Students give universities an F — or a 60 — for grade conversions

Social Affairs

Published: 21 Apr. 2023, 13:22 Updated: 21 Apr. 2023, 16:19

Students give universities an F — or a 60 — for grade conversions

Chungnam National University students study for the midterms at the school library in Daejeon in April 2022. [NEWS1]

Hodgepodge conversions of traditional grade point averages, based on the A-to-F convention, to a 100-point-percent scale is creating a storm of discontent among some students.

In Korea, many businesses and law schools look at the converted grades, which read in terms of percent, for a “fair” comparison of academic performance .

“A Yonsei University student earns a higher percent grade even if he gets the same letter grade as mine,” said a 21-year-old Korea University student on Thursday, a few days prior to midterm exams.

“Schools applying different conversion systems leave students feeling resentful.”

Korea University changed its conversion standard from the spring semester this year due to complaints from students who argue that the tough conversion leaves them at a disadvantage when applying for jobs or graduate school.

An A letter grade converted to 94.3 points last year, but now it converts to 95. A B+, which was 88.6 previously, is now 90.

Yonsei University raised its letter grade conversion from the fall semester last year. An A converted to 97.7 points, up 1.7 points compared to the previous term.

University of Seoul and Kyung Hee University also adjusted their conversion system to raise percent grades by about 2 points. Other universities, including Seoul National University, Sungkyunkwan University, Hanyang University and Ewha Womans University, are reportedly in the process of changing the conversion formula as well.

The fact that competitive graduate schools evaluate applicants grades based on the 100-point scale has some miffed and ticked.

Percent grades and Legal Education Eligibility Test scores are the two determinants for law school admission in Korea. With schools upping conversion grades in unison, the difference between an acceptance and a rejection is a matter of a single point.

Students are “sensitive to the conversion scores because the competition for major law schools and companies rises every year,” said the 21-year-old Korea University student.

A university professor teaches an online lecture during the Covid-19 pandemic in September 2020. [JOONGANG ILBO]

“GPA inflation” worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbating the grade-increase problem. The percentage of A-grade students surged with schools opting for absolute grading as online classes became the norm.

In spring 2021, 48.6 percent of undergraduates received an A-, A or A+ grades on average, according to the Korean Council for University Education. In 2019, 34.6 percent were A-students.

The grade inflation had some universities with more A-grade students than others. At Yonsei University, 65.3 percent of its undergraduated were A-students, followed by Seoul National University, at 64 percent, and Korea University, at 59 percent.

“Students feel it’s unfair to receive different percent grades for the same GPA,” said Park Namgi, an education professor at Gwangju National University of Education.

One faculty member of a private university in Seoul also pointed out that universities raising the conversion grades to beat competing universities will diminish the distinction and credibility of grades.

The Ministry of Education is stuck in a deadlock because the law on higher education stipulates that schools can administer their grading systems at their own discretion.

“The ministry can’t tell schools how to grade their students because autonomy in school management must be guaranteed,” a spokesperson for the Education Ministry said.

Instead, the ministry began consulting with law schools to see if applying a common conversion standard for admission is possible, added the spokesperson.

“Without a social consensus, inflation in the GPA and grade conversions will worsen as schools go after a no-loss scenario,” Park said.

BY LEE HOO-YEON [sohn.dongjoo@joongang.co.kr]