High School GPA Calculator
A high school GPA calculator turns a list of courses — each with a letter grade and a course level (Regular, Honors, AP, IB, Dual-enrollment, or College) — into a weighted GPA and an unweighted GPA shown together. The weighted number adds level weight points on top of each base grade (Honors +0.5, AP/IB +1.0 by default) and can climb above 4.0, up to about 5.0 for an all-AP A student; the unweighted number is the flat 4.0-cap average of the same courses. The AP, Honors, and IB weight points are editable because schools weight differently, and each course counts as one credit unless you turn on credit hours.
How your weighted and unweighted GPA are calculated
Weighted GPA adds level weight points for your AP, Honors, and IB courses on top of the base grade point, so it can rise above 4.0; unweighted GPA is the flat 4.0-cap average of the very same courses. Showing both together is the point of this page — one number rewards course rigor, the other is the level playing field colleges often recalculate to.
Each course earns its base grade point plus a level weight (Honors +0.5, AP/IB +1.0 by default), and the weighted GPA is the credit-weighted average of those. With one credit per course that is just the mean of the boosted grade points.
The unweighted GPA uses each course's base grade point only, capped at 4.0, so an A is 4.0 whether it is Regular or AP. It is the number that ignores course rigor entirely.
If none of your courses are Honors, AP, or IB, no weight points are added, so the weighted and unweighted GPA come out exactly the same. That is expected, not a bug in the tool.
Schools weight differently, so the +0.5 Honors and +1.0 AP/IB defaults are editable. Changing them moves the weighted GPA and leaves the unweighted GPA untouched, so you can match your own school's policy.
Example: two AP A's, an Honors B, and a Regular A
Take four one-credit courses: an A in AP, another A in AP, a B in Honors, and an A in Regular. For the weighted GPA the tool adds the level weights first — (4.0 + 1.0), (4.0 + 1.0), (3.0 + 0.5), and (4.0 + 0.0) — which average to 17.5 divided by 4, or 4.38. The unweighted GPA uses the plain base grades (4.0, 4.0, 3.0, 4.0), averaging 3.75. Same four courses, a 0.63 gap, entirely from the AP and Honors weighting. Change every course to AP with an A and the weighted GPA reaches exactly 5.00 while the unweighted GPA stays 4.00 — that is what a '5.0 GPA' means.
AP, Honors & IB weight points
The level weight points the calculator adds on top of each base grade, and the resulting maximum grade point for an A. These are the tool's editable defaults — Honors +0.5 and AP/IB +1.0 — not universal rules, because schools weight differently. Change them in the calculator and the weighted GPA (and this ceiling) move with your school's policy.
| Course level | Added weight point | Max grade point for an A | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | +0.0 | 4.0 | No weighting — the base grade point stands. |
| Honors | +0.5 | 4.5 | Editable default; some schools use +1.0 or +0.0. |
| AP | +1.0 | 5.0 | Editable default; the source of the common 5.0 ceiling. |
| IB | +1.0 | 5.0 | Grouped with AP by default. |
| Dual-enrollment | +1.0 | 5.0 | Grouped with AP/IB; varies by school. |
| College | +1.0 | 5.0 | Grouped with AP/IB; varies by school. |
The weight point is added to the base grade point, so an A (4.0) in an AP course contributes 5.0 to the weighted GPA while still contributing 4.0 to the unweighted GPA. Weight points are editable in the tool because weighting policy is set by each school; the unweighted GPA never changes when you edit them.
Letter grade to base 4.0 grade points
The base grade points the calculator applies before any level weighting, on the plus/minus scale. This is the same base scale the college GPA calculator uses; the weight-point table above shows what each course level adds on top.
| Letter grade | Base grade points (4.0 scale) |
|---|---|
| A+ | 4.0 (some schools use 4.3 — the college GPA tool exposes that toggle) |
| 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 | 0.0 |
| P / NP / I / W | Excluded from both GPAs (carries credit toward completion) |
A+ defaults to 4.0 here; the 4.0-vs-4.3 choice lives on the college GPA calculator. P (pass), NP (no pass), I (incomplete), and W (withdrawal) count toward completion but are left out of both the weighted and unweighted GPA math.
What a 4.0 vs 5.0 weighted GPA means
There is no separate '5.0 scale' toggle on this page — the 5.0 emerges from the weighting. An A is 4.0 at its base, and an AP course adds +1.0, so an all-AP student with straight A's reaches a 5.0 weighted GPA while their unweighted GPA is 4.0. Because the weighted number depends on how many advanced courses you take and how your school weights them, weighted GPAs are not clamped to 4.0 or 5.0 and are not directly comparable between students at schools that weight differently. The unweighted GPA is the common yardstick when you need to compare across schools.
Which GPA do colleges look at?
Both, but many colleges recalculate an unweighted core GPA on their own scale rather than trusting each high school's weighting, according to College Board. That is why this tool shows the unweighted number next to the weighted one: the weighted GPA reflects the rigor of your schedule, and the unweighted GPA is closer to what an admissions office may recompute. If you actually need a college credit-hour GPA, use the GPA Calculator; to roll several terms into one cumulative GPA, that is a multi-term job the cumulative GPA calculator handles; and to estimate the percentage that matches a GPA, use the GPA to Percentage Calculator. For a high-school transcript from outside the U.S., a credential-evaluation service such as WES or Scholaro estimates a U.S. GPA equivalent — that conversion is outside this tool's scope.
Credits, and grades that are excluded
High schools usually count each course as one credit, which is the default here, so the GPA is just the average of your boosted grade points. Turn on 'count credit hours' if your school weights courses by credit hours — it reveals a credits field on every row and re-weights both the weighted and unweighted GPA so a heavier course pulls harder. Pass/no-pass, incomplete, and withdrawal grades (P, NP, I, W) carry credit toward completion but are excluded from both GPAs entirely, so they neither raise nor lower either number.
Weighted GPA vs weighted GRADE — which do you need?
Weighted GPA means extra grade points for AP, Honors, and IB courses across your whole transcript, which is what this page computes. A weighted grade is different: it is the category weighting inside a single class, where homework might be 20% and exams 50% of one course grade. If you want the grade in one class, use the Grade Calculator instead. And if you are trying to figure out the score you need on one test or final rather than a GPA across courses, that is also the grade calculator's job, not this one.