GPA calculator

How GPA is worked out

Each letter grade is worth a number of points on the 4.0 scale. Multiply each class’s points by its credits to get its quality points, add them up, and divide by the total credits. In high school most classes are one credit (or half a credit for a semester), so the GPA is close to a plain average; in college a 4-credit lab science counts four times as much as a 1-credit seminar.

Here is a junior’s semester, every class worth one credit:

The points add up to 18.0 over 5 credits, an unweighted GPA of 3.60. With 0.5 added for the honors class and 1.0 for the AP class, the weighted points add up to 19.5, a weighted GPA of 3.90. Same grades, two different numbers: that’s why transcripts and applications often show both.

The 4.0 scale

This is the most common conversion in the US, with the percentages of a 10-point scale with plus and minus grades. Schools differ: some don’t use plus and minus grades, some start an A at 93 (a 7-point scale), some count an A+ as 4.3, and the bonuses for honors and AP classes vary. Your school’s handbook has the final word.

An F stays at 0 in every kind of class: the bonus rewards passing a harder class, not taking it. Some schools also give no bonus for a D. If your school uses percentages rather than letters, switch the calculator to percentages and pick your scale, and it converts each grade before working out the GPA.

Weighted or unweighted: which one matters?

Both, for different readers. Schools that weight grades often use the weighted GPA for things like class rank and honor rolls. An unweighted GPA is easier to compare between schools, because nearly every school counts an A as 4.0 but they disagree on what an AP class adds. Colleges see your transcript as well as the number, and the College Board notes that many recalculate GPAs their own way: some count only core academic classes, and some strip out or replace the honors and AP weighting. The fairest summary is that a strong unweighted GPA in demanding classes reads well everywhere.

How to raise your GPA

A GPA is an average, so every new grade moves it less than the one before. The table shows how many credits of straight A’s it takes to lift a 3.0 GPA to each target, depending on how many credits the 3.0 already covers.

Early grades are the easiest to move: reaching 3.5 takes 15 credits of A’s after 15 credits, but 60 after 60. Retaking a class can help where your school replaces the old grade, and a lighter load in a hard term can protect your average. The calculator’s “Raising your GPA” box runs these numbers for your own GPA.

Working out a single class first? The grade calculator gives your class grade from weighted categories, the final grade calculator shows what you need on the final, and teachers can score a stack of tests with the test grade calculator. For planning the term, print a printable calendar.