GPA calculation for uAlberta vs uCalgary

[anonymouspanda]

Is GPA calculated the same way for uAlberta and uCalgary? I thought it was but the GPAs listed on my two MD apps are different. I got them to verify it for uAlberta as I was worried it is incorrect since they calculated it to be 0.03 points higher than the gpa I inputted for my uCalgary app. Any insights on why there is a discrepancy?

[justdoingmybest]

They're a fair bit different.

U of A takes all 4 years of your undergrad into account and drops your worst year if you have 4 full-time years from Sept-Apr. They will exclude any grade that isn't part of a full-time semester (18 credits from Sept-Apr or 12 credits in spring/summer) but otherwise include everything.

Calgary on the other hand takes everything except for spring/summer terms into account, regardless of how many courses you have taken in spring/summer. They also can drop your worst year from the calc, but they will drop the year if you have 2 full-time years, not 4.

If you took 4 full-time semesters Sept-Apr as a lot of people do, the GPA's should be the same. If you did a fair bit of summer work, they will likely be different and even substantially so. For example, if your undergrad was a co-op program, you might miss out on the requirement to have 4 full-time Sept-Apr terms at U of A which would invalidate you from having a year dropped there. Likewise, if a lot of your best semesters were taken in the summer, your Calgary GPA would take a hit since they don't include any summer work.

Hope this helps!

Edited January 27, 2020 by burneraccount909
Had a typo that caused the information in the post to be wrong.

[anonymouspanda]

Thank you! This does help!