Should I convert my undergrad average?

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Should I convert my undergrad average?

by November Rain » Sat Aug 07, 2010 11:35 am
Hi all,

I have one question concerning my undergrad average.

I finished my B.A. in Economics in a Portuguese university, and in Portugal the scale we use to calculate the undergrad averages is different from the one used in the US and Britain (i.e. the GPA). Rather than a scale that goes from 0 to 4.0, the Portuguese scale goes from 0 to 20, where 10 is the minimum required to pass (the grades are given in integers, so a 13.6 is a 14).

My undergrad average is 14, which, by Portuguese standards (particularly my university), is not a bad score. I finished on the top 13 percentile of my graduating class, and the best student got a 15 average.

However, when I took my GMAT in June, i converted my average to the GPA scale, and it equaled a 2.8 GPA. After some investigation, I noticed in several posts that 2.8 is actually considered a poor GPA by US standards.

Of course, I am concerned, because I'm afraid that the schools to which I sent my GMAT report (namely London Business School and Berkeley-Haas) will see my 2.8 GPA right on the top of the report and disregard me at once.

There is nothing I can do about these schools, but I am planning to apply to some more, so here goes my question: when I ask GMAC to send again my GMAT reports to the new schools, should I go to my MBA.com profile and take out my GPA from the report, to avoid any preconceived ideas about my undergrad grades?

Secondly, do schools such as LBS, Harvard, Stanford, etc, make a direct conversion of my average to the GPA scale and consider exclusively that score, disregarding things such as class ranking for example?

I know that other things such as the GMAT score and the work experience matter, but I am more comfortable here - 720 on the gmat and 6 years experience as a management consultant at Accenture, with three dedicated to strategy consulting.

It's the GPA that is really worrying me...

Thanks for any feedback that you can give me.