Some Insights Into The CGPA
In the previous post (Part 1), I had explained the concepts of GPA, CGPA and how they are calculated
In this post, I will be explaining some observations I made from the calculation of the CGPA
Focus More On Terms with Higher Credits
This was something I had explained in the first part about how courses with higher credits carry more weightage towards the calculation of your GPA
A similar argument can be extended to CGPA => Identify the number of credits you will have in each semester and focus more on the semester which has most number of credits
Score Well In Your Initial Terms
In most colleges/courses, as you go to the final year, the number of courses decrease as you reach the final year with the final year/term entirely dedicated to internship/final year project. Hence, I would advise you to put in a little extra effort in your initial terms and try to score well in them
The reason for this is that, your initial terms have a higher weightage in the calculation of the CGPA than your final terms
Consider the below example
CGPA of Term-2 is calculated as:
We see that both terms have almost equal weightage in the calculation of CGPA
Similarly, CGPA at end of Term-3
Though each term has almost equal weightage, if you observe, Terms 1 & 2 have a combined weightage of approx 33+32 = 65% while Term-3 has a weightage of 35%. It is like 1 person fighting against 2 people. In the case of Term-2, it was an equal fight. Now, it is like a 2 vs 1 fight.
By the time you reach Term-6, you will see that Term-6 has only a weightage of 12/103 = 12% towards the final CGPA whereas the previous 5 terms have a combined weightage of nearly 88%.
Term-6 is almost outnumbered by the previous 5 terms. Your final CGPA has almost been decided in the initial 4 terms itself. Unless you perform exceptionally well during your final term(s), your CGPA is not going to change much
Hence, make sure that you put in your best efforts in the initial terms. By this, I am not asking you to neglect your last term — Just asking you to put in an additional effort in the initial terms which carry higher weightage towards your CGPA calculation
Never Take A Big Hit
Never take a big hit in your CGPA. It is very difficult to bounce back
Consider the above example. You have a CGPA of around 6.6 at the end of Term-2. Suppose, you perform real bad in Term-3 and end up with an abysmal GPA of 4.7. This causes a drastic decrease in your CGPA from 6.629 to 5.942. After this, if you observe, you have to score way more than your usual GPA in the upcoming terms to make sure your CGPA rises up and atleast reaches close to 6.6 (what you had at the end of Term-2)
Though it might be entirely difficult to keep increasing your GPA/CGPA, make sure it doesn’t fall below a certain level. Keep a tolerance level (eg: 0.3) i.e my CGPA shouldn’t go below 6.6–0.3 = 6.30
A Very Important Thing
This is something I myself have done and something all of us would have calculated or wanted to calculate: My CGPA now is X. How much should I score in the current term to increase my CGPA to Y?
Consider the below case: Your CGPA at the end of Term-3 is 8.389. You want to bring up your CGPA to atleast 8.5 by the end of the next term. For this, you want to calculate what GPA you need to score in Term-4, How do you go about that?
Let us go back to the basics: the basic formula for CGPA calculation
Let the GPA required in Term-4 be x
According to the above formula, LHS is 8.5 (the CGPA we require) & the RHS is the sum product of the Credits & GPA Term-wise divided by the total credits
Re-arranging, we get
494.97+19x = 8.5*78 = 663
=> x = (663–494.97)/19 = 168.03/19 = 8.8437
This implies, I need to get a GPA of atleast 8.85 in Term-4 so that my CGPA at the end of Term-4 is atleast 8.5
You can test this out for your own by assuming a GPA of 8.85 in Term-4 and calculating the CGPA to see if it is indeed 8.50
A few other variants you can try out is:
- Is it possible to increase my CGPA to 9 at the end of Term-4?
- If I score a complete 10 in the upcoming term, what would be my CGPA?
That is all from my side with regards to GPA, CGPA. Hope you found it useful (if you are a college student). I feel this is something all colleges must explain to students during the start of Term-1 itself — What is a GPA, CGPA, how they are calculated etc. Even if you are not a college student but have friends/relatives who are currently in college, do share this (& the previous) post with them
Thanks for reading!!!
Originally published at http://infinitesimallysmall.com on May 29, 2022.
