GPA Calculations (Settings)

Path

Main Menu - Settings - Institution - Academics - GPA Calculations

Purpose of this Form

The GPA Calculations form offers a place to configure your calculation parameters. This includes determining how the calcs will handle retakes, filtering on specific courses and subjects, and where a student’s GPA shows in Student First.

 Before creating GPA calculation configurations, be sure to set up your course attributes (Main Menu – Settings – Organization – Academics – Course Attributes) and subject areas (Main Menu – Settings – Organization – Academics – Subject Areas).

Use Case Example

An administrator wants to restrict GPA calculations to a set of courses so other courses are not part of the calculation.

Configuration Considerations

Access to the GPA Calculations form is configured under Settings – Institution - Campuses. Awarding Statuses are configured under Main Menu – Settings – Organization – System - Roles – Access Rules - Configuration Menu - Academics – GPA Calculations.

Understanding the Form

The form initially displays any GPA calculation configurations you’ve already created. Click Add New to create a new configuration.

When you access an existing configuration or create a new one a form appears with three sections – Configuration, Course Filter Criteria, and GPA Visibility.

 Configuration

In this section, name your configuration, create a code that is used throughout Student First processing, and determine if this calculation should be used as the student’s overall GPA, not just their GPAs that reflect a single term, a year, or other segments of time. Note that only one of your configurations can have this switch set to “Yes.” If you set this switch to “Yes” on one configuration, any other configuration that already had this value will automatically switch off.

You also must decide how retakes are treated during GPA calculations. You can choose for the calculation to use the student’s average grade across all of their takes of a course, their highest grade, their lowest grade, or all of their grades across all takes. You can also omit all retakes from being part of the calculation via the Omit Retaken Courses From GPA switch.

Course Filter Criteria

This section allows you to limit the GPA calculation to include or exclude courses with specific attributes or subject areas. You can list as many as you like. Also, determine whether you’d like transfer courses to be included in the calculation. When these settings are changed, the student’s GPA automatically recalculates to reflect the new settings.

 GPA Visibility

Finally, limit where in Student First you’d like the student’s GPA to show if you choose. You can prevent it from displaying on the student’s degree progress, transcript, or report card. 

• A student’s degree progress shows in the Academics section of their Overview form (Student Menu – Students – Overview) and on the Student Portal. 
• View transcripts using the Transcript process (Main Menu – Reporting Tools – Academics – Transcript Report) or the Official Transcript process (Main Menu – Reporting Tools – Academics – Official Transcript).
• Produce report cards using the Report Card report (Main Menu – Reporting Tools – Academics – Report Card)  

Regardless of your choices, a student’s GPA still shows in several other places, including the student’s Enrollment form (Student Menu – Academics – Enrollment), the SAP report (Main Menu – Reporting Tools – Financial Aid – SAP Report), graduation processing batches (Main Menu – Academics – Graduation Processing), academic standing evaluation batches (Main Menu – Academics – Evaluate Academic Standing), and the Grades Tracking report (Main Menu – Reporting Tools – Academics – Grades Tracking).

Note that all GPA configurations you create on this form will show as individual fields on the student’s Enrollment form.

Notes On How GPA Is Calculated

GPA calculations run when you post grades or make changes to various Student First settings that impact grading, grade points. It also runs if you make changes to the GPA calculation configuration on this form.

Internally, GPA calculations use a concept called quality points. Quality points represent the number of credit or clock hours the student took multiplied by the grade points they earned. GPA calculations never include audited courses. A student’s Courses form (Student Menu – Academics – Courses) and Grades form (Student Menu – Academics – Grades) displays both their grade points and quality points.

Another factor in GPA calculations is the grade scale being used. Certain grades within a grade scale can be excluded from GPA calculations. Also, a letter grade’s grade point value is also part of its grade scale. Grade scales are set up on the Grade Scales form (Main Menu – Settings – Institution – Academics – Grade Scales). Grade scales are associated to catalog-level programs via the Catalogs form (Main Menu – Settings – Institution – Academics – Catalogs).