Out With the Old, in With the 4.0
Jake Rambeau
Issue date: 9/4/08 Section: News
Whether it comes from a job interviewer, high school friend, or relative, we have all been asked the same question, "What's your GPA?" Usually followed by an endless rant about how our school is "different" and how we don't have the traditional 4-point scale like every other university in the nation.
However, recently there has been some hype about Kettering switching to a 4-point GPA grading scale in the near future. In a recent Technician article titled Academic Council Presents: Student Faculty Forum by Alex Brushaber, it is mentioned that Kettering will be making this change in roughly a year. So the question rises: how is this going to affect Kettering and the student body?
In a recent survey of 100 Kettering university A-section students, 44 supported the change, 41 were against it, and 15 were undecided [This wan an unofficial survey conducted by student Jake Rambeau over the course of 8th week].
On one side of the issue there is the "If its not broken, don't fix it" mentality, and some argue that since this is the way Kettering has always done it, there is no point in going through all of the hassle of implementing an entirely new system. Now let us think about the positives. Kettering almost stands alone when it comes to the WGA system. Although it is not unusual for Kettering to be the only of its kind, this is not a good thing for students. First, it affects students that are applying to graduate schools. In order to apply, students must convert their grades to a 4-point scale. Now since this is the first time a Kettering student has ever even seen a 4-point scale at this university, they are completely in the dark about how this scale works, and how exactly Kettering interprets WGA grades into a 4.0 grade. So now all of their classes are being re-graded, and unlike students at other universities, Kettering students don't even know the grading scale until years if not all of their undergraduate grades have already been completed, putting Kettering students at an unfair disadvantage.
However, recently there has been some hype about Kettering switching to a 4-point GPA grading scale in the near future. In a recent Technician article titled Academic Council Presents: Student Faculty Forum by Alex Brushaber, it is mentioned that Kettering will be making this change in roughly a year. So the question rises: how is this going to affect Kettering and the student body?
In a recent survey of 100 Kettering university A-section students, 44 supported the change, 41 were against it, and 15 were undecided [This wan an unofficial survey conducted by student Jake Rambeau over the course of 8th week].
On one side of the issue there is the "If its not broken, don't fix it" mentality, and some argue that since this is the way Kettering has always done it, there is no point in going through all of the hassle of implementing an entirely new system. Now let us think about the positives. Kettering almost stands alone when it comes to the WGA system. Although it is not unusual for Kettering to be the only of its kind, this is not a good thing for students. First, it affects students that are applying to graduate schools. In order to apply, students must convert their grades to a 4-point scale. Now since this is the first time a Kettering student has ever even seen a 4-point scale at this university, they are completely in the dark about how this scale works, and how exactly Kettering interprets WGA grades into a 4.0 grade. So now all of their classes are being re-graded, and unlike students at other universities, Kettering students don't even know the grading scale until years if not all of their undergraduate grades have already been completed, putting Kettering students at an unfair disadvantage.
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Joe Blue
posted 9/25/08 @ 9:32 AM EST
One thing to point out in your last paragraph here is that a WGA is not a percentage. So when you state that Kettering's 3.0 is at an 85% that is not true. (Continued…)
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