GPA Calculator

Work out your GPA

Add a row per course, set the grade and the credit hours, and the average appears as you go. Add your prior GPA and credits and it works out the cumulative figure too — properly, which is not what happens if you average the two numbers.

The scale, the plus/minus convention and the honors weighting are all settings, because schools disagree about every one of them. Set them to match yours.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored or logged — and unlike the other calculators here, none of it goes into the page address either, because a list of your courses and grades is a small academic record.

How GPA is calculated

Three steps.

1. Turn each letter grade into points. On the usual 4.0 scale, A is 4, B is 3, C is 2, D is 1, F is 0.

2. Multiply each course’s points by its credit hours. That product is called quality points.

3. Add the quality points and divide by the total credits.

A four-course semester of A (4 credits), B (4), B (3) and C (3):

(4×4) + (3×4) + (3×3) + (2×3) = 16 + 12 + 9 + 6 = 43
43 ÷ 14 credits = 3.07

The key word is weighted by credits. It is not the average of your grades. An A in a one-credit seminar and a C in a five-credit lecture is a 2.33, not a 3.0 — the big class counts five times as much.

Which has a practical implication worth knowing: your GPA is decided mostly by your heaviest courses. A stumble in a one-credit elective barely registers; the same grade in a four-credit core class does real damage.

Weighted and unweighted

Unweighted caps every course at 4.0 no matter how hard it was. An A in AP Physics and an A in a study period are worth the same.

Weighted adds points for advanced courses, so a demanding schedule is not punished. The usual convention:

Regular: A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0
Honors: A=4.5, B=3.5, C=2.5, D=1.5, F=0
AP or IB: A=5, B=4, C=3, D=2, F=0

Note that an F is zero at every level. The extra point rewards passing the harder class, not enrolling in it — which is why failing AP scores the same as failing anything else.

This is why a weighted GPA can exceed 4.0, and why a 4.6 means nothing without knowing the scale it came from. It is also why comparing weighted GPAs between schools is close to meaningless: districts use different bonuses, and some weight only some subjects.

Most colleges recalculate applicants’ GPAs onto their own scale anyway, usually stripping the weighting and often dropping non-academic courses. So a weighted GPA is useful for class rank and mostly not for admissions.

The cumulative GPA trap

This is the mistake worth the whole page.

Suppose you have a 3.0 across 90 credits, and you have just had an excellent term — a 4.0 across 12 credits. What is your cumulative GPA now?

The intuitive answer is that it is somewhere around 3.5, halfway between. It is 3.12.

(3.0 × 90) + (4.0 × 12) = 270 + 48 = 318
318 ÷ 102 credits = 3.12

A perfect term moved a 3.0 by a tenth of a point, because 90 credits of history outweigh 12 credits of present seven and a half to one.

The consequence is uncomfortable but useful: your GPA gets harder to move every term you complete. Early grades matter far more than late ones, not because anyone weights them that way but because they sit in the denominator for longer. A rough first year is genuinely expensive, and a strong first year buys real insurance.

The tool shows you the honest number, and the “GPA you want” field will tell you plainly when a target has moved out of reach — which past a certain point it does.

Pass/fail is not a zero

A course taken pass/fail, or one you withdrew from, normally carries credit but no grade points. It is excluded from the average entirely.

That is emphatically not the same as scoring zero. A pass on a 3-credit course leaves a 4.0 exactly where it was; entering it as an F drops it to 2.0. Choose Pass / no grade so the course is skipped rather than counted badly, and the tool will report those credits separately — they still count toward graduation.

Worth knowing before you elect pass/fail: it protects your GPA from a bad grade, but it also means a good grade cannot help it. And some graduate programs and professional schools look unfavorably on pass/fail in prerequisite courses.

The scales schools actually use

There is no single standard, which is the main reason GPA calculators disagree with transcripts.

Plus and minus. Most US colleges use them: A− is 3.7, B+ is 3.3, and so on. Many high schools do not, and a straight-letter school’s 3.0 is not comparable with a plus/minus school’s.

A+. Genuinely split. Some schools cap at 4.0 so a perfect record is exactly 4.00; others award 4.3. The tool defaults to capping and offers 4.3 as a checkbox.

Honors weighting. 0.5 and 1.0 are the common bonuses, but some districts use 1.0 for honors, and some weight only certain subjects.

Repeated courses. Policies vary widely — some replace the original grade, some average the two, some count both. No calculator can know which applies to you.

So set the options to match your school, and treat your transcript as the authority. This page is for planning, not for proving.

What actually moves your GPA

Three things follow from the arithmetic, and they are more useful than any study advice.

Credit-heavy courses dominate. If you have limited attention, spend it on your four-credit classes. The one-credit ones barely register either way.

Early terms are worth more. Not by design, but because they spend more terms in the denominator. Front-loading effort is mathematically rational.

Recovery is slow and arithmetic is honest about it. If a target needs more than the scale allows in one term, no amount of effort next semester will get there — it takes more credits, over more terms. The tool says so rather than printing an impossible number, because knowing the real shape of the problem earlier is what lets you plan around it.

Frequently asked questions

How is GPA calculated?

Multiply each course's grade points by its credit hours to get quality points, add those up, and divide by the credits. It is an average weighted by credits — which is why an A in a one-credit class moves your GPA far less than an A in a four-credit one.

What is the difference between weighted and unweighted GPA?

Unweighted caps every course at 4.0 however hard it was. Weighted adds points for advanced courses — usually 0.5 for honors and 1.0 for AP or IB — so a weighted GPA can exceed 4.0. High schools commonly report both; most colleges recalculate to their own scale anyway.

How do I calculate my cumulative GPA?

Enter your GPA and total credits before this term and the tool combines them properly. Do not average the two GPAs. A 4.0 term of 12 credits on top of a 3.0 across 90 credits gives 3.12, not 3.5 — the older record outweighs the new term more than seven to one.

How do pass/fail courses affect my GPA?

They do not. Choose "Pass / no grade" and the course is left out of the average entirely — which is different from counting it as a zero. Its credits still count toward graduation, and the tool reports them separately.

Is an A+ worth 4.0 or 4.3?

It depends on your school, and both are common. Many cap the scale at 4.0 so a perfect record is exactly 4.00; others award 4.3 and allow a GPA above 4. The tool defaults to capping and offers the alternative as a checkbox.

What GPA do I need to reach a target?

Enter your prior GPA and credits, then the cumulative GPA you are aiming for. The tool works out what this term would have to be — and tells you plainly when the target cannot be reached in one term, which past a certain point it cannot.

Will this match my transcript exactly?

Only if the settings match your school's rules. Institutions differ on plus/minus, on A+, on how much honors adds, on how repeated courses are handled, and on which grades are excluded. Your transcript is the authority; this is for planning.