How to improve your R score
Beat your class average
Your R score does not depend on your grade alone, but on your place in your class: each standard deviation above the class average adds about 5 points to the R score of the course. Aiming above your class average therefore matters more than aiming for a specific grade.
For the same reason, a few extra points are worth a lot in a course where grades are close together, and less in a course where they are widely spread. Imagine you gain 4 points in two different courses:
- in a course where almost everyone gets between 75 and 85, those 4 points put you ahead of a good part of the class: your R score rises by about 5 points;
- in a course where grades range from 50 to 100, the same 4 points only put you ahead of a few classmates: your R score rises by barely 2 points.
The guide explains each step of the formula.
Focus on the courses with the most credits
Your overall R score is the average of your course R scores, weighted by their credits. A 2-credit course therefore weighs twice as much as a 1-credit physical education course. When you have to choose where to put your effort, the courses with the most credits, often those of your program, pay off the most.
Avoid failures, without panicking
A failed course still counts in your overall R score, but with a reduced weight: a quarter of its credits if it happens in your very first CEGEP semester, and half afterwards. A failure therefore weighs less than students often think, but it does weigh.
Retaking a failed course does not erase the failure: both results stay on your record.
Drop a course in time
A course dropped before the withdrawal deadline, which your CEGEP publishes at the start of each semester, does not appear on your transcript and therefore does not count in your R score. After that date, it stays on your transcript with the grade obtained.
Dropping a course can, however, delay your diploma. Before dropping a course, talk to your academic advisor (API).
What does not help
- Choosing a strong or a weak class. The formula accounts for the strength and spread of each class. According to the Bureau de coopération interuniversitaire, their effects balance out, and no type of class gives students an advantage.
- Choosing a CEGEP known to be strong. For the same reason, the R score gives everyone an equal chance from the start, in every CEGEP.
- Worrying about your high school grades. They only enter your R score through the strength and spread of your classes, together with those of all the other students. In a class of 35 students, for example, yours count for barely 3%.
Why every semester counts
Your overall R score brings together all your courses, and a first semester weighs as much as a last one. However, the more courses your record has, the less a new course moves the average. A difficult semester early on is therefore slow to make up.
Set yourself a goal
The admission R scores give, program by program, the R score of the last admitted students. Then enter the R score you are aiming for in the calculator: myRScore shows, under each course of the semester displayed, the grade needed to get there.