Adjusting College Grade‐point Average for Variations in Grading Standards

ABSTRACT This study compared the effectiveness of several existing and proposed methods for statistically adjusting college GPAs for course and departmental differences in grading standards, using first‐semester grades from an entire entering class at a large state university. Most of the adjusted GPAs produced by these methods functioned similarly and, despite high correlations with actual GPA, had greater internal‐consistency reliability than actual GPA and were more predictable from SAT scores and high school rank (HSR). Most of the adjusted GPAs also functioned similarly with regard to sex differences in over‐underprediction. The adjusted GPAs and actual GPA exhibited the same small but significant sex differences in over‐underprediction by SAT scores, but the adjusted GPAs displayed smaller differences than actual GPA in over‐underprediction by SAT scores and HSR.