GPA Calculator

Each course's letter grade is converted to grade points on a numeric scale (most commonly 0–4.0, sometimes 0–5.0 for weighted scales). Multiply the grade points by the course's credit hours, sum across all courses, and divide by the total credit hours. The result is the GPA — a credit-weighted average where larger courses count more.

A typical 4.0 scale: 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, F = 0.0. Some institutions don't use plus/minus distinctions (giving every B a 3.0 regardless of B+ or B−); others give A+ a 4.3 instead of capping at 4.0. The differences add up — a B+ student at a plus-aware school can have a GPA 0.2–0.3 lower than a flat-B student of similar caliber at a non-plus school.

An unweighted GPA caps at 4.0 regardless of course difficulty. A weighted GPA boosts grades in honors, AP, and IB courses — typically by adding 0.5 (honors) or 1.0 (AP/IB) to each grade, allowing GPAs above 4.0 for students taking heavy advanced loads.

The practical effect: a 3.9 unweighted GPA from rigorous coursework can correspond to a 4.4 weighted GPA, looking very different on a transcript. Most college admissions offices recompute GPAs to a common standard (often unweighted, sometimes their own weighting scheme) precisely because school weighting varies too much to compare directly.

Semester GPA is just for the current term. Cumulative GPA averages all completed coursework. As more credits accumulate, a single bad semester has progressively less impact on cumulative GPA — which is why early academic struggles are easier to recover from than late ones, and why senior-year grades, despite being recent, often move the cumulative GPA only slightly.

Some schools use "major GPA" — only courses in the student's major — for graduation honors or graduate school applications. Major GPA can differ meaningfully from cumulative GPA, especially for students with strong major performance and weaker general-education grades (or vice versa).

GPA is a moderate predictor of graduate-school performance and a weaker predictor of long-term career outcomes. Research consistently finds GPA correlates with success metrics (test scores, employer ratings) but is far from determinative — work ethic, communication, problem-solving, and domain knowledge matter substantially more in most fields.

Many employers stop asking about GPA after the first job. Graduate programs often weight standardized test scores, research experience, and recommendation letters heavily alongside or above GPA. The honest interpretation: GPA matters for getting in the door of certain pathways (top medical/law/MBA programs, prestigious entry-level jobs), and matters very little after that initial filter.