GPA calculator
Enter each course's letter grade and credit hours to get an instant GPA on the standard US 4.0 scale. Switch on weighting to add Honors and AP/IB bonus points, or turn on cumulative mode to combine this term with a prior GPA.
How it works: quality points
GPA is not a simple average of your grades — it is a credit-weighted average, so a course worth more credit hours has more influence on the result. The building block is the quality point: a course's grade-point value multiplied by its credit hours.
A 4-credit course graded B (3.0 points) contributes 12 quality points. A 2-credit course graded A (4.0 points) contributes only 8 quality points — fewer, even though the grade is higher — because it carries half the credit hours. This is exactly why two students with the same set of grades can have different GPAs if their course loads differ.
The standard 4.0 grade-point scale
This is the most common convention among US schools that use plus/minus grading. Institutions vary — see the honesty note below the table.
| Letter grade | Grade points |
|---|---|
| A+ | 4.0 |
| 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 |
A+ is capped at 4.0 in this tool — the most common convention on the standard 4.0 scale, and what this calculator uses. Some schools instead give A+ a value above 4.0, commonly 4.3 or 4.33, on an uncapped scale. If your transcript shows an A+ worth more than 4.0, your school uses that variant — check its published grading policy for the exact figure.
Weighted vs unweighted GPA
Unweighted GPA treats every course the same regardless of difficulty: an A is 4.0 whether it was earned in a standard class or an AP class. Weighted GPA adds a bonus to the grade points of harder courses before averaging — commonly:
- Honors courses: +0.5 to the grade's base points
- AP or IB courses: +1.0 to the grade's base points
Because the bonus is not capped, a weighted GPA can legitimately land above 4.0 — a 4.3 or 4.5 weighted GPA is completely normal for a student taking several AP courses and is not a mistake. This tool labels every weighted result clearly and never mixes weighted and unweighted numbers in the same figure.
The exact weighted-vs-unweighted convention, and even whether a school reports a weighted GPA at all, varies by institution — some use +1.0 for Honors and +2.0 for AP, others weight only a subset of courses, and some do not weight at all. Toggle to weighted mode here to see the effect, but confirm your own school's exact bonus values before quoting the number on an application.
Term GPA vs cumulative GPA
Term GPA (or semester GPA) is computed only from the courses you took in one term. Cumulative GPA covers every credit hour you have ever earned toward your degree, across every term.
You cannot average two GPAs directly by adding them and dividing by two — that ignores how many credits back each number. Instead, convert each side back into quality points, add the quality points together, add the credit hours together, and divide:
Turn on Combine with a prior cumulative GPA above the table, enter your prior cumulative GPA and prior total credit hours, and the calculator does this for you using the term GPA it just computed from your course table.
Worked examples
Every number below was produced by the same formulas this page uses, and each one was checked with an automated test before this page shipped.
1. Two courses, unweighted
Course A: grade A, 3 credit hours. Course B: grade B, 4 credit hours.
Note that the B-grade course, despite the lower letter grade, contributes exactly as many quality points (12) as the A-grade course — because it carries more credit hours.
2. The same two courses, weighted
Same grades and credits, but Course A is Honors (+0.5) and Course B is AP (+1.0).
The weighted result is above 4.0 by design — the unweighted GPA for the identical set of grades and credits was 3.4286.
3. Combining with a prior cumulative GPA
Prior cumulative GPA 3.50 over 30 credit hours, combined with this term's unweighted result from example 1 (3.4286 over 7 credit hours):
The new cumulative GPA moved only slightly, because the new term's 7 credits are a small fraction of the 37-credit total — this is normal and is exactly why one bad term rarely wrecks a multi-year cumulative GPA on its own.
Frequently asked questions
How is GPA calculated from letter grades?
Each letter grade maps to a number of grade points on a 4.0 scale (A = 4.0 down to F = 0.0). Multiply each course's points by its credit hours to get that course's quality points, add up quality points across every course, then divide by the total credit hours. The result is a credit-weighted average, so a 4-credit course moves the GPA twice as much as a 2-credit course with the same grade.
What is the difference between weighted and unweighted GPA?
Unweighted GPA uses the same 4.0 scale for every course regardless of difficulty. Weighted GPA adds extra points for harder courses — commonly +0.5 for Honors and +1.0 for AP or IB courses — before averaging, so it rewards students for taking more challenging classes. The two numbers are not interchangeable and a transcript that reports one is not directly comparable to a transcript that reports the other.
Does an A+ always earn 4.3 or 4.33 grade points?
Not here, and not everywhere. This calculator caps A+ at 4.0, same as a plain A, which is the most common convention on the standard 4.0 scale. Some schools instead give A+ a value above 4.0 (4.3 or 4.33) on an uncapped scale. If your institution does that, treat this tool's unweighted number as an estimate and check your school's own published scale for the exact A+ value.
How is cumulative GPA different from a single term's GPA?
Term GPA (also called semester GPA) covers only the courses you enter for that one term. Cumulative GPA covers every credit hour you have ever earned. To get a new cumulative figure, this tool takes your prior cumulative GPA and prior total credit hours, converts that back into quality points, adds the new term's quality points and credit hours, and divides the combined totals — the same quality-points method, just applied across two batches of credits instead of one.
Can a weighted GPA go above 4.0?
Yes, and that is expected, not a bug. Because the Honors and AP/IB bonuses are added on top of a grade's base points, a student with mostly A-range grades in weighted courses can end up with a weighted GPA of 4.2, 4.4 or higher. An unweighted GPA computed on the same courses stays capped at 4.0. Report whichever figure the context calls for, and say clearly which one you are quoting.
Why does my school's GPA scale look different from this one?
GPA scales are set by each institution, not by a single universal standard. This tool uses the most common US convention — a 4.0 scale with A/A+ = 4.0 down to F = 0.0 in 0.3-point steps for plus/minus grades. Some schools use 4.3 or 4.33 for A+, some use different point values for plus/minus grades, and some use a 0–100 percentage scale instead of letter grades entirely. Your registrar's published grading policy is the authoritative source for your own transcript — treat this tool as a fast estimate, not a replacement for it.
What happens if I leave a course's grade or credit hours blank?
That row is skipped entirely rather than counted as a zero. A course only enters the average once it has both a recognised letter grade and a credit-hours value greater than zero. This matters: a blank row silently pulling your average toward 0.0 would be a serious and misleading bug, so the calculator explicitly excludes incomplete rows and tells you how many rows were counted.
Does a Pass/Fail, Withdraw, or Incomplete grade affect my GPA?
At most schools, Pass/Fail (when passed), Withdraw and Incomplete grades are excluded from GPA calculation entirely — they still count toward the credits you have attempted or completed for other purposes, but they do not contribute quality points. This tool only offers the standard A-through-F letter grades for exactly that reason: simply leave a Pass/Fail or Withdraw course out of the table so it is not averaged in, and check your registrar's policy if you need the precise rule for your institution.
Is the number this tool gives the same one my registrar will show?
It should be very close if your school uses the standard 4.0 scale this tool implements, but it is an estimate, not an official record. Registrars sometimes apply school-specific rules this tool does not know about — repeated-course policies, grade replacement, transfer-credit handling, or a non-standard point scale. Your institution's own transcript and grading policy are always the authoritative source.
Use cases & limitations
Where this is genuinely useful
- Planning next term. Try different hypothetical grades against your actual course load to see how much a single grade can move your GPA before the term ends.
- Checking a scholarship or eligibility threshold. Many scholarships and academic-standing rules specify a minimum cumulative GPA — combine your transcript's prior GPA with an in-progress term to see where you would land.
- Comparing weighted and unweighted at a glance. College applications sometimes ask for both figures; toggle the mode instead of doing two calculations by hand.
- Sanity-checking a registrar figure. If your own math and the tool's match, that is good evidence your transcript's GPA is computed the way you think it is.
What this tool cannot tell you
- Your school's exact scale, if it differs from the standard one. A+ value, plus/minus point spacing, and weighting bonuses all vary by institution — this implements the most common convention, not every convention.
- Repeated-course or grade-replacement rules. Some schools recompute GPA when a course is retaken, replacing or averaging the old grade. This tool has no way to know your school's specific policy.
- Transfer credit handling. Many US institutions count transfer credit hours toward a degree but exclude the associated grades from cumulative GPA. Decide case by case whether to include a transferred course here.
- Anything about class rank, honors eligibility, or admissions decisions. GPA is one input among many; this tool computes a number, not an outcome.