GPA, or grade point average, is a single number that summarizes your grades. Each letter grade is converted to points on a scale from 0.0 to 4.0 (A = 4.0, B = 3.0, C = 2.0, D = 1.0, F = 0.0), and the points are averaged, usually weighted by each course’s credits. A weighted GPA adds extra points for honors and AP/IB courses, so it can go above 4.0.
What does GPA mean in school?
In US high schools and colleges, GPA is the standard way to express overall academic performance. It appears on your transcript, it is used in college admissions and scholarship decisions, and colleges use it to track academic standing. You will usually see two versions:
- Term (semester) GPA covers the courses of one term.
- Cumulative GPA covers every course you have taken at that school so far.
Because the number is an average, one strong or weak grade moves a cumulative GPA less and less as you collect more credits.
What is the GPA scale?
The most common US scale assigns these points to letter grades:
| Grade | Points | Grade | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| A+ / A | 4.0 | C+ | 2.3 |
| A- | 3.7 | C | 2.0 |
| B+ | 3.3 | C- | 1.7 |
| B | 3.0 | D+ | 1.3 |
| B- | 2.7 | D | 1.0 |
| D- | 0.7 | ||
| F | 0.0 |
Schools do not all follow it exactly. Some skip plus and minus grades, some give an A+ more than 4.0, and the percentage needed for each letter differs from school to school. Your school’s published scale is always the one that counts. If you only have percentages, the grade calculator turns scores and weights into a percentage and a letter grade first.
How is GPA calculated?
Multiply each course’s grade points by its credits, add the results, and divide by the total number of credits:
GPA = Σ (grade points × credits) ÷ Σ credits
Step 1. Convert each letter grade to points
Take a term with four courses: English A, Algebra B+, Biology B and Art A-. On the scale above that is 4.0, 3.3, 3.0 and 3.7 points.
Step 2. Multiply the points by the credits
| Course | Grade | Credits | Points × credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | A | 3 | 4.0 × 3 = 12.0 |
| Algebra | B+ | 4 | 3.3 × 4 = 13.2 |
| Biology | B | 4 | 3.0 × 4 = 12.0 |
| Art | A- | 2 | 3.7 × 2 = 7.4 |
| Total | 13 | 44.6 |
Step 3. Divide by the total credits
44.6 ÷ 13 = 3.43. If you ignored credits and simply averaged the four grades, you would get (4.0 + 3.3 + 3.0 + 3.7) ÷ 4 = 3.50. The difference comes from the 2-credit Art course: its A- counts for less than the 4-credit B+ and B. The GPA calculator does these steps for you as you enter courses.
What is the difference between weighted and unweighted GPA?
An unweighted GPA uses the 4.0 scale for every course, whatever its difficulty. A weighted GPA rewards harder courses with a bonus. A common setup, and the one our calculator uses, adds 0.5 points for honors and 1.0 point for AP or IB courses to any passing grade; an F stays at 0.0.
Using the same term:
| Change | Total points | GPA |
|---|---|---|
| All courses regular (unweighted) | 44.6 | 3.43 |
| Biology is AP: B counts as 4.0 instead of 3.0 | 48.6 | 3.74 |
| Biology AP and English honors: A counts as 4.5 | 50.1 | 3.85 |
The size of the bonus is set by each school, and some high schools do not weight grades at all. When an application asks for your GPA, check whether it wants the weighted or the unweighted number.
What is a cumulative GPA?
Cumulative GPA is the GPA of all your terms together. Add the grade points of every term and divide by all the credits, rather than averaging the term GPAs.
Say the term above (44.6 points, 13 credits) is followed by a term with 15 credits and a 3.00 GPA, which is 45.0 points:
- Cumulative GPA = (44.6 + 45.0) ÷ (13 + 15) = 89.6 ÷ 28 = 3.20
- The average of the two term GPAs would be (3.43 + 3.00) ÷ 2 = 3.22, slightly too high, because the second term had more credits.
The same arithmetic shows what you need next. To lift that 3.20 to 3.30 with 15 more credits, you need 3.30 × 43 = 141.9 total points, so 52.3 points from the new term: an average of 52.3 ÷ 15 ≈ 3.49, between a B+ and an A-. The Target Grade mode of the GPA calculator runs this calculation for you.
Do colleges use your school’s GPA?
Often they work it out again. College Board’s BigFuture guide notes that colleges may drop non-core courses such as physical education, focus on English, math, science, social studies and world languages, and remove or replace the honors and AP weighting so that applicants from different schools can be compared. That is why applications frequently ask you to list your actual course grades, not just the GPA. Ask each admissions office how it reads GPA.
Is GPA the same in every country?
No. The 4.0 letter-grade scale is a US convention. Other systems use different maximums: the Australian National University, for example, calculates GPA on a 7-point scale, where a High Distinction is worth 7 points and a fail 0, still weighted by course units. Converting a GPA from one system to another is not a simple ratio, so when you apply abroad, use the conversion the receiving institution asks for.
Sources
- College Board BigFuture, “How to Convert Your GPA to a 4.0 Scale”: https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/plan-for-college/get-started/how-to-calculate-gpa-4.0-scale
- Australian National University, “Grade Point Average (GPA)”: https://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/assessments-exams/grade-point-average-gpa