GPA Calculator

How GPA is calculated

Your GPA is the average of your grades, weighted by how many credits each course is worth. Each letter grade becomes a number of grade points on a 4.0 scale, you multiply by the course's credits to get quality points, add those up, and divide by your total credits. So an A (4.0) in a 4-credit course contributes 16 quality points, while a B (3.0) in a 3-credit course contributes 9. The calculator above does this for as many courses as you add.

Because credits matter, a low grade in a heavy course pulls your GPA down more than the same grade in a light one — which is why credit-weighting is built in.

The 4.0 grade scale

The standard US scale maps letters to points: A = 4.0, A− = 3.7, B+ = 3.3, B = 3.0, B− = 2.7, C+ = 2.3, C = 2.0, C− = 1.7, D+ = 1.3, D = 1.0, D− = 0.7, F = 0. Some schools count an A+ as 4.0 (a few use 4.3). Pick each course's grade from the dropdown and the calculator applies the right points automatically.

Weighted vs unweighted GPA

An unweighted GPA treats every course the same, capping at 4.0. A weighted GPA gives harder courses a bonus — typically +0.5 for Honors and +1.0 for AP or IB — so an A in an AP class can count as 5.0. The calculator shows both side by side, which most tools make you compute separately, so you can see how your course rigor lifts your weighted number.

Colleges often recalculate GPA their own way, but seeing both gives you the clearest picture of where you stand.

Quality points and credit hours

Quality points are the engine of the GPA formula: grade points × credits, summed across all your courses. Total credits is just the sum of the credit hours you attempted. GPA is the first divided by the second. The calculator shows your total credits and quality points alongside the GPA, so the math is transparent — useful for checking a transcript or planning next term.

Cumulative GPA across semesters

Your cumulative GPA combines every course you've taken, not just one term. To roll a new semester into a running GPA, add all your courses together — old and new — or combine the quality points and credits from each term and divide. Because the calculator accepts unlimited rows, you can enter a whole year or a full transcript at once for a true cumulative figure.

What counts as a good GPA?

It depends on context, but on the unweighted 4.0 scale a 3.0 is solid, 3.5 is strong, and 3.7+ is excellent; selective colleges often see averages above 3.8 weighted. More important than any single number is the trend and the rigor behind it — a 3.6 with several AP courses can outweigh a 3.9 of easier classes. Use the weighted figure to capture that rigor.