QuietPlease said:
sorry i know this is the wrong section but i seldom venture outside the medicine and medical forum section.
i was just wondering if your GPA is your ranking within a certain course/university or if it is just dependant on your individual scores. will a 90 at one uni get you the same GPA as a 90 there at another uni (doing the same couse)?
The GPA is generally calculated as a mark out of 7 (or 4 if you go to macquarie or an american uni). e.g.
HD=7
D=6
C=5
P=4
etc
Each class you take at uni has a certain weighting(also called units), usually either 6 or 3, your GPA is
sum((course grade value)*wieghting)/sum(weighting of each course)
so lets say for your first semester you have:
HD worth 6 units
D worth 3 units
C worith 3 units
P worth 6 units
D worith 6 units
your GPA would be (7*6+6*3+5*3+4*6+6*6)/(6+3+3+6+6)=5.625
on the other had, your WAM is sum((mark you got in course)*(wieghting of course))/sum(weighting of course)
so lets say you get
66 worth 3 units
66 worth 3 units
87 worth 6 units
73 worth 6 units
74 worth 6 units
your WAM would be (66*3+66*3+87*3+73*6+74*6)/(3+3+6+6+6)=75
A 90 WAM is pretty hard to get, in fact I only know 1 maybe 2 people who's WAM are that high, although I did know a few in semester 1, they all went down to high 80s by second semester or second year.
Also, some courses you take will be scaled depending on the difficulty and how well you rank among your peers, but that's only for individual courses(e.g. if you take a higher level math course instead of the normal math course, the higher math course will have more HD and D students than the normal math course)
A WAM of 70 at one uni would generally correlate to the same WAM at another since undergrad courses have very similar content