Monday, April 30, 2012

Getting Into Grad School

After seeing this post by Carla, I realized I needed to design better rules for attending uni, as I had none lol. I'm basically using Carla's system for the undergrads so you can click on the link above to read about that. I decided to take it a step further and create a system for my sims who seek to earn a degree above the undergraduate degree. You can click on the "Education in LaQuest" link to the right for more info on the master's program. Below are my shiny new requirements for grad school admittance:


For students who wish to pursue a master's level degree, a 3.0 is required as well as at least a 6 on the Graduate Entrance Exam. 20 points yield a full ride, 15 points yield a partial scholarship. Scores are calculated as follows:

3 points for each major interest with at least 5 points or more with an added 1 point for having all 3 (possible total of 10 see below)
2 points for a GPA of 3.0-3.6
4 points for a GPA of 3.7-3.8
6 points for a GPA of 3.9
10 points for a GPA of 4.0

Interests that correlate with majors are:
Art - Entertainment, Fashion, Culture
Biology - Environment, Weather, Sci-Fi
Drama - Entertainment, Fashion, Travel
Economics - Money, Politics, Work
History - Culture, Politics, Travel
Literature - School, Travel, Culture
Math - Money, Work, School
Philosophy - Culture, Paranormal, Travel
Physics - Paranormal, Sci-Fi, School
Political Science - Politics, Money, Culture
Psychology - Health, Culture, School
Law - Money, Politics, Work
Medicine - Health, Environment, Culture

The interests never get used for anything so I thought I would use them in this equation. I tried to match the interests as best I could with the majors. So let's use Caleb Henderson as an example since he will definitely be going to grad school to get a master's in political science. Caleb graduated with a 3.5 undergrad GPA. So that gives him 2 points. Right now he only has one of the three interests required for political science high enough (culture) so that only gives him 5. He'll need to talk to sims about politics which won't be a problem since he's interning with Mayor Brown now and read the magazines that came with the base game. He should be able to get both his politics and money interests up with no problem. Sims who want to get into law school or med school will need a 3.5 instead of a 3.0.

I didn't do requirements for a doctoral degree because there won't be a GPA from the grad work. So If they have the cash, they can get their doctorate :)

I may switch the interests up but I think I got them as close as I could. So if a student graduates with a 4.0 and has all three interests up, they would have a perfect score of 20 which I think warrants a full scholarship lol. The interests are things the students can work on while they are in undergrad if they know they are going to continue their education. Caleb is at a bit of a disadvantage since I just devised this system, but I don't think it will set him back at all. I'm sure he'll meet the requirements by the end of his play session.

1 comment:

  1. Ah, I really like the idea of using the GPAs to score points towards grad school admittance. This isn't how I was planning on doing mine but you've definitely given me some things to think about now!

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Thanks so much for reading and commenting! Awesomeness :)