KINGS - Alternate Admissions to King’s and Scholarship Standards

Preface

I produced a memo like this one in February of 1995 outlining some of these standards, and then updated it in 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2008. Since it is February (and because the question of scholarship standards has arisen), I thought I should update this once again.

We have applicants who cannot submit a high school transcript that fits our model. We will still consider them if they supplement their application with some other means of evaluation. These means most commonly include ACT, SAT, CAT/2 and GCE scores. The key characteristic of these exams is that they are norm standardized and independently invigilated. Typical applicants using these are home schooled students (for pre-requisite and scholarship purposes), and International students.

Below I review the standards I using for admission and admission scholarship requirements. I developed these through a review of the treatment of these exams by other institutions and the performance of students with these exams in our programs. There is no universal standard treatment for any of these exams, but the standards below are quite similar to those at other liberal arts undergraduate institutions. I have also included some notes on where these should be recorded in CrossRoad to facilitate both admission and scholarship processing – this is somewhat different than earlier practices mostly to assist in financial aid deliberations. I have also added a summary table on the last page which will hopefully make a handy quick reference.

ACT

There are four major categories of ACT scores: English, Math, Reading and Science. The maximum in each of these is 36. To be admitted, an overall score of 20 is required, with no individual score below 15. Older versions of this test have only English, Math and Reading.

To be awarded the Honours Admission Scholarship, a score of 28 is required, for the Excellence Scholarship a score of 31.

These should be entered in CrossRoad in the Admission Test section (ACTE ACTM ACTR ACTS). If we are entering these for High School pre-requisite purposes and have no actual high school courses, then an entry needs to be made in the high school section (e.g. for math, MAAC not in the average would be entered). If we have no real high school courses with grades, an entry needs to be made with an equivalency for financial aid purposes – the distribution is a bit uneven, but to come up with “grade” multiply the ACT score by 3 for any score less than 28, 2.85 for less than 31, and by 2.90 for any score 31 and above.

SAT

There are two kinds of SAT scores, old and new.

Under the new SAT scores, there are three common exams: reading, math and writing. For admission under these the combined score needs to be 1500, with no individual score less than 400. For admission scholarships, a combined score of 1900 is required for Honours, and a combined score of 2100 is required for Excellence. These should be entered in the Admission Test section of CrossRoad. If we are entering these for High School pre-requisite purposes and have no actual high school courses, then an entry needs to be made in the high school section (e.g. for math, MASA not in the average would be entered). If we have not real high school courses with grades, an entry needs to be made with an equivalency for financial aid purposes – divide the combined SAT score by 23.75 for any score less than 2100, and by 23.33 for any score 2100 and above.

Old SAT scores are unlikely to be submitted by any current high school students, King’s needs 5 scores, composed of the following: SAT I Verbal SAT I Math 3 SAT II scores, of any of the following: Writing (WR), Literature (LR), American History and Social Studies (AH), World History (WH), Biology (BY), Chemistry (CH), Math Level I (MI), Math Level IC (IC), Math Level IIC (2C), Physics (PH), French (FR), German (GM), Modern Hebrew (MH), Italian (IT), Latin (LT), Spanish (SP), Chinese (CL), and Japanese (JL).

The combined score on these 5 needs to be 2500 or above and no individual score may be below 400. I have not determined equivalency for scholarships; this would happen on a case-by-case basis. These should be entered in the Admission Test Section (SATV SATM SATS2?? [where ?? is the specialization test for each of the SATII scores].). Similar to the process above, functional entries may be required in the high school course section of CrossRoad.

CAT

CAT/2 scores have been submitted in rare cases by home schooled students. The results from this test needs to be Grade 12 equivalent on Level 19 of the test. There is no way of using this for scholarship purposes at the moment.

GCE

International applicants are frequently submitting GCE type scores. These exist in a variety of forms as individual countries or regions move away from the original British model. In any of the models, we want 5 distinct subjects that map to our admission subjects. Averages noted below are on these 5 only.

For British model GCEs (e.g. British GCEs, HKCEE/HKALE, CXC), at least two of the subjects must be at the Advanced (A) level/Cambridge Pre-U Principle Subjects or Short Courses. Two Advanced Supplementary (AS) subjects may substitute for one of the required A levels. Any AS subject may substitute for an Ordinary (O) subject. General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) subjects may substitute for O levels. Note that some countries have changed the name of this test series but in the small print they note that these are the Cambridge tests. (Admission Test entry codes GCEA-Subject GCEO-Subject, with temporary entries in high school courses as needed or high school codes of two letters of course with GC (e.g. MAGC is Math GC) with two letter courses (e.g. MA for math) as subjects not in average and a dummy code with the average equivalent).

Students possessing the full Campbridge Pre-U Diploma will also be considered for admission. This consists of 3 principle subjects plus an independent research project and a global perspectives portfolio. (GCPU-Subject is the admission test code; high school entry is two letter initials of specific course and GU (e.g. MAGU for math).)

Grading scales for these vary over time. Numeric scales tend to be 1-9, with 1 as the best grade. In this case the average for admission is a 4 with no grades above a 6 accepted; a 3 is required for Honours Scholarship, a 2 is required for Excellence. If the scale is A through G with A has the best grade, then no grade below a D is accepted and a C average is required for admission. A B average is required for the Honours scholarship, and an A average for the Excellence scholarship.

Pre-U grading is in bands of Distinction, Merit, and Pass, with levels 1 through 3 in each. So D3 is the highest grade, and P1 is the lowest. Pre-U Principal Subjects or Pre-U Short Courses must have a minimum grade of Pass (P1) to be accepted. A minimum M1 average is required for admission. An average grade of M1 will be awarded our Honours Scholarship. An average grade of D3 or higher will be awarded our Excellence scholarship.

For other versions of GCE type testing – NECO, WAEC, WASC, SSCE, KCSE, ACSE, for examples – there is a strong migration away from A/O levels distinctions and they seem to be migrating to A+..F (and sometimes G) reporting. For admission this means we take 5 distinct subjects regardless of level with no grades below D. If the grades are truly US style, then the standard translation in CrossRoad will work for admission and scholarship. These can be entered as high school courses and should translate into a usable average for both admission and scholarship purposes. In cases where they don’t, we will need to make a call (and an entry into CrossRoad’s high school section) on a case-by-case basis.

French Pattern Systems

For school systems on the French pattern, we are looking for Baccalaureat General results. We would like to see 5 distinct subjects. Grading is on a 20 point scale, which converts roughly as:

Grading Scale
Scale	U.S. Grade Equiv.
14-20	A
12-13.9	B+
11-11.9	B
10.5-10.9	B-
10.1-10.4	C+
10	C
9-9.9	C-
8-8.9	D
0-7.9	F

For admission we need at least 10 on the 20 point scale. For the Honours Scholarship we need at least 11; for the Excellence Scholarship we need at least 14.

Quick Reference Table

	ACT	SAT – New	SAT – Old	CAT/2	GCE British Model	GCE US Grade Style	Cambridge Pre-U	French Pattern
Admission	20	1500	2500	Grade 12	4, C	C	M3	10
Honours	28	1900	n/a	n/a	3, B	B+	M1	11
Excellence	31	2100	n/a	n/a	2, A	A	D3	14
Grade Type	Overall None < 20	Combined None < 400	Combined None < 400	Level 19	Average None < D or None > 6	Average None < D	Average, None < P1	Average, none < 9
Description	English, Math, Reading	Reading Math Writing	Verbal, Math, 3 II Subj		5 subjects: 2 at A level	5 subjects	5 subjects	5 subjects

Maple Leaf Educational System in China

Maple Leaf Educational Systems schools follow the BC curriculum. Students may emerge from this program with English 12. We would expect our usual requirements of English 12, 3 additional courses from our standard list and 1 from either our standard or non-standard list, with an average of at least 60%. No other English proficiency tests would be required for admission.

Some students will emerge from this program with Communications 12 instead of English 12. A student with Communications 12 with at least a 70% (blended, as there is a mandatory provincial exam for this course), plus 4 additional 12 level subjects from our standard list and a 5 course average of at least 60% could be admitted to PEAK Blended. A student with Communications 12 with less than 70% (blended, as there is a mandatory provincial exam for this course), plus 4 additional 12 level subjects from our standard list with a 5 course average of at least 60% could be admitted to PEAK Foundations.

Documentation in this case is the BC transcript which is usually issued directly by the school.

GED Examinations

GED Examinations vary dramatically across jurisdictions. For those similar to the <a href="http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/ged/">system in BC</a> we want to see results in all of

• Language Arts Writing
• Social Studies
• Science
• Language Arts Reading
• Mathematics

with no score below 450, an overall score of 550. The two language arts scores can demonstrate English Proficiency but the Math and Science are not equivalent to high school pre-requisites.

IB Grade Conversion and Admission

International Baccalaureate results may be used for admission purposes, in whole or in part. If an IB course and a normal admission course in the same subject are submitted for admission, the higher of the two grades will be used for admission. When used as the exclusive basis of admission, five distinct IB subjects must be presented for admission, with no score below 3 and an average of at least 3.5. When necessary to convert IB grades the following scale will be used:

IB Grade	Alberta % Equivalent
7	98%
6	90%
5	82%
4	73%
3	55%
2	not accepted for admission
1	not accepted for admission

= AP Grade Conversion and Admission -

Advanced Placement results may be used for admission purposes, in whole or in part. If an AP course and a normal admissoin course in the same subject are submitted for admission, the higher of the two grades will be used for the admission average. When used as the exclusive basis of admission, five distinct AP subjects must be presented for admission, with no score below XX and an average of at least XX. For the most part, AP courses are delivered concurrently with regular high school courses so that grades do not need to be converted from those appearing on the high school transcript. When it is necessary to convert AP grades the following scale will be used:

AP Result	Grade 12 Percentage
5	96%
4	86%
3	76%
2	65%
1	not acceptable for admission

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