAC at least attempts to standardize. Also, in schools that only award 4.0 for an A+ (which seems kind of contradictory to me - if you're going to offer an A+, count it the same as every other plus in the grading scale), LSAC boosts it to a 4.33. That's nice, too.

And hmm, I'm not sure if this is something that has been instituted since I graduated in '07 or not, but I'd like in retroactively! It doesn't make sense for that to be the case when I was undergrad. I'm thinking of two instances: first, when I took Gen Chem, your grade was dependent on your class ranking - well, yeah, like you were saying, on a standard curve. And A+ wasn't an option. The second is that in the one class I managed to get a 100 in (most definitely not a science - it was 18th century satire, haha), I didn't get awarded an A+. Maybe it's up to teacher discretion. But then that wouldn't be fair either, throughout UVA, unless all of the teachers gave away A+s. Psych classes were pretty straightforward, because all of our exams were multiple choice. If a 98 were an A+, I know I'd have 4. You may be entirely right. I'm not sure. But if they do award A+'s, I think that for all of the B-s I got in my science classes that caused my first year GPA to be a miserable 3.1, I deserve a few A+'s in the classes that I got at least a 98 in. And it should be something that's ubiquitous across the College of Arts and Sciences, not up to the teacher's discretion, if that's the case. The way LSAC takes it into consideration, I thought that some schools really actually do give A+'s to any students who get at least a 98 in a class. It's way more fair if most schools don't give A+'s out save one or two students per class. I'm just being whiny At least it's not like this: at the university I'm getting my grad degree at, in the College of Public Health, you have to have a 95 to get ANY sort of A. Rough. I guess I shouldn't complain so much.

I didn't mean to question you, I just saw that and was like, "WHAT! If that's true, I want my A+'s!"

[bIu3b1rd]

Forgive me if this is repetitive, but I don't have time to scan through. At an A+ school, an a+ is a 4.3, but an A- is a 3.7, so it balances out. It's actually in favor of those who go to a non A+ A- school.

Right, but at a school like mine they give out A's and A-'s w/o an A+ grade. So it puts me at a disadvantage with students that could get A+'s or students at schools that only had whole letter grades.

I'm in the exact same position. My school gives out lots of A-'s but no A+'s, and that's fine. I'm still graduating at the top of my class, so I'm not very upset about it. What I wish would change is how LSDAS configures grades. Even though LSDAS will grant a 4.33 to A+'s, LSDAS does NOT receive your actual grade for each class beyond what your school lists on a transcript. For me, that meant that LSDAS only saw A's and A-'s and didn't know that I had gotten 98's, 99's, and 100's in some of my classes. As someone mentioned in an earlier post, schools should list the number of the grade alongside the letter on transcripts. Then, LSDAS can truly standardize the grading system on their reports and be more accurate in their reporting.