在国际生的PhD申请中，GPA重要吗【转帖from Quora】
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最近在Quora读到这个回复，感觉非常棒，转载到地里。原问题是How do graduate admission committees judge marks of previously attained degree of an international applicant? 这篇高分回答来自Jay Wacker (a former professor)。由于本篇回答主要着眼点是在PhD申请上，我擅自改了个中文的标题。
注：如果你懒得看下面这么一大篇，一句话的答案就是 ——（对于PhD申请）GPA没有你想象得那么重要。
This comes from my experience on admissions committees. Unfortunately, we don't have a big book of transcripts from around the world to compare with. (It'd be a really useful to have).
Grade inflation isn't a big problem with international institutions. US universities are definitely struggling with grade inflation much more than international institutions and this has to be taken into account. But grade inflation inside the US isn't uniform, so this is something that you already factor into evaluating grades. Not having familiarity with all the universities that you're evaluating makes the situation challenging, for instance class sizes usually aren't stated and this makes a big difference.
The real problem is that there a dozen different grading schemes used around the world. Few international universities use the 4point (or really 12point) scheme. Even in the US, there is a lot of variation of what a GPA means. Some schools have A+'s that are handed out in a few classes. This means that the maximal GPA isn't a 4.0 any more and an A- can be made up for by an A+. But with international universities, you have a lot that are on 100 point scales, some that rank by percentile, some that give bizarre named grades, some only on full point schemes. It is difficult without personal knowledge of the system. A lot of institutions don't even give cumulative GPAs either
Some information can be gleamed from the transcripts and carefully studying them. May be you have a few students from the same university that you can compare, but usually this will take 20 minutes to evaluate this way and if you're going through 500 applications, this will be the last thing you do if they are on the cusp of admissions. At the early stages of admissions, the GPA just isn't used heavily, but it really isn't for domestic student either.
What is much more useful is looking at the courses and the level the courses were taken at and this is relatively easy to evaluate. You can identify an anomalously low grades in courses that matter by scanning through the transcript in about 30 seconds.[**]
Ultimately, grades play only a partial role in admissions. The list for international students are the following:
To get into the mind of someone on the admissions committee, you should understand that they are more concerned about admitting someone who is under-qualified than not admitting someone who is qualified. One reason is that an under-qualified student is typically a 5 year commitment that costs the department/university between $250k and $400k to educate; however, a qualified student that isn't admitted will probably be admitted at another great university and will work out a-okay for the applicant.
Really, cumulative GPAs are useless in graduate admissions. All As except a C in a general education class is not the same as all As except a C in a major class.
[**] For instance, in some Chinese universities there is a required course on military history/tactics/strategy and frequently I find low grades in that course which I personally don't care about; however, if they got a low grade in electricity and magnetism, that'd be a big problem.
Reference: quora.com
补充内容 (2015-4-25 00:53):
来个留学申请的版主帮我编辑一下？文中有两个【*】的地方被系统自动改成点了。。有点影响阅读
注：如果你懒得看下面这么一大篇，一句话的答案就是 ——（对于PhD申请）GPA没有你想象得那么重要。
This comes from my experience on admissions committees. Unfortunately, we don't have a big book of transcripts from around the world to compare with. (It'd be a really useful to have).
Grade inflation isn't a big problem with international institutions. US universities are definitely struggling with grade inflation much more than international institutions and this has to be taken into account. But grade inflation inside the US isn't uniform, so this is something that you already factor into evaluating grades. Not having familiarity with all the universities that you're evaluating makes the situation challenging, for instance class sizes usually aren't stated and this makes a big difference.
The real problem is that there a dozen different grading schemes used around the world. Few international universities use the 4point (or really 12point) scheme. Even in the US, there is a lot of variation of what a GPA means. Some schools have A+'s that are handed out in a few classes. This means that the maximal GPA isn't a 4.0 any more and an A- can be made up for by an A+. But with international universities, you have a lot that are on 100 point scales, some that rank by percentile, some that give bizarre named grades, some only on full point schemes. It is difficult without personal knowledge of the system. A lot of institutions don't even give cumulative GPAs either
Some information can be gleamed from the transcripts and carefully studying them. May be you have a few students from the same university that you can compare, but usually this will take 20 minutes to evaluate this way and if you're going through 500 applications, this will be the last thing you do if they are on the cusp of admissions. At the early stages of admissions, the GPA just isn't used heavily, but it really isn't for domestic student either.
What is much more useful is looking at the courses and the level the courses were taken at and this is relatively easy to evaluate. You can identify an anomalously low grades in courses that matter by scanning through the transcript in about 30 seconds.[**]
Ultimately, grades play only a partial role in admissions. The list for international students are the following:
- Statement of Purpose
- GRE (particularly subject tests)
- Grades
- Letters
- Research Experience
- TOEFL
To get into the mind of someone on the admissions committee, you should understand that they are more concerned about admitting someone who is under-qualified than not admitting someone who is qualified. One reason is that an under-qualified student is typically a 5 year commitment that costs the department/university between $250k and $400k to educate; however, a qualified student that isn't admitted will probably be admitted at another great university and will work out a-okay for the applicant.
Really, cumulative GPAs are useless in graduate admissions. All As except a C in a general education class is not the same as all As except a C in a major class.
[**] For instance, in some Chinese universities there is a required course on military history/tactics/strategy and frequently I find low grades in that course which I personally don't care about; however, if they got a low grade in electricity and magnetism, that'd be a big problem.
Reference: quora.com
补充内容 (2015-4-25 00:53):
来个留学申请的版主帮我编辑一下？文中有两个【*】的地方被系统自动改成点了。。有点影响阅读
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