GPA Calculator
A GPA calculator turns a list of courses — each with a letter grade and its credit hours — into one grade point average on the 4.0 scale. It is computed as a credit-weighted average, not a plain average of your grade points, and the quality points behind the number are shown so you can see how the credits do the weighting. You choose whether A+ counts as 4.0 or 4.3 (a real school-by-school difference that changes the answer), switch between the plus/minus and whole-letter scales, and enter grades as letters, percentages, or points. A second mode plans the GPA you need on future credits to reach a target.
How your GPA is calculated (and which GPA you actually need)
GPA looks like a simple average, but it is weighted by credit hours, and several school-specific conventions change the number. This guide explains how the credit-weighting works, why A+ is ambiguous, how to plan toward a target GPA, which of the neighboring GPA and grade tools you actually need, and what counts as a good GPA.
Your GPA is the total quality points (each grade's points times its credit hours) divided by the total credit hours — so a 4-credit A pulls harder than a 1-credit A. Averaging your letter grades directly gives the wrong number.
The tool defaults to 4.0 (capped) but lets you switch to 4.3 (above-scale). With an A+ in your list, that choice changes your GPA — check which convention your registrar uses.
P, NP, I, and W grades carry credit toward completion but are left out of the GPA math entirely, so they neither raise nor lower your number.
Because each term carries different credits, your cumulative GPA is credit-weighted across all of them — averaging your semester GPAs only matches when every term has the same credit load.
Example: three courses, and why A+ matters
Take an A+ worth 4 credits, a B worth 2 credits, and an A worth 3 credits. With A+ capped at 4.0 the quality points are 4.0 times 4 plus 3.0 times 2 plus 4.0 times 3, which is 16 plus 6 plus 12, or 34, over 9 credit hours — a 3.78 GPA. Switch A+ to 4.3 and the A+ course contributes 4.3 times 4 instead, so the quality points rise to 35.2 over the same 9 credits — a 3.91. Same courses, a 0.13 difference, entirely from one school's convention for A+.
Letter grade to grade points on the 4.0 scale
The plus/minus grade points the calculator uses, with the typical percentage band each letter maps to. Every grade-point value here is the one the tool applies, so the table and the calculator always agree.
| Letter | Typical percent | Grade points |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | 97-100% | 4.0 (or 4.3) |
| A | 93-96% | 4.0 |
| A- | 90-92% | 3.7 |
| B+ | 87-89% | 3.3 |
| B | 83-86% | 3.0 |
| B- | 80-82% | 2.7 |
| C+ | 77-79% | 2.3 |
| C | 73-76% | 2.0 |
| C- | 70-72% | 1.7 |
| D+ | 67-69% | 1.3 |
| D | 63-66% | 1.0 |
| D- | 60-62% | 0.7 |
| F | 0-59% | 0.0 |
| P / NP / I / W | n/a | Excluded from the GPA |
A+ is 4.0 at schools that cap the scale (College Board, Scholaro) and 4.3 at schools that award above the scale — the tool lets you choose, and the answer changes accordingly. Percentage cutoffs vary by school; these follow the common plus/minus convention. P (pass), NP (no pass), I (incomplete), and W (withdrawal) carry credit toward completion but are left out of the GPA numerator and denominator.
How the credit-weighted average works (within and across terms)
Each course earns quality points equal to its grade point times its credit hours. The GPA is the sum of those quality points divided by the sum of the credit hours that counted. That is why the tool shows the total quality points and the credits counted alongside the GPA — they are the numerator and denominator behind the one big number. A plain average of the grade points ignores the credits and is the most common way people get the wrong GPA.
College Board's own worked example lands on the same method: five one-credit courses graded A, A, A, B, C give quality points of 4 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 2 = 17 over 5 credits, a 3.40 GPA. Because those courses all carry one credit, the credit-weighted average and a plain average happen to agree here — but that only holds when every course carries the same credits.
P, NP, I, and W grades (pass, no-pass, incomplete, withdrawal) are the exception: they carry credit toward completion but are left out of both the numerator and the denominator. Adding a 4-credit Pass to an A (3 cr) and a B (3 cr) leaves the GPA at 3.50 — the Pass changes nothing, because only the 21 quality points over 6 graded credits count.
The same credit-weighting is why a cumulative GPA is not the average of your semester GPAs unless every term carried the same credits. Say one term was a 4.0 over 3 credits and the next was a 2.0 over 15 credits: averaging the two GPAs suggests a 3.0, but the real cumulative is (4.0 times 3 plus 2.0 times 15) divided by 18 credits, which is 42 over 18, or 2.33 — pulled toward the heavier term. To fold a single prior cumulative GPA into this term, use Add prior GPA and enter your prior GPA and prior credits; the tool merges them the same way (a prior 3.20 over 30 credits plus this term's 3.80 over 15 credits comes to 3.40, not the 3.50 you would get by averaging). Rolling many separate terms into one cumulative GPA is a job for a dedicated cumulative GPA calculator.
Scales, A+, and entering grades as percentages or points
The default is the plus/minus 4.0 scale, where A- is 3.7, B+ is 3.3, and so on down to F at 0.0. Schools that do not use pluses and minuses can switch to the whole-letter scale (A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, D = 1, F = 0). The A+ toggle chooses 4.0 (capped) or 4.3 (above-scale). If your transcript reports numeric grades you can enter percentages instead of letters, and they map to letters through the band table above; you can also type grade points directly. The active scale is shown as an assumption alongside the answer so the number is self-documenting.
Planning the GPA you need for a target
Switch to Plan a target GPA to work backward: enter your current GPA, the credits you have completed, the cumulative GPA you want, and how many credits you have left. The tool solves for the average GPA you must earn across those remaining credits — a 3.00 over 30 credits aiming for a 3.20 with 15 credits left needs a 3.60 going forward. If the required GPA is above the scale maximum for the credits you have left, it tells you the target is not reachable in that many credits rather than showing an impossible number, so you can plan for more credits or a lower target. This is GPA-level planning across courses, not the class-level question of the score you need on one final — that is the Grade Calculator's job.
Which GPA calculator do you actually need?
This page computes a college-style credit-hour GPA and can fold in a single prior cumulative GPA. Three related jobs live on other tools. A weighted high-school GPA — where AP, Honors, or IB courses add points (often +0.5 or +1.0) and you want a weighted and unweighted number side by side on a 5.0 scale — is a high-school GPA calculator's job, because this page deliberately does not add level weighting. Rolling several semesters or schools into one cumulative GPA is a multi-term roll-up; this page only merges a single prior GPA, so a cumulative GPA calculator is the better fit for the full history. And to estimate the percentage that matches a GPA, use the GPA to Percentage Calculator — this page never converts a GPA to a percentage, because College Board is explicit that there is no single official formula and cutoffs vary by school.
GPA vs grade: three distinctions this tool is not
A GPA is your grade points across courses, weighted by credits — a different number from the grade in any one class, so three lookalike jobs belong elsewhere. If you want the score you need on one test or final, or your overall mark in a single course, that is a class grade rather than a GPA, so use the Grade Calculator. Your semester GPA is the grade points across this term's courses (this page), whereas your semester grade is your standing in one class over the term — use the Semester Grade Calculator. And a weighted GPA adds points for advanced courses (a high-school GPA calculator's job), while a weighted grade is your mark in one class after its homework, quiz, and exam categories are weighted — that is the Grade Calculator again, not a GPA at all.
Is my GPA good?
Per College Board, the average GPA across all U.S. high schools is about 3.0 and across all U.S. colleges about 3.1. Read those as national averages, not pass/fail lines or admissions cutoffs — a strong GPA depends on your goals, your course rigor, and the programs you are targeting. It also helps to know that many colleges recalculate GPA on their own scale: they may drop non-core courses, focus on core academic subjects, and remove the AP or Honors weighting your school applied, so the GPA an admissions office uses can differ from the one on your transcript.