Students contemplating study abroad in Paris sometimes worry about the effect this decision will have on their GPA. You needn't.
We have accumulated several years of data on this subject, and the conclusion is relatively straightforward. Study abroad in Paris has little effect—negative or positive—on your GPA. Provided you are willing to bear down in Paris in the same way you do at Smith, you will do just fine.
That said, there are some important differences in grading philosophy between the French and American systems that you should be aware of. Broadly speaking, students in the French university system are primarily concerned with making sure that their global average across all of their courses allows them to move on to the following year of their university career. In France, grades are generally scored on a 20 point system, and a global average of 10 /20 means that a student in their second year, for instance, will be able to move on to their third year of our undergraduate major. As a result, French students are significantly less anxious about individual grades, and certainly about “getting an A” than their American counterparts. A 10 out of 20 might roughly translate to a C in the US system, yet most French students will be relieved to see that on their transcripts.
French grading, particularly in the universities, is based on a very different premise then grading in the US. Every student begins the semester with a 0 out of 20, and then proceeds to provide the professor with reasons to raise the grade above that very low threshold. With some exceptions, grades above 15 out of 20 are extremely rare in most courses. In contrast, American professors for the most part begin with the assumption that every student in the course deserves an A and students then provide reasons for the professor to reluctantly lower the grade from that high threshold, if warranted. This philosophical breach is beginning to close as the French university welcomes an increasing number of exchange students from across Europe and beyond. And it is certainly the case that the courses offered by Smith or by the consortium at Reid Hall are taught by faculty who are far more likely to grade “à l’américaine”.
Smith students do excellent work in both our in-house courses and in courses taken at the French university, and their grades reflect that. You should also keep in mind that for many of the courses you choose to take, you will have a tutor provided by the program who will be there from the beginning of the semester to help you succeed, and who will also provide the director with additional feedback about the quality of your work in the course: feedback that generally works to your advantage.
Lastly, you should know that the courses you take in Paris will not appear on a separate transcript, but will simply show up on your Smith transcript as JYA/SOC or JYA/FRN. This means that courses you take in Paris fulfill requirements for any graduate or professional programs (MD, PhD, DVM, etc…) that may be part of your post-Smith plans.