BF2S Forums EEChats - April

Jay wrote:

Pochsy wrote:

What's the conversion system you're using? In Canada you can't get a 4.0CGPA unless you achieve at least an 85 in every single class you take, which is near impossible. Even our Rhodes Scholars only get around 3.8s on average (with a huge amount of extra circulars and work experience).

I only have a 3.9. Total failure in Uzique's eyes.

85!?

85 gets you a 3.0 in the states.

And they probably hand them out like candy. Here an 85 is actually an achievement.

Uzique wrote:

Pochsy wrote:

What's the conversion system you're using? In Canada you can't get a 4.0CGPA unless you achieve at least an 85 in every single class you take, which is near impossible. Even our Rhodes Scholars only get around 3.8s on average (with a huge amount of extra circulars and work experience).

I only have a 3.9. Total failure in Uzique's eyes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_un … omparisons

I averaged 76 overall. One of my papers that I did under one of the world's foremost Conrad scholars netted me an 86, which is the equivalent of a double-starred first at Oxbridge (I won a prize and some money for it). So yes, you are an irredeemable failure to me.

I'm just kidding, but seriously it seems like a midway 3-something GPA is the equivalent to a 'decent' degree over here. Add that to the fact that this is the general impression of things in academia:

_{As an American who studied in the US before undertaking her D.Phil and teaching at Oxford between 1994 and 2001, I'd like to make a few observations.
    Firstly, the amount of material studied at the undergraduate level in one's general subject area (i.e., English, history, classics, etc.) is much more thorough in the UK. While the advantage of an American education involves a broader, more comprehensive acquaintance of areas outside his/her general subject area, the corresponding disadvantage is that one obtains less knowledge within.
    In fact, on the occasions that I've shown copies of university finals to American college/uni instructors, their first remark was that British finals greatly resemble the comprehensives taken by American GRADUATE students at the end of their second year. (Comps determine whether you proceed to the Ph.D.--or not.) American instructors will also stand aghast when they are told that undergrads are expected to produce a 6000 word essay--WITHOUT supervision--in 2 weeks' time after 6 weeks of guided preparation by a tutor.
    Secondly, the manner in which student work is assessed in the UK is considerably different, with the particular distinction that examinations are not only submitted partly anonymously, with names replaced by candidate numbers, but ALSO marked by at least 2 different faculty members within the university and one outside of it. At American universities, exams and papers at are graded by the instructor teaching the class. Moreover, given the increasingly prevailing customer ethos in the US, there is far more grade inflation as well. Whereas firsts (summa cum laude) comprise about a quarter of the paper grades in Oxbridge, the equivalent in the US--an A--comprises nearly 45% of all grades.
    As such, given the level of knowledge expected for graduate study in the UK, or at least at Oxbridge, many Americans end up dropping out or being booted out--including those from the Ivies and other comparable elite universities. (I was fortunate not to be casualty!) This is a problem compounded by the fact that there is less "hand-holding" in the UK; you are expected to research and arrive at your own thesis topic independently. Sink or swim.}

- and I'd really stop worrying.

sounds like an america-hater.

Uzique wrote:

Jay wrote:

Pochsy wrote:

What's the conversion system you're using? In Canada you can't get a 4.0CGPA unless you achieve at least an 85 in every single class you take, which is near impossible. Even our Rhodes Scholars only get around 3.8s on average (with a huge amount of extra circulars and work experience).

I only have a 3.9. Total failure in Uzique's eyes.

85!?

85 gets you a 3.0 in the states.

A mark of 85, I imagine. Not the same as 80%. A 70 is pretty much the ceiling in the British mark-system (which I presume they use in Canada). Anything over a 70 is just the marker/Professor unnecessarily lavishing you with brownie-points and award-stars, because a 70 is the absolute top grade attainable (except for double-starred Firsts, which are rare and only actually granted by Oxbridge)

Our system uses 90 as your 70. Anything above 90 is pretty well all the same class of top-notch work.

Jay wrote:

Pochsy wrote:

What's the conversion system you're using? In Canada you can't get a 4.0CGPA unless you achieve at least an 85 in every single class you take, which is near impossible. Even our Rhodes Scholars only get around 3.8s on average (with a huge amount of extra circulars and work experience).

I only have a 3.9. Total failure in Uzique's eyes.

85!?

85 gets you a 3.0 in the states.

Here in aussie land anything above a 75 is like an A in the US and 85 is like an A+, depending on the course.

maintaining an 85+ is damn near impossible lol.

Pochsy wrote:

Jay wrote:

Pochsy wrote:

What's the conversion system you're using? In Canada you can't get a 4.0CGPA unless you achieve at least an 85 in every single class you take, which is near impossible. Even our Rhodes Scholars only get around 3.8s on average (with a huge amount of extra circulars and work experience).

I only have a 3.9. Total failure in Uzique's eyes.

85!?

85 gets you a 3.0 in the states.

And they probably hand them out like candy. Here an 85 is actually an achievement.

Well, we don't have an arbitrary cutoff line, no. At least at none of the schools I attended. They used the whole 100 point scale. I wouldn't say making the cutoff at 85 makes the classes or grading system any more difficult, it just makes conversion to American GPA's require an extra step, shrug.

Jay wrote:

Pochsy wrote:

Jay wrote:

85!?

85 gets you a 3.0 in the states.

And they probably hand them out like candy. Here an 85 is actually an achievement.

Well, we don't have an arbitrary cutoff line, no. At least at none of the schools I attended. They used the whole 100 point scale. I wouldn't say making the cutoff at 85 makes the classes or grading system any more difficult, it just makes conversion to American GPA's require an extra step, shrug.

Pretty much. Just a different scaling system when it comes to grades.

Jay wrote:

Pochsy wrote:

Jay wrote:

85!?

85 gets you a 3.0 in the states.

And they probably hand them out like candy. Here an 85 is actually an achievement.

Well, we don't have an arbitrary cutoff line, no. At least at none of the schools I attended. They used the whole 100 point scale. I wouldn't say making the cutoff at 85 makes the classes or grading system any more difficult, it just makes conversion to American GPA's require an extra step, shrug.

... but it doesn't really, does it? A 100 implies a 'perfect' paper/thesis, which is clearly impossible (especially in the arts/humanities). 70 is the top grade barrier, and that implies a piece of work in the top 5% of the class, normally (though papers aren't marked proportional/relative to class numbers). If you can get something scored (by 2 independent Professors from two separate universities, may I add, for us in the UK) above a 75+ here, you can consider it for publication in a proper academic, peer-reviewed journal, i.e. academic career goldmine. A 70 translates to a 4.0GPA in that it's generally the highest mark ever given... as I said. Very rarely will a paper be marked above a 70 (which is effectively the undergraduate 100%), except where the marker(s) want to award some extra praise

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Uzique wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

sounds like an america-hater.

Well she took her BA and MA at Harvard and then came over here where the funding is much less... as is the pay. So she must have found the American education system lacking something.

probably lacking dudes that want to spelunk in her cobwebbed, furry, cavernous peehole

She's actually pretty hot. Funniest thing is that her second name, get this... is English. Yep, couldn't make it up.

The D.E.N.N.I.S System wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SWgAKfxTnE

You haven't been banned. \o/

We got Uzi and Marine back in the same day.

Pochsy wrote:

Jay wrote:

Pochsy wrote:

What's the conversion system you're using? In Canada you can't get a 4.0CGPA unless you achieve at least an 85 in every single class you take, which is near impossible. Even our Rhodes Scholars only get around 3.8s on average (with a huge amount of extra circulars and work experience).

I only have a 3.9. Total failure in Uzique's eyes.

85!?

85 gets you a 3.0 in the states.

And they probably hand them out like candy. Here an 85 is actually an achievement.

Ive gotten 2 or 3 80s in my ~30 courses so far here.  90 is so far from possible i dont understand how people do it (other than the ones in the library 24/7)

just got my 5th promotion in 4 years.  MOTHERFUCKERS!

almost a year to the day after my last promotion.  Call me Ken Jefferson, 'cause this cracka movin on up!

Winston_Churchill wrote:

Pochsy wrote:

Jay wrote:

85!?

85 gets you a 3.0 in the states.

And they probably hand them out like candy. Here an 85 is actually an achievement.

Ive gotten 2 or 3 80s in my ~30 courses so far here.  90 is so far from possible i dont understand how people do it (other than the ones in the library 24/7)

I've gotten 4 or 5 papers with grades in the 90s, but beyond that I score mid 80s on everything else. My lowest course grade was a 79 in classics in first year.