GPA Calculator

Calculate your GPA

How GPA is calculated

Your GPA is a weighted average of your grades, where the weight is the number of credit hours each course is worth. The calculation has three steps:

• Convert each letter grade to grade points (A = 4.0, B = 3.0, and so on).
• Multiply each course's grade points by its credit hours to get that course's quality points.
• Add up all the quality points and divide by the total credit hours.

GPA = (sum of grade points × credits) ÷ (total credits)

Because credits are part of the formula, a high grade in a 4-credit course moves your GPA more than the same grade in a 1-credit course. If you leave every course at the same credit value, the result is simply the average of your grades.

The standard 4.0 grade scale

Percentage cutoffs vary between schools, so treat the middle column as a common convention rather than a universal rule. Some schools award a flat 4.0 for both A and A+; others cap A+ at 4.0 in the GPA even when the transcript shows it separately.

Weighted vs unweighted GPA

An unweighted GPA treats every course the same and tops out at 4.0. An weighted GPA gives harder courses a bonus so that taking a challenging schedule is rewarded. The common bonuses are:

• Honors: +0.5 grade points
• AP and IB: +1.0 grade points

With those bonuses, an A in an AP course can count as 5.0, which is why weighted GPAs can rise above 4.0. Switch the calculator above to weighted mode to set a course type for each class. Colleges often recalculate GPA using their own formula, so the weighted number is a guide, not a guarantee of how any single school will read your transcript.

A worked example

The fastest way to understand the formula is to follow one term through it. Imagine a student takes five courses in a semester:

Add the quality points: 16.0 + 9.9 + 11.1 + 9.0 + 4.0 = 50.0. Add the credits: 4 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 14. Divide: 50.0 / 14 = 3.57 GPA. Notice that Biology, worth 4 credits, pulls the average up more than the 1-credit art seminar despite both being A grades. That is the credit weighting at work. Enter these same courses in the calculator above and you will get the same result.

What is a good GPA?

There is no single answer, because a GPA only means something in context: the difficulty of your courses, the school, and what you are aiming for. As a rough guide on the unweighted 4.0 scale:

Context matters more than the raw number. A 3.6 earned in a schedule full of AP and Honors courses can be read as stronger than a 4.0 in the least demanding track, because admissions officers weigh rigor alongside the GPA. Many colleges also recalculate your GPA using only academic core courses and their own grade values, so two schools can read the same transcript differently.

Semester GPA vs cumulative GPA

Your semester GPA covers only the courses in one term. Your cumulative GPA covers every graded course you have taken. A common mistake is to average your semester GPAs together, which gives the wrong answer whenever your terms carry different numbers of credits.

The correct method is to add up all the quality points and all the credit hours across every term, then divide once:

Cumulative GPA = (total quality points, all terms) ÷ (total credits, all terms)

For example, a 3.6 over 12 credits in the fall and a 3.2 over 18 credits in the spring give (3.6 × 12) + (3.2 × 18) = 43.2 + 57.6 = 100.8 quality points across 30 credits, for a cumulative GPA of 3.36. Averaging 3.6 and 3.2 directly would give 3.4, which is too high because it ignores the heavier spring term. As you accumulate credits, each new term moves your cumulative GPA less, so improving a GPA late in a program takes more strong grades than it would have early on.

Common GPA mistakes to avoid

• Averaging semester GPAs. Always recombine the underlying quality points and credits, not the GPA numbers themselves.
• Ignoring credit hours. A high grade in a 1-credit class barely moves your GPA, while a 4-credit class moves it a lot. Enter the real credit value for each course.
• Confusing weighted and unweighted. A weighted GPA above 4.0 is not directly comparable to an unweighted one. Know which scale a number is on before comparing.
• Assuming every school uses the same scale. Percentage cutoffs, plus and minus values, and weighting all vary. Colleges frequently recalculate your GPA with their own formula.
• Forgetting pass or fail and withdrawn courses. Pass or fail courses usually carry credit but no grade points, and a withdrawal normally does not affect GPA at all.

Tools and guides for GPA

Frequently asked questions