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GRADE POINT CALCULATIONS
The following procedure is followed to determine whether a student
has obtained sufficient credits to graduate with an associate or
bachelor degree.
Every course is assigned a certain number of credit hours or
units, determined by the duration and intensity of the course. Most
year courses count 12 units. A one semester course (1/2 of a year)
usually carries 6 units, and so forth.
A student needs to pass a total of 108 units to obtain an
associate degree, and an additional 96 for a bachelor degree, making
a total of 204 units. In case of a good associate performance, (that
is a associate gradepoint average of 2.50 or more, as explained
below), the bachelor requirement goes down to 84, or 192 total. Also
note that failed courses, including withdrawals, incompletes, repeats
and audits do not add up to the total unit requirement.
At the end of the course, the instructor will assign to every
registered student a grade, according to a fair scheme, which should
be explained to the students at the begin of the course. Grades run
from 0% (absolutely bad) to 100% (absolutely perfect). However a
lettergrade, A (excellent), B (good), C (average), D (below average),
or F (fail) will appear on the student's transcript, adjusted with
'+' or '-' according to the following scheme:
|
percents
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lettergrade
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gradepoints
|
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0...59
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F
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0.0
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60...62
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D-
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1.0
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63...66
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D
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1.3
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67...69
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D+
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1.7
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70...72
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C-
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2.0
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73...76
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C
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2.3
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77...79
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C+
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2.7
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80...82
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B-
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3.0
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83...86
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B
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3.3
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87...89
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B+
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3.7
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90...92
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A-
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3.9
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93...97
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A
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4.0
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98...100
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A+
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4.0
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A course is deemed to have been passed with a 60% or more grade.
Once the lettergrade is given, the number of gradepoints directly
follows from it. A student needs an average of 2.00 gradepoints or
more (C- or better) to graduate for an associate degree and 2.50 or
more (between C and C+) to graduate for a bachelor degree.
The used formula for the grade point average (GPA) = sum of (grade
points x units) / sum of units
In this formula the sums are taken over all attempted courses,
failed or passed. However withdrawals, audit courses and repeated
courses are excluded.
Example
A student takes the following 2 courses and obtains the results as
shown:
|
course title
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units
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grade
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total gradepoints
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Tongan dance practice & theory
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4
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B+
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4 x 3.7 = 14.8
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Difficult academic concepts
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12
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D
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12 x 1.3 = 15.6
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total units
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16
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total gradepoints
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30.4
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Ignoring the total unit requirement for the moment, the grade point
average therefore is 30.4 / 16 = 1.90, which is not sufficient to
graduate. Also note that a bad grade in a major course (one with many
units) is not fully offset by a good grade in a minor course.
Now imagine that this student takes another course and fails
it:
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Tongan philosophy before ‘Aho‘eitu
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12
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F
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12 x 0.0 = 0.0
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total units
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28
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total gradepoints
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30.4
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The gradepoint average now becomes 30.4 / 28 = 1.09. It can be seen
that since a F grade does not add anything to the total gradepoints,
but does add to the total units, it usually is very detrimental to
the gradepoint average. Students are urged to avoid getting
insufficient for any course.
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