-McGill University

-The Grading Scheme: The GPA

-Why study Engineering at McGill ?

McGill University is a research-intensive, public university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university. Founded in 1821, McGill is one of the oldest universities in Canada. Chartered during the British colonial era, 46 years before the Canadian Confederation, it is also the first non-denominational university in the British Empire. The university has evolved during its history, especially in the area of anglophone–francophone relations.

McGill's main campus is set upon 32 hectares (80 acres) at the foot of Mount Royal in Downtown Montreal. A second campus, Macdonald Campus, is situated on 6.5 square kilometres (1,600 acres) of fields and forested land in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, 30 kilometres west of the downtown campus.

Around 34,000 students attend McGill, over four-fifths of whom are Canadian. The university has 21 faculties and professional schools, offering degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study, including medicine and law. The language of instruction is English, although students have the right to submit any graded work in English or in French (except when learning a language is an objective of the course). The university has been recognized for its award-winning research and participates in research organizations both within Canada and in the world. McGill is ranked highly in national, regional, and worldwide rankings, and is sometimes informally described as a Canadian Ivy.

Alumni from McGill have been recognized in fields ranging from the arts and sciences, to business, politics, and sports. Notably, alumni include eight Nobel laureates, three astronauts, two Canadian prime ministers, seven Academy Award winners, several justices of the Canadian Supreme Court and twenty-five Olympic medalists. A nation-leading 130 students have also won Rhodes Scholarships to pursue studies at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

For more info, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGill_University

GPA: Grade Point Average

Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters (for example, A, B, C, D, E, F), as a range (for example 4.0 - 1.0), as descriptors (excellent, great, satisfactory, needs improvement), in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary institutions, as a Grade Point Average (GPA). The GPA can be used by potential employers or further post-secondary institutions to assess and compare applicants. A Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) is the mean GPA from all academic terms within a given academic year, whereas the GPA may only refer to one term.

For undergraduate credit programs letter grades are assigned grade points according to the following table:

Standing in a department will be determined on the basis of the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) computed by adding the product for each course of the course credits times the grade points, and dividing by the total course credits attempted:

CGPA = [sum (course credits x grade points)]  /  [sum (course credits attempted)]

Grades of D or F continue to be used in the calculation of the CGPA even after the course is repeated or a supplemental examination is taken.

Grades of J and KF count as 0 grade points in the CGPA. Courses with a grade of W, WF, WL or KK are not included in the calculation.

http://www.mcgill.ca/conted-students/grades/gpa/

Why study Engineering at McGill ?

McGill Engineering has been ranked 18th among the world’s top Engineering Schools in a 2009 listing published by U.S. News and World Report. One of only two Canadian schools in the rankings top 20, the Faculty of Engineering is recognized internationally for the expertise of its professors, the talent of its students, the exceptional quality of its teaching and research and the contributions of its alumni. The Faculty’s professors play important roles in local, national, and international research networks, and most have close ties with industry. McGill Engineering is also a leader, within McGill and across Canada, in encouraging interdisciplinary, inter-Faculty and inter-institutional approaches to problem solving.

http://www.mcgill.ca/engineering/