PNU GPA Formula Revision Boosts Grad School Chances
PNU has revised its GPA conversion formula to produce more precise scores, which leads to more graduate school admissions.
Driven by the revised GPA (Grade Point Average) percentile conversion formula, students at Pusan National University (PNU) can receive higher scores in the graduate school admission process than before, starting this year. This comes a year after the 56th General Students’ Association (GSA) P:New had pledged it as one of campaign promises.
On January 7th, PNU announced a partial amendment to the academic operation regulations. This amendment included the revision of the GPA percentile conversion formula. Although the 56th GSA P:New had highlighted this project as a major campaign promise, it took a year to implement due to ongoing discussions and reviews as said on “Channel PNU” on August 30th, 2024.
The “percentile conversion score (GPA score)” is a standard created to compare different grading systems across universities. According to the revision of “Article 32 (Calculation of Grade Point Average)” of PNU Academic Regulations, the revised percentile conversion formula is set to be applied to the “GPA score,” which converts the grade point average to a 100-point scale, starting the first semester of the 2025 academic year. The grade point average is calculated by multiplying each course grade by its corresponding credit hours and dividing the sum by the total number of credit hours. The result is rounded to the second decimal place and converted to a 100-point scale according to the “Actual Score Conversion Criteria Table.”
Under this change, the grading system will be subdivided. The pre-revision conversion method had set “GPA scores” by intervals, meaning that different grade points within the same interval were treated equally. For example, Student A and Student B have a GPA of 4.01 and 4.09 respectively which shows a difference of 0.08 in their GPAs, but they fell under the same interval as they were converted to the 95 point. However, according to this amendment, the GPA is now retained up to the second decimal place. Using the above example, a GPA of 4.01 would calculate to 95.1, while 4.09 would be 95.9.
The main reasons for this revision arose from student demands and unreasonableness of traditional GPAs where students belonging to the same interval received the same GPA score. The GPA Conversion Regulation Amendment Survey conducted by the previous General Student Association(GSA) showed that the method of calculating GPA is unfavorable and needs revision and discussions within the Office of Academic Affairs to largely reflect student demands. An official from the Office of Academic Affairs stated, “The previous system had the same percentile conversion standard for each interval, which was inequitable,” adding, “It has changed to a more detailed conversion standard, resulting in more specific scores.”
With this revision, the GPA scores of PNU students, which were disadvantageous compared to other universities, are expected to improve somewhat. As can be seen in the report of “Channel PNU” on March 22nd, 2024, the converted scores were lower than those of other universities with the same grade points when applying the existing “Actual Score Conversion Criteria Table” of PNU. However, with this revision, overall GPA scores are expected to increase.
It is anticipated that higher scores enable PNU students to have relatively easy access to admission to the Graduate School of Law (GSL) because most law schools apply the conversion formulas of universities that applicants graduated from when reflecting undergraduate academic performance. PNU Student A (Graduate School of Law, 25), who was admitted to PNU GSL this year, said, “In the case of GSL, even 0.1 GPA points are valuable. The revision significantly benefits PNU students who are applying to law schools.”
Reporter Hwang Ju-Won
Translated by Thadar-Soe