Canadian student GPA conversion from the percentage grading system

[canadian-americandental]

Hello everyone,

I'm a Canadian student currently in the process of applying to dental schools in the United States. I'm facing a perplexing issue regarding GPA conversion from the percentage grading system used in Canada, and I'm hoping to find some clarity and assistance within this community.

In Canada, we typically receive grades in the form of percentages throughout our academic journey. However, US dental schools require a GPA for admissions, which has left me feeling uncertain and bewildered.

What complicates matters further is that the GPA conversion from percentage can vary across different institutions in the US. Some schools utilize a 4.0 scale, while others employ a 4.3 or even a 4.5 scale. I find it difficult to grasp how a straightforward percentage can be transformed into such diverse and complex scales.

To give you an example, let's say I have an 89% average in my undergraduate studies. In Canada, this is considered an excellent grade. However, I've been informed that an 89% might be perceived as a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale in the US. This seems counterintuitive and somewhat disheartening, as I would have expected a higher equivalence in the 3.7-3.9 range.

 

If anyone knows anything concerning this topic I would really appreciate your input!

[rmorelan]

Initially the GPA system can be a bit confusing! It helps if you understand the overall point - the Canadian system is based on percentages for the most part which is a measure of raw performance in any course. Pretty easy to understand. 

GPA also is a measure of raw performance but it has other purposes as well which is consistency of performance as well. If you look at any GPA table conversion table you will notice that pretty quickly. Bad grades are overweighted and drag your GPA down much more than they would to your typical overall percentage of all your courses. Thus it is better to consistently achieve high performance - even if it means you are don't go to extremes in any particular course so you don't ignore any other course (which is actually easy for us to do as some courses typically we just like more than others). That is not an accident with GPA, its the entire point. 

For medical school or dental schools is also is useful as it helps further spread out candidates - so you can separate out say people with a 89% into groups another way. 

The only way to actually figure out what you get is properly convert each course to their GPA level, and then average the GPA values factoring in course weights (in case any course is say a double weighted course etc.). If for instance every single course you got a 89% in then your GPA won't really change much. If you have extremely high grades in some course, but a few low average ones then it will drop.