Yes, there will be additional presenters for this sessionCommittee: Group II: International Education

First Learning Outcome: Understand that there different accepted ways to convert foreign grades into a US 4.00 GPA, and there is no single correct answer. 

Second Learning Outcome: Learn what the different grade conversion methodologies are, how they are done, and why they may yield different results.

Third Learning Outcome: Know the pros and cons of each method in order to make an informed decision which method should be used at their institution.

Core Competency: Problem Solving

Proficiency: International Proficiencies

Intended Audience: Some Experience in the Profession

HEIs and agencies use myriad different wants to convert foreign grades to a US 4.00 GPA, and even slightly different methods can result in significant differences in the result. For example, should you simply find the overall, final grade in the home country and use some sort of table to compare that result to a US GPA? (But, what if the overall result in that country only includes grades in the final year? Or what if the final result is a single word such as "Good" or "Second Class"??) Or, should you instead convert each individual foreign grade to a US grade and then mathematically calculate a GPA? (But do you weight the grades? What if the foreign transcript has no credits? Do you include failed grades? What if the same course was failed 4 times?) There are a million such questions, and it's a major area of inconsistency among different institutions. In our experience, it's common for those doing the conversion to wonder if they're doing it the "right" way. The intent of the session is to show that there are lots of different ways, each with pros and cons, but that there is no one universally accepted right way. Perhaps instead, the goal should be consistency at your institution and a clear understanding of why you do things the way you do. Our plan is to keep the session fun and interactive. We will have a panel of 4-5 "entrepreneurs" each pitch or sell a method to the audience, explaining how it's done, and why it should earn their vote. We plan to use some type of real-time smartphone voting to allow audience feedback- which method they use, and perhaps which method they wish they could use.

Presenter(s): 

Christopher Adams Indiana University