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GPA Calculator

Created by Hanna Pamuła, PhD
Reviewed by Bogna Szyk and Jack Bowater
Last updated: Jan 18, 2024


If you're searching for an easy and quick way of calculating your GPA, you've come to the right place — our GPA calculator is the perfect tool for you. Whether you're a high school or a college student, if you want to calculate your GPA with or without credits (including any extra-graded courses), or even find your cumulative GPA... we've got you covered. Also, if you want to know the GPA meaning, or how to calculate GPA manually, we've prepared introductory paragraphs to both these topics as well.

Since you've come to this page, that means you're into educational calculators! Have a look at two other handy tools, both for teachers and students — maybe they'll free up your valuable time?

What is GPA? GPA meaning

GPA stands for Grade Point Average. It's a score that measures your academic achievement and is used throughout your educational career: in middle school, high school, and college. The basic formula for calculating GPA is to divide the total points earned in a program by the total number of courses. If your courses have credits, or if they are graded differently (e.g., honors courses), you need to compute the weighted average. Scroll down to read more about GPA weighting.

GPA scale — GPA converter chart

If you're searching for a GPA converter, you're most likely looking for a GPA scale table, which shows the grade point equivalents:

Name

Percentage grade

Grade point 4.0 scale

Grade point equivalent in +4.0 scale

A+

97-100

4

4.3

A

93-96

4

4

A-

90-92

3.7

3.7

B+

87-89

3.3

3.3

B

83-86

3

3

B-

80-82

2.7

2.7

C+

77-79

2.3

2.3

C

73-36

2

2

C-

70-72

1.7

1.7

D+

67-69

1.3

1.3

D

65-66

1

1

F

Below 65

0

0

The table above presents one of the standard 4.0 GPA scales. However, different schools may use different systems; unfortunately, it's not universal by any means. Before using our GPA calculator, make sure this is the grading scale your school has adopted.

How to calculate my GPA?

We're here to convince you that calculating your GPA is not nearly as difficult as you think! Let's have a look at an example grade card:

Course

Grade

Maths

A

Biology

C+

History

B

English

A-

To calculate the GPA, you first need to convert your grades (expressed in letters) into a numerical scale. For that, use the GPA scale table from the previous paragraph:

Course

Grade

Grade point equivalent

Maths

A

4.0

Biology

C+

2.3

History

B

3

English

A-

3.7

That wasn't so difficult, was it?

Then, depending on your educational stage, some extra grade weighting may need to be done:

High school GPA

In high school education, some courses take class difficulty into account, so they're graded differently. When taking classes from a higher level, the extra points can be added to your grade, e.g.:

  • 1 extra point for AP Courses (Advanced Placement Courses), IB Courses (International Baccalaureate Courses), and College Preparatory Classes.
  • 0.5 additional points for Honors Courses (this rule may vary between schools, awarding, e.g., 1 point for this type of course).

So you either need to take those extra courses into account or can ignore them completely:

  1. Only regular classes (unweighted GPA)

    Let's repeat the table with the example grades:

Course

Grade

Grade point equivalent

Maths

A

4.0

Biology

C+

2.3

History

B

3

English

A-

3.7

These are the only values you need to calculate your unweighted high school GPA:

GPAunweightedhigh school=GPEcourses=4.0+2.3+3+3.74=134=3.25\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\substack{\text{unweighted} \\ \text{high school}}} &= \frac{\sum\text{GPE}}{\sum\text{courses}} \\[1em] &= \frac{4.0 + 2.3 + 3 + 3.7}{4} \\ &= \frac{13}{4} = 3.25 \end{split}

where GPE\text{GPE} is the grade point equivalent.

Have you noticed that it's just the regular old average?

  1. Courses with extra points (weighted GPA)

    If you've taken some special courses, you'll probably want to calculate the weighted GPA:

Course

Grade

Course type

Weighted grade point equivalent

Maths

A

Honors (+0.5)

4.5 (4.0 + 0.5)

Biology

C+

Regular

2.3

History

B

Regular

3

English

A-

AP (+1)

4.7 (3.7 + 1)

GPAweightedhigh school=GPEweightedcourses=4.5+2.3+3+4.74=14.54=3.6253.63\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\substack{\text{weighted} \\ \text{high school}}} &= \frac{\sum\text{GPE}_{\text{weighted}}}{\sum\text{courses}} \\[1.2em] &= \frac{4.5 + 2.3 + 3 + 4.7}{4} \\[1em] &= \frac{14.5}{4} = 3.625 \\[1em] &\approx 3.63 \end{split}

GPEweighted\text{GPE}_{\text{weighted}} stands for weighted grade point equivalent. Notice that GPA is usually rounded to 2 digits.

Sometimes there are also credits tied to high school courses - for a more detailed explanation, check out our dedicated high school GPA calculator.

College GPA

College courses usually have credits. Assume that our result card looks like this:

Course

Grade

Grade point equivalent

Credit

Maths

A

4.0

2

Biology

C+

2.3

1

History

B

3

1

English

A-

3.7

3

All you need to do now is sum the products of the course grade point equivalents and their corresponding credit points and divide that value by the sum of all obtained credits:

GPAcreditscollege=(GPE×CP)CP\footnotesize \text{GPA}_{\substack{\text{credits} \\ \text{college}}} = \frac{\sum(\text{GPE} \times \text{CP})}{\sum\text{CP}}

where CP\text{CP} are credit points.

So in this example, we have:

4.0×2+2.3×1+3×1+3.7×37=24.47=3.485713.49\scriptsize \begin{split} \frac{4.0 \times 2 + 2.3 \times 1+ 3 \times 1 + 3.7 \times 3}{7}\\[1em] = \frac{24.4}{7} = 3.48571 \approx 3.49 \end{split}

If your courses don't have credits (or all of them are worth the same amount), GPA is the ratio of the sum of your grade point equivalents and the number of courses taken (it's the GPA formula previously seen in High school GPA — unweighted GPA):

GPAno creditscollege=GPEcourses=4.0+2.3+3+3.74=134=3.25.\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\substack{\text{no credits} \\ \text{college}}} &= \frac{\sum\text{GPE}}{\sum\text{courses}} \\[1em] &= \frac{4.0 + 2.3 + 3 + 3.7}{4} \\[1em] &= \frac{13}{4} = 3.25. \end{split}

If you want to learn more about estimating your college GPA and how to interpret your results, make sure to check our college GPA calculator.

Cumulative GPA

A cumulative GPA is a grade point average calculated across multiple semesters or terms. It is a weighted average of your results, which may be calculated differently depending on the types of courses and credits you take:

  • Cumulative GPA with courses credits is calculated as:
 ⁣GPAcumulative=GPAprior×creditspriorcreditstotal+GPAnew×creditsnewcreditstotal\!\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\text{cumulative}} &= \frac{\text{GPA}_{\text{prior}} \times \text{credits}_{\text{prior}}}{\text{credits}_{\text{total}}} \\[1em] &+ \frac{\text{GPA}_{\text{new}} \times \text{credits}_{\text{new}}}{\text{credits}_{\text{total}}} \end{split}

For example, assume that you took 15 credits in the fall semester, and your GPA was 3.65. In the spring semester, your results were even better, and you obtained 3.83 from 18 course credits. How would you find the cumulative GPA for those two semesters?

Your total credits are

creditstotal=creditsfall+creditsspring=15+18=33\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{credits}_{\text{total}} &= \text{credits}_{\text{fall}} + \text{credits}_{\text{spring}} \\ &= 15 + 18 = 33 \end{split}

And so our formula becomes:

 ⁣GPAcumulative=GPAfall×creditsfallcreditstotal+GPAspring×creditsspringcreditstotal\!\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\text{cumulative}} &= \frac{\text{GPA}_{\text{fall}} \times \text{credits}_{\text{fall}}}{\text{credits}_{\text{total}}} \\[1em] &+ \frac{\text{GPA}_{\text{spring}} \times \text{credits}_{\text{spring}}}{\text{credits}_{\text{total}}} \end{split}

Substituting the numbers gives us:

GPAcumulative=3.65×1533+3.83×1833=54.75+68.9433=3.748181...3.75\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\text{cumulative}} &= \frac{3.65 \times 15}{33} \\[1em] &\quad + \frac{3.83 \times 18}{33} \\[1em] &= \frac{54.75 + 68.94}{33} \\[1em] &= 3.748181... \approx 3.75 \end{split}

Your cumulative GPA is 3.75.

  • Cumulative GPA without courses credits

    However, if your classes don't have course credits (or they are all worth the same amount of credits), you only need to know your prior GPA and the number of courses taken:

GPAcumulative=GPAprior×nc,priornc,total+GPAnew×nc,newnc,total\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\text{cumulative}} &= \frac{\text{GPA}_{\text{prior}} \times \text{n}_{\text{c,prior}}}{\text{n}_{\text{c,total}}} \\[1em] &+ \frac{\text{GPA}_{\text{new}} \times \text{n}_{\text{c,new}}}{\text{n}_{\text{c,total}}} \end{split}

where nc\text{n}_{\text{c}} is the number of classes.

Let's say that your friend obtained a GPA of 3.65 from 5 courses in the fall semester, and in the spring semester, they got a 3.83 GPA from 10 courses:

GPAcumulative=GPAfall×nc,fallnc,total  +GPAspring×nc,springnc,total\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\text{cumulative}} &= \frac{\text{GPA}_{\text{fall}} \times \text{n}_{\text{c,fall}}}{\text{n}_{\text{c,total}}} \\[1em] &\ \ + \frac{\text{GPA}_{\text{spring}} \times \text{n}_{\text{c,spring}}}{\text{n}_{\text{c,total}}} \end{split}

where:

nc,total=nc,fall+nc,spring\footnotesize \text{n}_{\text{c,total}} = \text{n}_{\text{c,fall}} + \text{n}_{\text{c,spring}}

Therefore, we get:

GPAcumulative=3.65×5+3.83×105+10=56.5515=3.77\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\text{cumulative}} &= \frac{3.65 \times 5 + 3.83 \times 10}{5 + 10} \\[1em] &= \frac{56.55}{15} = 3.77 \end{split}

Their cumulative GPA is 3.77. If you're in high school, this GPA may be called your unweighted cumulative GPA.

To calculate your weighted cumulative GPA, do the same as in the above examples, but instead of using the standard grade point equivalents, use the weighted ones (e.g., 4.5 for grade A for the honors course instead of the standard 4.0).

Grade Point Average calculator — how to use

Now that we have provided the GPA meaning and a detailed set of instructions on how to calculate GPA manually, let's come to the heart of the matter: how to quickly find GPA using this grade point average calculator! We're pretty sure it's rather self-explanatory, but, just in case, let's have a look at some step-by-step instructions:

  1. Choose the type of school you're attending. We are assuming that you're a high school student, so we pick that option from the drop-down list.

  2. Decide on which grade options suit you best. You need to answer the following questions:

    • Do you attend different types of courses (like regular/honors/AP/IB/College)?

    • Do the courses have credits?

    • Do you want to calculate cumulative GPA?

    We will assume that you've attended one honor and one AP course, that your courses don't have credits, and you'd like to find your cumulative GPA

Course

Grade

Course type

Maths

A

Honors

Biology

C+

Regular

History

B

Regular

English

A-

AP

Prior results: previously you got GPA = 3.5 from 5 courses.

  1. Input the grades and other necessary values into the appropriate fields. In our case, you need to enter your grades, course type, and prior results. Remember that you can enter up to 30 courses. Also, it's ok if you want to enter less than three courses - the calculator will ignore the blank boxes.

  2. And there you go — in the blink of an eye, our GPA calculator displays your results:

  • You've entered 4 courses.

  • Your GPA: 3.63. This is GPA weighted by course difficulty. It's usually simply called your weighted GPA.

    (Of course, you'd get the same result if you calculated the result manually)

  • Your cumulative GPA: 3.56

FAQ

How do I calculate GPA?

To calculate your Grade Point Average (GPA):

  1. Assign each of your final grades a numerical value. For example, A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0.
  2. Multiply each course's numerical grade by its credit hours.
  3. Sum these values.
  4. Divide this sum by the total number of credit hours taken.

The result is your GPA.

What is a good GPA?

Generally, a GPA of 3.0 or above is considered good, with 3.5 to 4.0 being excellent. A GPA closer to 4.0 is often seen as ideal for highly competitive programs or schools. Remember, different schools and employers may have their own definitions of a "good" GPA.

What does GPA stand for?

GPA stands for Grade Point Average. It's a numerical calculation representing your average performance across all your courses. Each grade you receive in a class is assigned a point value, like an A might be 4 points. Your GPA is calculated by taking the average of these points, giving you a number that typically ranges from 0 to 4.0, showing how well you've performed academically.

How do I calculate cumulative GPA?

To calculate your cumulative GPA, which is different from your semester GPA (GPA is calculated for one semester, and cumulative GPA is for all semesters):

  1. Assign each of your final grades a numerical value. For example, A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0.
  2. Sum the total credit hours for all courses taken across all semesters.
  3. Divide the total grade points by the total credit hours.

The result is your cumulative GPA, representing your overall academic performance.

Hanna Pamuła, PhD
GPA for
📚 high school
Different course types?
No, only regular courses
Credits?
No credits/ all the same
Calculate Cumulative GPA?
No, thanks
Courses
#1 Course Grade
Select...
#2 Course Grade
Select...
#3 Course Grade
Select...

You can enter up to 30 courses. The next input field will appear when you enter a grade into the last box.
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