gpa problem again, but with more information and stuff

Question

here's how our school converts our grades to gpa. our undergraduate grades are displayed as numbers like 63, 72, 85~ and thats whats bothering me right now~ the followings are a diagram that shows how the grades are converted to US gpa

80~ A 4
70~79 B 3
60~69 C 2
50~59 D 1
~49 F 0

ok, what's happening here is that i'm not really a competitive student.(by competitive i mean very good at preparing for these short term exams, like memorizing a whole chapter without understanding any of it in one night) i have to say i'm just average as for my school. but usually an average student in a US college gets a B or C+
but in our school, an average student here would get any grade between 60~70(that's called getting a C), and a lot of (usually about 10% of us) have to fail the class. only 30% of us get over 70, which represents a B. i know depends on classes u attended, but mostly it's exactly like i say. just let me tell u this, i have a friend who ranked number 7 in my class(with about 100 other students), his gpa was like 3.4 or something around that. 
 that pretty much proves that our school has pretty different standards than most US schools do. and its funny that in the US, students with a gpa under 2.0 could have been expelled, but in our school, you have to get HALF of ur credit units below 60(that means a D or an F), for TWO semesters before you get dropped.
 so a lot of my senior schoolmates graduated with a 1.5 or even lower than that.
 my school is full of bookworms, or what we called nerds, they never spend time on anything else like baseball or stuff. in my class, they're about one fourth of the class. so it's totally impossible to get a 3.5 if i have a life. i hate to say that but, i'm in taiwan now, it's run like china. they're so desperate for highertest scores that they would go 24-7 on practice tests and any of the testbooks. i'm simply not the kind of person who would dump everything else to become an A student.
 I would say an average student here usually gets a 2.3~2.8, 2.0 can possibly mean ur a little bit weak. but consider how a 1.2 gpa can graduate from our school, and you'll understand, why asking for a 3.0+ gpa from our school is totally unreasonable!
 there's some circumstances like, ur a pretty average studentl, you never failed any class, all ur grades were like 60~70, then ur gpa would be 2.0... it sounds pretty miserable, but this happens a lot in my country, coz converting our orginal grades to gpa is stupid in the first place.
 and since you can retake the class, that means, if you had exactly less than half of your credits go below 60, the lowest gpa you could possibly get is 0.49x0+0.51x2= 1.02. (i'm good at math, coz im asian ^^)if you go below this twice, you get kicked out of school. so some people just go closely beyond that number, and graduate. i dont know about others but a 1.5 gpa is very common in my school, my school ranks number 3 as a business school in our country. 
 that's why a lot of people here on gmatclub with a 3.3 gpa consider their grades extremely low when i think they're incredibly high. 
 i feel partly frustrated when someone says like ''2.7? what have you done during this 4 years?)" coz i got way below that.
 just wanted to know, how a foreign contry gpa is viewed by the US schools. like many indian students show their gpa's like 60/100 and stuff, does that mean anything to them? coz they don't know there's more than half with 30/100. like more than half of us have below 2.5...
 There'll be more later, ....

lawgonebusiness · Answer

Just get a class rank.. you will be fine if you are above average. in your case, i guess it's around 2.5.

JunhungChen · Answer

what if we didn't have any class ranking here~
in here, we don't have a class ranking, we just show you the grades, that's the problem~
and i dn't think the ranking would really matter coz number one is no different than the last~
 its only about how you want the higher grades, u don't have to be smart, and u don't have to be really competitive~ all u have to do is memorize a lot of terms that don't matter, i mean, our educuation system here is totally messed up? but can i say that to the adcom? i just wanna know how to explain to the adcom why i have a low gpa, the best way i can...
 tell them that a gpa here doesn't mean anything~

DrShelle · Answer

The top U.S. business schools are familiar with a large range of schools outside of the USA and can likely put your GPA in context, however it is best to point to other metrics like class rank or where you fell in the percentile of your class if those metrics give you an edge.

JunhungChen · Answer

i know, but i just hope they understand how gpa's in here are totally different from gpa's in america~ we sure got people with super high gpa's, like 3.8 or something~ but they're just the very few of us~ i would say my gpa's bad at some points, but not really as bad as they feel about it. coz i heard people say if your gpa is below 2.5, its not very possible you get to graduate at all~ it means a below 3.0 gpa in american schools can somehow tell the adcom u havent even come to class a lot. not in our country!! i also have a friend in my college with the same gpa as me, hes smart and he's preparing for gmat too, and hes planning on going to an MS in Finance program. hes more worried than me now. coz it's an MS program with a lot of disciplines. he doesnt rank too bad though, just a normal guy in class. our exams are meaningless, really. they just ask you to bear every word in mind, keep track of all the numbers in the textbooks, it's really frustrating that my brain's not as large as theirs. my elementary school friend in california knows that coz he's teaching english in china now, he's noticed that chinese people study differently than we do. they don't really care how everything works, they just keep reading test books and stuff, and doing a lot of practice problems and meaningless formulas. they never develope any real skills and that just doesn't sit well with me. if anyone got into a top school with a real low gpa, i wanna know how they did it and why the school let them in. it means a lot to me coz the same gpa could mean a lot of different things. A class rank doesn't really help too much coz like i said im not a very "competitive" student, i would say i'd be B- if I went to college in America. and plus school is not pretty much a concern to me right now since ive been preparing for work and stuff in some trading company. i hope my solid work performance will help raise my chance, only problem is still my pitiful gpa~

but thanks a lot really for ur sound advice anyway, coz i know demonstrating class ranks really works to some, but not to me. Im in National Taipei University right now, don't know if anyone recognizes this school, its named after our capital. our business school ranks number 3 to National Taiwan University and National i don't know how to call that in english University. there's a lot of wonderful politicians and entrepreneurs from our school, and i believe their gpa's wouldnt be too good.

shaselai · Answer

that is a bit weird grading scale. Perhaps you could try to scale it like in the us:
90-100 A(4)
80-89 B(3)
70-79 C(2)
60-69D(1)
<60 F (0)
and see what you get - then you can try to explain it that way?

3underscore · Answer

Shaselai - this is absurd to suggest. I can scale European cars like they do in the US and they all come "below average". Often direct translation is not a good idea.

I know that at the school I went to 70 was the A threshold. If you got above an 85 they would suggest redrafting it with a Professor to work for a Journal. Some schools mark in percent where 100 is impossible to get (outside of math & science).

As mentioned before, write exactly what you got and leave it to the school. They will contact your undergrad school to explain if they feel necessary. Best not to get trapped in that murky world.

shaselai · Answer

yeah i guess you are right. I was thinking if you get 4 Bs and 2 As but the percentage is all messed up, you could try to translate into GPA style using that scale since As are still As etc. But does the lower threshold mean the class is harder or it is just that value? I mean in the US schools use curves where for some classes an 80 could result in an A for the class but differs mostly dependent on difficulty or predetermined spread.

JunhungChen · Answer

hahah, yeah u made the point right there, but for many classes in my school, the professors use some particular methods to evaluate students. like most of our professors give a certain number of students A's and B's, some get C's, but they insist that at leat 10% of the class have to get F's, and that's messed up. there's a lot of difference between GPA's from US schools and Asian schools. they may contain different meanings. and business students are taught not to focus too much on exams, so some of us just go around and meet a lot of friends from other business schools, and i like that.
those who lock themselves in the room all night long studying for exams have absolutely no connections in the outside world, and they're not gonna find a real job in the real society. they may have to start the career in a gonvernment institution, and i think it's gay.
a 3.4 can be average to you guys, but it sounds more like a nerd to me in our school.

ariel · Answer

Kick it down a notch JunhungChen, will you? You can get your point across without passing judgment on others, their study habits or career choices. This forum is built on mutual respect, so please do your part and abide by those rules.

Additionally, please try to adhere to already existing threads that address a topic you need help on. We have 429894298 threads already discussing sub-par academic performance (and we tried on help you on one of said threads) - use those. Thanks for the cooperation.

chostein · Answer

Sorry JunhungChen, but I agree with Ariel.

1. I think Adcoms in U.S. schools know the conversion for applicants graduated from universities outside U.S. Thus, you can't B.S. (or get "creative") because they will know, and the one thing adcom hates the most is B.S. You can talk about your school's professors and grading system in "optional essay" but at the end of the day, you gotta stick to the standard in conversion.

2. Ariel is right that this forum is based on mutual respect. And as far as I know, the people who allegedly lock themselves in their rooms and study all night are usually the successful ones - I sometimes regret I didn't do that

Also, that is not "gay" - as seen from other threads, we have LGBT applicants, and I know (b/c I heard from my LGBT friends) that that expression is highly offensive.

whiplash2411 · Answer

I might be wrong, but I think what'll matter more is your attitude towards your GPA than the aloofness you might display by saying that only people who lock themselves up and study will get a good grade. I mean, I can slightly understand where you're coming from, but proving to the adcom that "grades don't matter" as you put it, won't do much good. Instead of focusing on why the others are better, maybe you want to focus on why your score might be average or low as per your college standards?

I am originally from India myself and trust me, I know what competitive exams mean and how stringent the rules are with regard to scores and admissions. A student scoring a 199/200 is put on a waitlist for the top medical schools in the state, 300,000 students take an exam to fill <2500 spots in 7 campuses of the Indian Institute of Technology. It's all there.

The Eastern education system is largely reliant on scores and percentiles, I agree. But I think the adcoms are well versed in these systems enough to know the differences and I am sure that if your school is competitive, they have an idea about it. Just mention your difficulties and obstacles in the most neutral yet strong way as possible and make sure you have solid GMAT scores and essays/LORs to strengthen your application. Because ultimately, the GMAT is one piece of your application that can candidly assess where you stand with respect to the other applicants, since it's all the same exam. Across the world.

Hope this helps!

GoBruin · Answer

those who lock themselves in the room all night long studying for exams have absolutely no connections in the outside world, and they're not gonna find a real job in the real society. they may have to start the career in a gonvernment institution, and i think it's gay."

really erked me.

First off, the grading scale in taiwan is NOT THAT UNUSUAL. If you just google NTU (or Tai Ta) + GPA you will get a bunch of resumes with rankings (I will buy that your school does not have rankings since your school isn't NTU). But even at NTU 3.9/4.0 Civil Engineer = 15th out of 150. Which I would think might be higher than in the US. And while scoring is different, it is adjusted by what you define as an A. US = 92%+, NTU = 80%+.

And yes people do graduate with sub-2.0, that has something to do with culture. In Taiwan, it is extremely hard to get into college however once you're there it's nearly impossible to fail out and people take advantage of it. It this attitude of "I've made it, now I can do whatever I want" It might not be the case for everyone there, but that's what I've seen. (I have multiple friends that graduated NTU, all my Taiwan cousins graduated NTU or Tsinghua except one).

It would be more productive if you just admit you really didn't work as hard as you could or should and move on and try to do well on your GMAT's. Trying to explain how difficult grading to us, or to adcoms will not work. Just remember they have had tons of applicants from TW, and probably many of which went to NTU (which is the only top 100 university in Taiwan, ranked 95th) and got better GPA's.

Since you think everyone else was a nerd and didn't learn any social skills, then I'm assuming with your amazing social skills that you were able to land a top position at a top company, partner at McK at 25 maybe, at which case your GPA doesn't matter.

Just for a reference, not all US schools/majors are the same so don't lump us. Here is the stats on my school for our newspaper

"The practical implications of this are troubling, especially for students attending universities that have kept the grading bar at the same level. This shrinking group includes UCLA, whose average student GPA hovers around 3.1 – modest compared to the national average of 3.34."

In addition, since i did engineering the average engineer GPA was 2.75 vs Scandinavian studies 3.85 and the 2.75 is only people who weren't weeded out. Out of my orientation group of 10, only 3 of us graduated as engineers.

Move on.

gpa problem again, but with more information and stuff

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