Overheard in Committee: The Trilogy Edition
Admit It! The last few weeks of March are the hardest. Decision notification dates seem so close yet so far. As we continue our committee process and come closer to completing the Class of 2015 we want to pass along some of the discussions we have behind closed doors to applicants and parents so that you might understand the depth of our process. And never fear transfer applicants, I will try to include a series of Overheard in Transfer Committee blogs come late April.
Overheard in committee today: “What’s the grading scale?”
There are many reasons W&M doesn’t have an average GPA for its applicants. Among them is the fact that grading scales are so different. We have seen 10-point scales (where 90 – 100 is an A, 80-89 is a B, etc.), eight-point scales (where 92-100 is an A, 84-91 is a B, etc.), and some scales that seemingly defy logic (where 88-100 is an A, 82-87 is a B, 72-81 is a C…you’d have to be an advanced mathematician to figure out the logic behind that one). So, if number and letter grades are provided, it helps us give context to a student’s performance. While we recognize that students are aware of their high school’s grading scale and the requirements set forth to achieve particular grades, we feel that someone who earned a grade of C with a numeric equivalent of an 83 has likely put forth more effort than the student who earned a C with a numeric equivalent of 70.
Additionally, how grades are weighted/pointed also comes into play. For example, in some school systems, students are given more weight for pluses and less weight for minuses whereas in other school systems an A is an A regardless of whether there’s a minus or plus after it. For example, at some schools a B is given a 3.0, a B- a 2.7 and a B+ a 3.3. At other schools all three grades receive the same 3.0 points. Still elsewhere students are given extra points for an A+ (say a 4.2 instead of a 4.0) causing students with only one B on their transcript to be outside of the top 10%. We take those grading scales, point systems, and school environments into context when evaluating a student’s grades, GPA, and class rank if provided.
While I may be running out of movie-themed subtitles for this series of blogs (though I was extremely proud of my Charlie Sheen Part Deux reference last week), I promise more are forthcoming (if you have ideas for subtitles, please feel free to leave them in the comments).
Until then…back to Committee for me.
Wendy Livingston, ’03, M.Ed. ’09
Senior Assistant Dean of Admission
Comments are closed on posts older than one year, but we still want to hear from you. If you have a comment or question for us, please email admission@wm.edu.
Yes the variety of grading scales must be daunting. To add to the issue, my son’s school changed the grading scale part way thru his 4 years. I’m sure you all just love when they do that! Thanks for this blog and all you do to keep parents and students informed!
If we are lucky enough to have recieved a W&M scholarship, would we be notified by now? Has that information been delivered yet?
Robert,
Scholarship recipients were notified by mail and that mailing left our office on Wednesday, March 9 so chances are you would have received that information by now. While we will award a few more scholarships as our process winds down, 99% of scholarship recipients have been notified at this point.
The bulk of our decisions however have not been deployed. Those will be sent by email in early April at the latest. As soon as we have an exact date we will post that to our website, blog, and other social media outlets.
Admit it!’
Hello, my question is: Do the scholarship recipients that have already being notified by mail are only
Freshman?
Thank you for creating this blog!
Carolina, unfortunately we don’t have scholarships for transfer applicants so only freshman applicants receive scholarships and most of those that will receive a scholarship have been notified by mail. The bulk of our freshman regular decision notifications will be released in the coming weeks. Transfer applicants will be notified in late April via email.
Need-based aid (Financial Aid) is available for freshman and transfer applicants and award notifications are sent about a week after those who are admitted received their decision.
Cathy,
Sorry for taking a few days to respond. Your comment got held up for a few days by accident in our online system.
Guessing you live in Fairfax, Loudoun, Spotsylvania or another district in that area. Those school systems were great about keeping schools informed of the grading school changes and we worked with their transcripts accordingly.
Titles. We have the first, part deux, and the trilogy edition.
Go with a prequel?
Danny, prequel is a great thought. Depending on how many itterations of this blog we do we’ll definitely utilize the prequel