GPA when changing from trimesters to semesters

David Weisbord

Good Morning,

We are in the process of switching from trimesters to semesters. In our old trimester system, a full year course was 6 credits and a trimester long course was 2 credits.

In our new semester setup, a full-year course would be 4 credits and a semester course would be 2 credits (there are also some required electives, which would be 2 credits for the entire year).

If you have done a transition like this before, how have you worked through the credit balancing calculation during the transition years when students will have both old and new credit systems on their transcripts so the old 6 credit year long trimester courses do not receive more weight then the new 4 credit year long semester classes?

We do not weight any courses so everything is an unweighted GPA.

Thanks for any help/insight you can provide on this.

Kristen Duval

@David Weisbord
I have a few recommendations. But first need to know if the Final Grade for a trimester long course in a prior year should count the same towards the GPA as the Final Grade for a semester long course going forward?

David Weisbord

@Kristen Duval Thanks. Yes, the final grade for a trimester long course in a prior year can count the same towards the GPA as the final grade in a semester course moving forward.

Kristen Duval

@David Weisbord
In that case, I would recommend setting the ALT GPA weight at the course level, if you're not already utilizing that field for any other purposes. I would set the Alt GPA Weight for Semester long courses and prior year trimester courses to .50. I would then set the Alt Weight for year long courses to 1.

Using “sum((GPA equivalent 1) * Credits Earned) / sum(Credits Attempted)” will not calculate the GPA accurately as you mentioned. But you could set your formula as follows: sum((GPA equivalent 1 * Alt. Weight)) / sum(Sum of Alt Weights). That way, year long course grades (current and prior year) are counted equally in the GPA calculation. Trimester and Semester course grades (current and prior year) are also counted equally in the GPA calculation and only counted at half the value as a year long course.

Optional: I would also recommend creating a new grade translation table for the new courses. It might be identical to the grade translation table you're currently using, but it will give you some additional options that you're able to customize for the next school year only, if for any reason the Alt Weight approach I mentioned above does not satisfy all of your calculating needs.

David Weisbord

@Kristen Duval Thank you! Appreciate your help! For the alt weight on the full year courses would we be adding the 1 to all past and current full year courses or just the new full year courses that started this year on semesters?

The other option we are discussing is would it make more sense/be clearer to just go back to our old 6 credit count with the semesters.

We currently only run an official gpa at the end of the school year but if we were to start a point in time semester run, would this solution work for that also? Thanks again!

Kristen Duval

@David Weisbord
You're very welcome!

You would want to update the Alt Weights for courses in both the upcoming school year, as well as in prior years so that you can calculate a cumulative GPA that will not be inflated in prior years, when year long courses were 6 credits vs. future years with year long courses being worth 4 credits.

If you're able to keep the 6 credit count per year, that would certainly be more clear. At that point, would Semester long courses be worth 3 credits? If so, you wouldn't need any custom GPA calculations. I imagine that it would also making graduation requirements easier to track and you wouldn't need multiple “Diploma” types in Blackbaud, if that is a feature that you're utilizing.

Oona McKnight

@Kristen Duval
Hi Kristen, do you mean sum((GPA equivalent 1 * Credits Earned)) / sum(Sum of Alt Weights)?

I am also trying to figure this out, going from 1-term (semester) courses (1 credit) to 3-term (out of 7 terms) courses (3 credits) for courses that will count the same toward the GPA.