Every student should know how to calculate your GPA, or grade point average, on your own. Perhaps you want to know where you stand amongst your fellow classmates, or maybe you need to fill out a new or transfer application for college.
The formula for how to calculate your GPA gives you a better sense of how you’re doing in school. It also prepares you for whether you will likely get into your preferred school or your chances for transferring to another college.
Calculating your GPA is straightforward and anyone should be able to do it without too much difficulty.
What Does Your GPA Mean?
GPA stands for your Grade Point Average, and is used as an indicator of your overall school performance. There are a variety of different GPA scales (more on that later), but most schools have standardized on a 4.0 scale.
That means someone that got perfect grades (straight As) would have a 4.0 GPA. Your GPA is one indicator of your performance in classes and can be a way to compare the performance of different students.
How Do Letter Grades Convert To Percentages?
In order to calculate your GPA, you first need to convert the letter grades that you received into numeric values. Different schools may do this in different ways, but here is one example:
This is just one example of how to convert letter grades to numeric values, and there can be other ways to do it. One common alternative is to use 0.667 and 0.333 for plus and minus grades instead of 0.7 and 0.3.
Other schools may not adjust for pluses and minuses at all (meaning a B+, B and B- would all score 3.0 points). If you're not sure how it's done at your school, talk to your school administration.
How To Calculate Your GPA
Once you've calculated numeric values for all of the letter grades you've received, there is one step before you can calculate your GPA.
You need to multiply the numeric value by the total number of credits for that particular class. That will give you a number of GPA "points" for each class. Then, you can add up all of the GPA points, and divide it by your total number of credits. That will give you your overall GPA.
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GPA Calculation Example
To better explain how to calculate your GPA, let's use a simple example with the following grades, using the grading scale from the chart above.
- English, 3 credits, B+
- Math, 4 credits, A-
- History, 3 credits, B
- PE, 1 credit, A
- Science, 3 credits, A-
- Government, 2 credits, B-
First, you will convert each letter grade to a numeric value, and multiply by the number of credits to get a total number of GPA points for each class.
Class | Grade | Numeric Value | Credits | GPA Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
English | B+ | 3.3 | 3 | 9.9 |
Math | A- | 3.7 | 4 | 14.8 |
History | B | 3.0 | 3 | 9.0 |
PE | A | 4.0 | 1 | 4.0 |
Science | A- | 3.7 | 3 | 11.1 |
Government | B- | 2.7 | 2 | 5.4 |
TOTAL | Cell | Cell | 16 | 54.2 |
Dividing the total number of GPA points (54.2) by your total number of credits (16) gives the student in this example a GPA of 3.3875.
What About AP Classes And A 5.0 GPA?
In high school, many schools adjust the grading scale based on certain types of classes. This is to account for the fact that an AP Biology class is more difficult than an Honors Biology class, which is in turn more difficult than a General Biology class.
It's common for grades in an AP class to have 1.0 added to their base value and an Honors class to have 0.5 added.
- An “A” in a regular (non-adjusted) class would be 4.0
- An “A” in an honors class would count for 4.5
- An “A” in an AP class would be worth 5.0
This means that it is theoretically possible to have a 5.0 GPA (on a 4.0 scale), if you got straight As in all AP classes. In college, it is much less common to have these sorts of adjustments.
This plays into the difference between a weighted GPA and an unweighted GPA. Your unweighted GPA is the calculation of your GPA on a strict 4.0 scale and without any adjustment for Honors or AP classes.
Your weighted GPA takes those adjustments into consideration, which may lead to your GPA being higher than 4.0.
The Bottom Line
Calculating your GPA is a useful skill to have, as it can help you determine how various classes or grades can be reflected on your overall academic transcript. While it may be possible to use your GPA to compare your academic performance vs. others at your school, it's important to note that GPAs are not often comparable across schools.
What counts for a 3.5 GPA at one school is not necessarily the same as a 3.5 GPA at another school.
Still, knowing how to calculate your GPA and convert your grades is something that can come in handy as you progress in your academic career.
Robert Farrington is America’s Millennial Money Expert® and America’s Student Loan Debt Expert™, and the founder of The College Investor, a personal finance site dedicated to helping millennials escape student loan debt to start investing and building wealth for the future. You can learn more about him on the About Page or on his personal site RobertFarrington.com.
He regularly writes about investing, student loan debt, and general personal finance topics geared toward anyone wanting to earn more, get out of debt, and start building wealth for the future.
He has been quoted in major publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, Today, and more. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes.
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