GPA Calculator

Your Grade Point Average (GPA) is a weighted average of your grades, where the "weight" is the number of credit hours for each course. The calculation is straightforward: for each course, you multiply the grade points by the number of credit hours to get the total quality points. You then add up all the quality points and divide by the total number of credit hours. The result is your GPA for that semester.

The formula looks like this: GPA = (Total Quality Points) / (Total Credit Hours). Most U.S. colleges and high schools use a 4.0 scale for grade points: an A is worth 4.0 points, a B is 3.0, a C is 2.0, a D is 1.0, and an F is 0.0. For plus (+) or minus (-) grades, the values are adjusted; for instance, a B+ is typically 3.3 points and an A- is 3.7 points. This calculator does this conversion for you automatically based on the letter grades you enter.

Consider a student taking four courses in one semester. To calculate GPA, find quality points per course by multiplying grade points by credit hours, then divide the sum by total credits.

Intro to Psychology (3 credits) — grade A (4.0) = 12.0 quality points. Calculus I (4 credits) — grade B+ (3.3) = 13.2 quality points. English Composition (3 credits) — grade A− (3.7) = 11.1 quality points. World History (3 credits) — grade B (3.0) = 9.0 quality points.

Total quality points: 12.0 + 13.2 + 11.1 + 9.0 = 45.3. Total credit hours: 3 + 4 + 3 + 3 = 13. Semester GPA: 45.3 ÷ 13 = 3.48. A solid B+ semester. Note how the 4-credit Calculus course pulls more weight than each 3-credit class — credit-weighted averaging is what makes the heavy classes matter most.

Many high schools and some universities use a weighted GPA scale to give more credit for advanced coursework like Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), or honors classes. This method acknowledges the increased difficulty of these courses. Most commonly, weighting adds a full point (1.0) to the grade point value for AP/IB courses and a half-point (0.5) for honors courses.

Take the previous example, but say Calculus I was an AP course. On a standard 4.0 scale, the B+ is 3.3 points. On a weighted scale, it becomes 4.3 (3.3 + 1.0). The course's quality points jump from 13.2 to 17.2 (4.3 × 4 credits). New semester total: 49.3 quality points ÷ 13 credits = 3.79 weighted GPA, up from 3.48 unweighted. The same semester now reads as a strong A− on a weighted transcript.

Your cumulative GPA represents your average academic performance across all your semesters. To calculate it, you need your previous GPA and the total number of credit hours you attempted to earn it. The formula expands on the semester GPA calculation: add your new semester's quality points and credit hours to your previous totals before dividing.

The formula is: Cumulative GPA = (Previous Total Quality Points + New Semester Quality Points) ÷ (Previous Total Credits + New Semester Credits). If you don't know your previous total quality points, recover them by multiplying your previous cumulative GPA by your previous total credit hours (e.g., 3.5 GPA × 60 credits = 210 quality points).

Say our example student previously had a 3.40 cumulative GPA over 60 credit hours, for 204 prior quality points. Adding the new semester: (204 + 45.3) ÷ (60 + 13) = 249.3 ÷ 73 = 3.42 cumulative. A semester GPA above the cumulative average pulls the cumulative up; below it pulls down — and the larger the prior credit base, the slower a single semester moves the cumulative number.