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申请国外学校准备成绩单时请注意
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今年我系申请时出现了一位国内985学校毕业的学生，本科平均86分却被我校评为B+，令人生疑。我在一方面和系主管研究生的主任和研究生院长交涉的同时，也提醒国内的同学们在申请时要注意一下GPA转换的事情。
GPA转换的事情呢，其实还是有些复杂。因为不同学校，其转换机制不一样。比如我现在的学校，80分以上就算A-，90分以上就算A+。而有些学校要85分以上才算A-，93分A+。不知道这几年国内程序是否有所改观，我在十年前的时候，由档案馆出具的官方成绩单上，也会装模做样附一个这样的成绩转换表，但是这个转换表通常只做A/B/C/D/F 而不再细分B-, B 或B+等。但这个转换表不是强制性的，如果你要求不附，档案馆是可以删除不用的。
我的建议是，为了避免不必要的错误，干脆不要提供这样的转换表。因为一个不恰当的、粗略的成绩转换表有可能会让你国内的加权平均86却在国外评为B+.
下面是我给系主任和研究生院长的信。回信没有授权，我就不贴了。
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Dear xxxx,
I am writing this email to raise my concern on our admission requirements. I know these might be out of your hands; however, I would like to let you know and hope that our graduate school could take a consideration of this concern in future. I suggest our graduate school rethinking the GPA conversion and the minimum requirement for English proficiency.
I observed there was one student from China in the second circulation list who got 86% and was graded as B+. I don't think this is a fair assessment. If our R**** students could get an A with 85%, I don't understand why this applicant should receive only a B+; after all, the grading system before GPA transformation in most of the Chinese universities and R**** is almost the same except that we pass at 60% not 50%. I remember last year there was another student who graduated from another decent university from China. His overall four-year average was 82% or so, and graded by our admission office a B only. Because of this, last year I had to admit at Waterloo an international student who I believe would be rejected immediately at R**** because of this GPA requirement (average 83% at a slightly lower rank university). As a result, I had to arrange a contract and transfer R**** money to Waterloo. As another benchmark, my own undergraduate average was 85% and master's average about 88% if I remember correctly. I don't think I would be qualified at R****.
Another issue was the English requirement. I just received another email from a
prospective applicant. He had a TOEFL
score of 86. I told him in advance not
to apply here because he would be rejected as we ask for 93. In today's email he told me that he received offers from
SUNY Buffalo, University of Southern California, and University of
Nebraska. GATech is also offering him an
admission with only a partial funding support.
On the other hand, many of our current graduate students from some
country don't know what a binomial distribution is, not even mentioning
Poisson!
I realized that for another program at R****, the minimum requirement for TOEFL is only 80. I didn't see why FEAS needs to put a higher bar than computer network.
---**********************************************
给院长的信：
Thank you very much for taking time reading my concern and replying to my colleagues' emails that have been flooded in within the past few hours while I was lecturing. So it does not seem to be my individual concern only.
I agree with you that we should focus on attracting high
quality applicants and retaining admitted students. So let us confine our discussion on
admission. For admission, we are not
only attracting students, but also competing other schools in attracting
applicants! I agree with you that we do
not attract students by "lowering the standards such that they are out of
line with other Canadian institutions."
In the meanwhile, I believe you would also agree with me that raising
the bar itself does not automatically improve the program quality. Rather, it
might deteriorate, if not kill, the program, because of the adverse selection
that a couple of Colleagues have already revealed.
In my humble opinion, minimum requirements are only
minimum. Lowering the minimum
requirements does not mean we will accept all of the applicants who pass the
threshold. Faculty members clearly have
a higher standard for admission.
However, the current reality seems to suggest that for some applications
from a certain country (e.g. China), the institutional minimum requirement for
GPA is way higher than a faculty's expectation.
On the other hand, the same requirement is way too low for students from another country. How do we resolve this dilemma? We either improve the grade conversion system, or eliminate the conversion system from the first place and impose country-specific threshold in GPA (example: Carleton).
Neither is easy; but we need to do something.
Since you mentioned other universities' practice, I list below some data that I just collected. By no means are they complete; I just want to give you some facts where R**** stands in terms of admission requirements. I trust you could direct your staff to do more investigation and finally lead YSGS, and our civil program particularly, to healthier development.
Thank you for your attention to this important issue.
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Minimum TOEFL requirements:
- Ryerson 93
- Toronto 93
- Queens 88
- Western 86
- Carleton 86
- Waterloo 80
- McMaster 80
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In terms of GPA requirement, Waterloo sets at 80%
universally. Carleton has a
country-specific requirement. For
students from mainland China, it is 75% for PhD. At R****, it says A- for PhD. And a student
from China with 86% GPA received an equivalent R**** B+. Again, don't forget that 59% in China means a
failure (F) in a course.
Disclaimer: I have no interest whatsoever in getting that
specific Chinese student that I mentioned in this email.
---
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-103568-559038.html
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