# High School GPA Calculator

Created by Hanna Pamuła, PhD
Reviewed by Bogna Szyk
Last updated: Oct 07, 2022

Use our high school GPA calculator to find out your GPA score. This measure is useful to estimate your performance and assess your chances of a successful application to the college of your dreams. Our tool will let you calculate unweighted and weighted GPA, and may also serve as a high school cumulative GPA calculator. You may enter up to 30 courses; add their types and (optionally) credits, enter your previous scores if you wish, and in a blink of an eye, you'll find unweighted, weighted, and cumulative GPA. Scroll down if you want to:

• Know how to calculate high school GPA;
• Understand the difference between weighted vs unweighted GPA;
• Check out the high school GPA scale; or
• Have the slightest idea what a good GPA in high school is.

Also, we'd recommend having a look at our other tool: final grade calculator📓 which helps in determining what your final grade will be, or what you can do to improve your result. And, if you're already a college student🎓, you may find the college GPA calculator useful.

Besides, if you are considering taking a student loan, check out our student loan calculator, where you can make a projection on your expenses and study the effect of different student loan options on your budget.

## High school GPA scale

GPA - Grade Point Average - is one of the measures of students' academic performance. Most high schools in the US use a 4.0 GPA scale - a 4-point grading scale. The table below shows a typical letter grade/GPA conversion system:

High school GPA scale.

Percentage

4.0 scale

+4.0 scale

A+

97-100

4

4.3

A

93-96

4

3

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

Some schools reward A+ with 4.3, so then it's possible to obtain a score exceeding the standard maximum of a 4.0 GPA. The values in the table are typical but the percentage intervals and GPA scale may differ a bit between schools. Also, some courses provide extra points due to their difficulty, but you'll read more about that in the next paragraph.

## Weighted vs unweighted GPA

If you're wondering about the differences between weighted vs unweighted GPA, this paragraph is a must. Weighted or unweighted? This is a question!

1. Unweighted GPA - How to calculate a high school unweighted GPA?

An unweighted GPA is calculated in a case when all courses are graded on the same scale. That means it doesn't take the levels of your classes into account - so when a course #1 is graded on a 0.0 - 4.0 GPA scale, other courses will also have the same maximum, no matter the course difficulty. If you don't have credits or points for specific classes, you can calculate the unweighted average as

$\footnotesize \text{GPA}_{\substack{\text{unweighted} \\ \text{high school}}} = \frac{\sum\text{grade value}}{\sum\text{courses}}.$

So, for example, assume that's your results sheet:

Course

Maths

A

Physics

B+

Physics lab

C+

English

A-

Let's find the numerical values for our letter grades:

Course

Scale

Maths

A

4.0

Physics

B+

3.3

Physics lab

C+

2.3

English

A-

3.7

Then, we can calculate the unweighted GPA as

$\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\substack{\text{unweighted} \\ \text{high school}}} &= \frac{4.0 + 3.3 + 2.3 + 3.7}{4} \\ &= \frac{13.3}{4} = 3.325 \approx 3.33. \end{split}$

Did you notice that it's a standard average? Summing all scores and division by the total number of observations (4 courses).

Things get more complicated when the credits for the courses appear. Some sources (e.g. gpacalculator.net) ignore the course's credits for unweighted GPA score, but others (like gpacalculator.io) keep them. If you enter the credits for your courses, we'll show you both results and you'll choose the one you need. Sounds fair, right?

So, if your classes have some credits/points, you can calculate the weighted average of grades and credits (but still, it's not the thing we usually name as weighted GPA):

Course

Credits

Scale

Maths

0.5

A

4.0

Physics

1

B+

3.3

Physics lab

0.5

C+

2.3

English

1

A-

3.7

Then, the GPA will be equal:

$\footnotesize \text{GPA}_{\substack{\text{credits} \\ \text{high school}}} = \frac{\sum(\substack{\text{grade} \\ \text{value}} \times \text{credits})}{\sum\text{credits}}.$

So in this example, this gives
$\frac{4.0 \times 0.5 + 3.3 \times 1+ 2.3 \times 0.5 + 3.7 \times 1}{0.5 + 1 + 0.5 + 1} = \frac{10.15}{3} = 3.38333... \approx 3.38.$

The courses with higher credit value have better marks, so the overall GPA is also higher in this case.

1. Weighted GPA - How to calculate high school weighted GPA?

Weighted GPA takes into account the difficulty of the course. So, if you're taking classes from a higher level, the points will be added to your grade. There are a couple of types of more demanding courses which influence your weighted GPA score:

• AP Courses (Advanced Placement Courses) usually give you an additional point to your standard GPA score,
• IB Courses (International Baccalaureate Courses) are also rewarded with an extra 1 point,
• Honors Courses most often give you an additional 0.5 points (although you can find schools where it's awarded 1 point, check it first in your school's rules).

Percentage

Regular GPA

Honors GPA

AP/IB/College prep GPA

A+

97-100

4

4.5

5

A

93-96

4

4.5

5

A-

90-92

3.7

4.2

4.7

B+

87-89

3.3

3.8

4.3

B

83-86

3

3.5

4

B-

80-82

2.7

3.2

3.7

C+

77-79

2.3

2.8

3.3

C

73-36

2

2.5

3

C-

70-72

1.7

2.2

2.7

D+

67-69

1.3

1.8

2.3

D

65-66

1

1.5

2

F

Below 65

0

0

0

Thus, having a 4.0 unweighted GPA score doesn't mean you're the best of the best - maybe you've just chosen the easiest courses?

Continuing with our example, now our four classes have the course type assigned:

Course

Credits

Course type

GPA scale

Maths

0.5

A

Honors

4.5

Physics

1

B+

Regular

3.3

Physics lab

0.5

C+

Regular

2.3

English

1

A-

AP

4.7

As two courses are not standard classes, they get extra points (A from Maths - 4.5 instead of 4.0, as it's an Honors course, A- from English - 4.7 instead of 3.7, as it's an AP course).

The formula for calculation of weighted GPA looks then as follows:

• Without course credits
$\footnotesize \begin{split} \text{GPA}_{\substack{\text{weighted} \\ \text{high school}}} &= \frac{\sum \substack{\text{weighted} \\ \text{grade} \\ \text{value}}}{\sum\text{courses}} \\ &= \frac{4.5 + 3.3 + 2.3 + 4.7}{4} \\ &= \frac{14.8}{4} = 3.7. \end{split}$
• Taking into account courses credits
$\footnotesize \text{GPA}_{\substack{\text{weighted} \\ \text{high school}}} = \frac{\sum \left( \substack{\text{weighted} \\ \text{grade} \\ \text{value}} \times \text{credits}\right)}{\sum\text{credits}}.$

where $\text{weighted grade value}$ is a:

• $\text{grade value} + 0$ for Regular courses;
• $\text{grade value} + 0.5$ for Honors courses; and
• $\text{grade value} + 1$ for AP/IB/College Prep courses.

In this example, this gives us
$\frac{4.5 \times 0.5 + 3.3 \times 1 + 2.3 \times 0.5+ 4.7 \times 1}{0.5 + 1 + 0.5 + 1} = \frac{11.4}{3} = 3.8.$

## How to calculate high school GPA?

Let's sum up what we've learned in the last paragraph. High school GPA formulas are ratios, and they look as follows:

1. Unweighted GPA, where we DON'T care about course difficulty.

a) And we DON'T care about course credits
$\text{GPA}_{\text{high school}} = \frac{\sum\text{grade value}}{\sum\text{courses}}.$

b) And we DO care about course credits
$\text{GPA}_{\text{high school}} = \frac{\sum(\text{grade value} \times \text{credits})}{\sum\text{credits}}.$

1. Weighted GPA - in that case, we DO care about course difficulty

a) And we DON'T care about course credits
$\text{GPA}_{\text{high school}} = \frac{\sum\text{weighted grade value}}{\sum\text{courses}}.$

b) And we DO care about course credits
$\text{GPA}_{\text{high school}} = \frac{\sum(\text{weighted grade value} \times \text{credits})}{\sum\text{credits}}.$

It's not as hard as it seems! Have a look at our step-by-step example. We'll show how easy the calculations can be with our high school GPA calculator. Let's take the grade sheet from the previous paragraphs:

Course

Credits

Course type

GPA scale

Maths

0.5

A

Honors

4.5

Physics

1

B+

Regular

3.3

Physics lab

0.5

C+

Regular

2.3

English

1

A-

AP

4.7

And we'll finally use the high school GPA calculator!

1. Pick up a grade for the first course. So it's 'A' for Maths in our example.

2. Enter the class credits (if you have any) To have the credits displayed, hit the Advanced mode button. Change the default value from 1 to 0.5.

3. Select the course type. Maths is an Honors course, so pick it from the drop-down list.

4. Repeat until all courses from your grade sheet are included. It's ok if you want to enter less than four courses - the calculator ignores the blank boxes.

For our case, we'll select:

• Course #2 (Physics) grade: B+, credits: 1, course type: Regular
• Course #3 (Physics lab) grade: C+, credits: 0.5, course type: Regular
• Course #4 (English) grade: A-, credits: 1, course type: AP
5. Here you go! The high school GPA calculator did all the math, and the GPA value is displayed. Even more - both weighted and unweighted GPAs are displayed. Awesome!

• Your unweighted GPA: 3.33 (credits and course difficulty are not taken into account)
• Your unweighted GPA: 3.38 (weighted with credits, but not course difficulty)
• Your weighted GPA: 3.8 (weighted with credits and course difficulty)

We don't display separately GPA weighted with course difficulty but not with credits - we assumed that if you have chosen credits and course difficulty, you should take both of them into account in the weighted GPA. If you don't change the credits' default values, you'll get that value-weighted GPA, which is only weighted with course difficulty.

As you probably noticed, the results agree with our manual calculations. Yay!

## Calculate high school cumulative GPA

This calculator can work as a high school cumulative GPA calculator. Click the Advanced mode button, and apart from course credits, two boxes will appear - your current GPA score and sum of credits you got. Note that this option gives valid results only if you type the sum of credits from which the current cumulative GPA was calculated.

Let's continue on our example: we've calculated the GPA from our last semester of high school, but we'd like to know what's our overall cumulative GPA, after all these hard years!

1. Assume that our cumulative GPA from all previous semester is equal to 3.60. Type this value into Cumulative GPA box.
2. During all semesters, we did courses for 23 credits. Enter 23 into Credits.
3. Under the calculator you'll find the GPA values as well as weighted cumulative GPA, which is equal to 3.62 in our example.

## What is a good GPA in high school?

There's no good answer to such a question, as it all depends on you, your ambition, the college you want to apply to, and many other factors. You may want to have a look at the data about average high school GPA to check where you are - but still, remember that these are averaged values, and the average GPA differs with regard to gender, ethnicity, school, state, etc.

According to NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) , average GPA values for high school students are:

• 3.0 is an overall GPA (an increase from 2.68 in 1990);
• 2.79 in core academic courses (math, science, English, and social studies);
• 3.14 in other academic courses (foreign language and other academic classes not from the core);
• 3.39 in other classes (PE, cooking).

The numbers may be a bit outdated, as we know the growing trends of all grades, both in high school and college. That's why you can check a which shows that the overall average GPA is equal to 3.38.

However, if you're a college candidate, you should aim higher than average. Of course, it depends on your college choice, but if you're aiming e.g. to the one from , your scores should be almost perfect:

Ivy League school 🎓

Brown University

4.05

Columbia University

4.13

Dartmouth College

4.01

Harvard University

4.10

University of Pennsylvania

4.04

Princeton University

3.90

Yale University

3.90

Cornell University

4.19

Yes, that's pretty jaw-dropping 😲. But don't freak out if you think that your GPA is too low - try as hard as you can and don't give up! Also, remember that many academic and non-academic aspects are important during application - and GPA value is only one of the factors.

Hanna Pamuła, PhD
Select...
#1 Course type
Regular
Select...
#2 Course type
Regular
Select...
#3 Course type
Regular
Select...
#4 Course type
Regular

You can enter up to 30 courses. Next input field appears when you enter grade into last box. Check advanced mode for courses credits and CGPA.
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