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CASPA GPA Calculation Checker


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hello fellow pre-PAers-

 

i made a little spreadsheet for me to check the GPAs that CASPA calculated. i'm sharing with you guys in case any of you might find it useful. it's not a bad way to make sure you agree with CASPA, and to see how certain grades affect your different GPAs.

 

to use it, you'll need to do the following:

 

1) download opera http://www.opera.com. for some reason pasting out of firefox3 or IE8 doesn't work for me.

 

2) using opera, login to CASPA

 

3) in your coursework on CASPA, copy out your classes, and paste them into Columns B-H of the 'Courses' sheet in the excel workbook. you may need to copy and paste semester by semester. i've copied the first one just as an example.

 

4) correctly fill in Column A of the 'Courses' sheet with the appropriate grade level (e.g. Fresh, Soph, Junior, etc.)

 

5) in the 'GPA' sheet, you should now see all your CASPA GPAs!

 

let me know if you have any questions, or if you find any errors.

 

thanks!

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  • 3 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Guest DanyelleS

I got it to open with firefox. I just tried to use it though and it is a protected file so you cannot edit it. If you try to make it unprotected it asks for a password...

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I got it to open with firefox. I just tried to use it though and it is a protected file so you cannot edit it. If you try to make it unprotected it asks for a password...

 

the only cells that are editable are in the 'Courses' tab. i just tried it again and it seems to work.

 

the reason i pointed out to use opera, is that you can cut and paste from the caspa website into excel using opera. i wasn't successful using firefox and ie, but it's been awhile.

 

let me know if you have any issues!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Okay, I have another question. I repeated a course, due to life, so I put the class into the spreadsheet and did as the CASPA site states below. The thing is it is not calculating the section correctly.

 

It shows the "P/CR/AP and Total", but it does not show the "hours, GPA and <2.0", if needed. Can someone please help? Am I doing this right? I did put repeat for both the W and the A. :confused:

 

 

Thank you in advance.

 

-Steph

 

 

CASPA states:

Q: How do I list repeated courses?

 

A: If you repeated a course, enter both courses into the coursework section. Include the hours and grades received for each and enter "Repeat" as the course type for both courses. Even if your school offers a forgiveness policy, CASPA will calculate both grades into your GPA.

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I am not sure how this calculator works...but if you repeat a class that you received an actual grade for A-F then it is calculated. if it is a W it is not calculated either as a grade or as credits. after extensive discussion on these boards and contacting CASPA, it was determined that the W equals 0 on the grade point and 0 on credits attempted therefore it is not calculated at all...although you are required to show it because it is on your transcript.

Heme and others...this is what we all figured out right? correct me if I am wrong....

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Okay, I have another question. I repeated a course, due to life, so I put the class into the spreadsheet and did as the CASPA site states below. The thing is it is not calculating the section correctly.

 

It shows the "P/CR/AP and Total", but it does not show the "hours, GPA and <2.0", if needed. Can someone please help? Am I doing this right? I did put repeat for both the W and the A. :confused:

 

 

Thank you in advance.

 

-Steph

 

 

CASPA states:

Q: How do I list repeated courses?

 

A: If you repeated a course, enter both courses into the coursework section. Include the hours and grades received for each and enter "Repeat" as the course type for both courses. Even if your school offers a forgiveness policy, CASPA will calculate both grades into your GPA.

 

Steph4, thanks for catching these errors. i have added in the formulas for <2.0. however, do you know if it's supposed to be <=2.0 or just <2.0? for example, would a grade of C go in this bucket? right now the sheet reflects only <2.0.

 

also, you are correct about the "Repeat" issue...my apologies. for the time being, you'll just have to flip them to "Regular" in the spreadsheet for it to calculate correctly. sorry for the inconvenience :(

 

let me know if you have any other questions!

 

-edit-

btw, are you pasting from the webpage? or manually inputting things? if you want, you can email me your spreadsheet and i can try to figure out what the issue might be with the hours and GPA. i just pm-ed you

Edited by GeneValgene
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I am not sure how this calculator works...but if you repeat a class that you received an actual grade for A-F then it is calculated. if it is a W it is not calculated either as a grade or as credits. after extensive discussion on these boards and contacting CASPA, it was determined that the W equals 0 on the grade point and 0 on credits attempted therefore it is not calculated at all...although you are required to show it because it is on your transcript.

Heme and others...this is what we all figured out right? correct me if I am wrong....

 

Prospective PA, i think that is correct. W is not calculated at all. if you cut and paste from the CASPA webpage, it will put in "None" for the grade for each "W". in the spreadsheet, as long as the CASPA Grade column does not show "None", it will include it in the calculation.

 

attached is a new sheet with a minor tweak.

 

thanks for testing this out y'all!

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  • 1 month later...

hello all!

 

i just made a newer one, that seems to be compatible with google chrome and ie8. however, firefox still does not work.

 

this is a work in progress, so all the feedback you give is appreciated.

 

here's how to use the spreadsheet:

 

  1. login to CASPA
     
  2. in your coursework on CASPA, copy out your classes, and paste them into Columns B-H of the 'Courses' sheet in the excel workbook. you will need to copy and paste semester by semester.
     
  3. correctly fill in Column A of the 'Courses' sheet with the appropriate grade level (e.g. Fresh, Soph, Junior, etc.)
     
  4. press the Calculate GPA button

 

some important notes

 

  • make sure you are using either internet explorer 8, opera, or google chrome as a web browser (firefox does not work!!). if you do not want to cut and paste, you can always fill in the information manually.
     
  • make sure macros are enabled. the spreadsheet will not work if your security settings are too high, or if you do not enable macros.
     
  • GPA calculations are not automatic. you must press the update or calculate button
     
  • always check for the latest version by scrolling to the newest posts on this thread
     
  • please report any errors you find, or if you have any suggestions
     
  • the P/CR/AP column probably is not correct at the moment

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Pretty cool tool. One more feature enhancement request: Can it be made accurate for those who have both quarter and semester hours? As is, I can do the calculations manually before entering the grades, so not a big deal

 

can you explain the calculations you are doing manually? i haven't tested the quarter hours, but just played with it a little bit in CASPA and haven't noticed what differences the quarter system will make.

 

if you can give me an idea, i should be able to add it in :)

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  • Administrator

A quarter hour is 2/3rds of a semester hour, and CASPA renders things in semester hours. Thus: 1q = 0.67s 2q = 1.33s 3q = 2.00s 4q = 2.67s 5q = 3.33s 6q = 4.00s, etc. This makes a difference primarily in how the GPA for the different sort of hours is calculated. If someone had low quarter GPA and high semester GPA, then their overall GPA will be calculated (by the current iteration of the spreadsheet) lower than CASPA will. Same problem in reverse if quarter GPA is higher than semester.

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  • Administrator

I've been messing with your approach and playing around with a bit of my own. Here's some more things that yours doesn't do that I'm tempted to code myself:

  • Tracking courses by term, year, and school. I've had several terms where I've been enrolled in more than one school, so I'd like to have a good way to look at things broken down by term.
  • Calculating cGPA, sGPA, et. al. after each term, much like some transcripts do. That is, for each term, I'd like to not just see what that term's GPA was (I can do that in my head most times...) but also see how each term affected the cumulative GPA scores. This will be useful for trending. Actually, what I really want to do is figure out how much I've pulled up my science GPA since last year's application process.
  • Ideally, I'm going to break down subjects (English, Math, etc.) by level (Fresh, Soph, cum. undergrad, etc.) more than CASPA does. All the data's already in there... why not slice it a few more ways? :-)

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I've been messing with your approach and playing around with a bit of my own. Here's some more things that yours doesn't do that I'm tempted to code myself:

  • Tracking courses by term, year, and school. I've had several terms where I've been enrolled in more than one school, so I'd like to have a good way to look at things broken down by term.
  • Calculating cGPA, sGPA, et. al. after each term, much like some transcripts do. That is, for each term, I'd like to not just see what that term's GPA was (I can do that in my head most times...) but also see how each term affected the cumulative GPA scores. This will be useful for trending. Actually, what I really want to do is figure out how much I've pulled up my science GPA since last year's application process.
  • Ideally, I'm going to break down subjects (English, Math, etc.) by level (Fresh, Soph, cum. undergrad, etc.) more than CASPA does. All the data's already in there... why not slice it a few more ways? :-)

 

feel free to have at it! originally the intent was to create exactly what CASPA gives back to you after calculating GPAs as a quick check to see if you agree with them. feel free to mod it however you want! if it works well, share it with the community :)

 

in terms of the quarters, i just wanted to clarify since i didn't have quarters in my system. looking at the CASPA coursework table, are you saying that the quality points for a particular course does not equal 'Credits' x 'Numeric Grade'? or for one quarter is it 0.67 x 'Credits' x 'Numeric Grade'? don't you manually specify the number of credit hours when you input the courses (e.g. i see 0.67 as a choice in the drop down)?

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Yes, a quarter credit is 0.67 of a semester credit both for cumulative hours (e.g., an associate degree is often 60 semester hours or 90 quarter hours) and in terms of quality points. For example take two courses, 1) English, 3 semester hours, C. 2) Math, 5 quarter hours, A. So if you treated the quarter and semester hours the same that would be 3x2+5x4/8... or 3.25 GPA. In reality it's 3x2 +3.33x4/6.33 = 3.05 GPA. 0.2 GPA is a pretty big difference. In many cases, where GPA's from quarter and semester hours are similar, it doesn't make a big difference. In my case, I'm doing my post-bacc work (3.98) in a quarter system, and my undergrad (3.2ish) was done in a semester system. More significantly, I have only a few BCP courses on a semester system, and a lot more in a quarter system, so if I stuck 'em all together like that I'd REALLY artificially inflate my science GPA.

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version notes

0.7 - added quarter support (calculations need verification)

0.6 - added chrome and ie8 support

 

here's how to use the spreadsheet:

  1. login to CASPA
  2. in your coursework on CASPA, copy out your classes, and paste them into Columns B-H of the 'Courses' sheet in the excel workbook. you will need to copy and paste semester by semester.
  3. correctly fill in Column A of the 'Courses' sheet with the appropriate grade level (e.g. Fresh, Soph, Junior, etc.)
  4. correctly fill in Column J of the 'Courses' sheet with either Semester or Quarter
  5. press the Calculate GPA button

 

some important notes

  • make sure you are using either internet explorer 8, opera, or google chrome as a web browser (firefox does not work!!). if you do not want to cut and paste, you can always fill in the information manually.
  • make sure macros are enabled. the spreadsheet will not work if your security settings are too high, or if you do not enable macros.
  • GPA calculations are not automatic. you must press the update or calculate button
  • always check for the latest version by scrolling to the newest posts on this thread
  • please report any errors you find, or if you have any suggestions
  • the P/CR/AP column probably is not correct at the moment

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Guest JohnR
in terms of the quarters, i just wanted to clarify since i didn't have quarters in my system. looking at the CASPA coursework table, are you saying that the quality points for a particular course does not equal 'Credits' x 'Numeric Grade'? or for one quarter is it 0.67 x 'Credits' x 'Numeric Grade'? don't you manually specify the number of credit hours when you input the courses (e.g. i see 0.67 as a choice in the drop down)?

 

When you enter the session in CASPA, in the session type you indicate if it's a semester or quarter. Then when you enter the classes, you enter the full credits for the class. CASPA makes the .67 adjustment when it caclulates your GPAs.

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