A reader who teaches philosophy in Asia writes:
One of my students, who is currently studying at a university in East Asia and who is applying for graduate study in North America this year, was required by one institution to submit a GPA evaluation together with their other documents, presumably to allow for more objective comparisons between GPAs from different countries or institutions. In this case, the evaluation was done by the World Education Service (WES). Perhaps there are other such services that are also sometimes used, I do not know. WES evaluated the student's GPA as being 0.1 points higher than the original; the original GPA is 3.83/4, the WES figure is 3.93/4. Now I am wondering whether I should perhaps recommend using this service to other students.
My relatively uninformed expectation would be that country differences alone mean that, for example, GPAs from my student's country may generally be upgraded by WES. One issue is money. The evaluation service itself costs around $150, and having an official copy delivered costs another $50 or so per delivery. But I am guessing that, for applications that do not require a WES evaluation, students could just put the WES figure on the CV, perhaps also add a non-certified copy of the evaluation document, and, in this way, potentially benefit from the WES evaluation with respect to all their applications, without paying too much extra (considering the total cost of making applications for graduate study in North America).
The more important issue seems to me to be the following. Will WES-adjusted GPAs tend to help students or not? For example, should my student state the WES-adjusted 3.93/4 or rather the original 3.83/4 on their CV? In general, how do graduate admissions committees in North America treat GPAs from other countries?
Comments are open for those with relevant experience with either WES or the general question about how programs interpret foreign GPAs.
