A Free Tool · Course Grades & Credits · Standard 4.0 Scale
What is your GPA, really?
Enter each class, its letter grade, and how many credits it is worth, and get your
grade point average on the standard 4.0 scale. Flip on weighting to give Honors and
AP/IB courses the usual +0.5 and +1.0 bonus, and watch the running total of credits
and quality points as you go.
Unweighted & weighted GPA·Add or remove course rows·Standard US 4.0 scale
Read this first
This uses the standard US 4.0 grade-point scale and the common +0.5 / +1.0 weighting for
Honors and AP/IB courses. Schools vary — some use a different scale, weight only
AP and not Honors, cap the weighted GPA, or convert percentage grades differently. This
tool gives you a clean, consistent estimate, but your official transcript GPA is whatever
your school computes. Check your student handbook or registrar if the numbers need to be exact.
Add a row for each course, pick its letter grade, and enter its credits (the course name is optional). Turn on the weighted toggle to add the Honors and AP/IB bonus, which reveals a level dropdown on each row.
Course (optional)GradeCreditsLevel
Enter a grade and credits for at least one course to see your GPA. Empty rows are ignored.
GPA mode
Courses counted
Total credits
Total quality points
The math, honestly
How the GPA is figured
GPA is a credit-weighted average, not a plain average of your grades.
Each letter grade maps to a grade point on the 4.0 scale — an
A is 4.0, a B is 3.0, a C is 2.0, a D is
1.0, and an F is 0.0, with plus and minus steps in between.
For each course you compute its quality points:
grade point × credits. So an A in a 3-credit class is
4.0 × 3 = 12 quality points, while the same A in a 1-credit class is
worth only 4. Your GPA is then
total quality points ÷ total credits — which is why a heavy,
high-graded course moves your average far more than a light one.
Weighting adds a bonus to the grade point of passing courses before
the multiplication: +0.5 for an Honors course and +1.0 for an
AP or IB course. That is why an A in a weighted AP class is worth
(4.0 + 1.0) × 3 = 15 quality points instead of 12, and why a weighted
GPA can climb above 4.0. The bonus never applies to a failing grade.
The 4.0 grade-point scale
The standard US letter-grade to grade-point conversion the calculator uses for the
unweighted GPA. Plus and minus grades step the grade point up or down by 0.3, except at
the top and bottom of the scale.
Letter grade
Grade pointunweighted 4.0 scale
Typical meaning
A+
4.0
Highest passing grade
A
4.0
Excellent
A-
3.7
Excellent
B+
3.3
Good
B
3.0
Good
B-
2.7
Good
C+
2.3
Satisfactory
C
2.0
Satisfactory
C-
1.7
Satisfactory
D+
1.3
Passing, below average
D
1.0
Passing, below average
D-
0.7
Lowest passing grade
F
0.0
Failing
Some schools treat A+ as 4.3 on a weighted internal scale, omit minus grades, or convert
percentage grades to letters at different cutoffs. This calculator caps A and A+ at 4.0
for the unweighted GPA, the most widely used convention.
How weighting changes the points
With the weighted toggle on, each course's level adds a bonus to its grade point before
it is multiplied by credits. Here is what an A is worth in a 3-credit course at each
level, unweighted versus weighted.
Course level
Weight bonusadded to grade point
Weighted point for an A4.0 + bonus
Quality pointsA, 3 credits, weighted
Regular
+0.0
4.0
12.0
Honors
+0.5
4.5
13.5
AP / IB
+1.0
5.0
15.0
The bonus applies only to passing grades — a failing grade is 0.0 at every level.
Many high schools weight AP and IB but not Honors, or use a smaller bonus; this tool uses
the common +0.5 / +1.0 scheme. Most colleges report unweighted GPA, so check which one
a given application wants.
Reading your GPA well
A single number hides a lot. Four things worth knowing before you read too much into it.
Credits weight everything
GPA is not the average of your letter grades — it is the average weighted by credits. A B in a 4-credit course pulls harder than an A in a 1-credit elective. If you want to raise a GPA, the heaviest courses are where a grade change moves the number the most. That is the whole reason quality points exist.
Weighted and unweighted answer different questions
Unweighted GPA asks "how well did you do," capped at 4.0. Weighted GPA asks "how well did you do, given how hard the courses were," and can exceed 4.0. Colleges often recompute GPA their own way, frequently unweighted, so report both and know which one a given form is asking for.
One bad grade is not the whole story
Because GPA is an average over many courses and terms, a single low grade fades as more credits accumulate. The same arithmetic that makes it slow to fix also makes it forgiving over time. An upward trend across semesters often reads better than a flat high number, and most admissions readers look at the trend.
Know your school's scale before you trust a number
This tool uses the most common conventions, but schools differ on A+ values, whether minus grades exist, how percentages convert, and whether and how much they weight. Your official GPA is whatever your registrar computes. Use this for planning and what-ifs; use your transcript for anything that counts.
Where to buy
Got your numbers? Here's where to pick up what you need:
The terms behind the calculator, in plain English. These describe the common US
conventions — your school's official policy is the final word for anything on a
transcript.
GPA (grade point average)
A single number summarizing your grades, computed as total quality points divided by total credits. On the standard scale it runs from 0.0 to 4.0 unweighted, and can exceed 4.0 when weighting is applied.
Grade point
The numeric value of a single letter grade on the 4.0 scale — A is 4.0, B is 3.0, and so on down to F at 0.0. It is the per-grade input the rest of the math is built from.
Credit (credit hour)
A measure of how much a course counts, often tied to weekly class time. A typical course is 3 or 4 credits. Credits are the weights in the GPA average: a higher-credit course has more pull on your GPA than a lower-credit one.
Quality points
One course's contribution to your GPA: its grade point times its credits. An A (4.0) in a 3-credit course is 12 quality points. GPA is the sum of all quality points divided by the sum of all credits.
Unweighted GPA
A GPA that caps every course at a 4.0 for an A, regardless of difficulty. It treats a regular class and an AP class the same. This is the version many colleges recompute and compare on.
Weighted GPA
A GPA that rewards course rigor by adding a bonus to the grade point of harder courses — commonly +0.5 for Honors and +1.0 for AP/IB — before multiplying by credits. It can rise above 4.0.
Honors course
A more demanding version of a standard course. On a weighted scale it commonly adds +0.5 to the grade point of a passing grade. Not every school weights Honors, and some use a different bonus.
AP / IB course
Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses, which are college-level. On a weighted scale they commonly add +1.0 to the grade point of a passing grade, the largest bonus in the common scheme.
Cumulative vs. semester GPA
A semester GPA uses only that term's courses; a cumulative GPA runs the same math across every course you have taken. Both use the identical quality-points-over-credits formula, just over different sets of courses.
Frequently asked
GPA is a credit-weighted average. Convert each letter grade to a grade point on the 4.0 scale (A = 4.0, B = 3.0, C = 2.0, D = 1.0, F = 0.0, with plus/minus steps in between), multiply each course's grade point by its credits to get quality points, add up all the quality points, then divide by the total credits. For example, an A in 3 credits is 4.0 × 3 = 12, a B in 4 credits is 3.0 × 4 = 12, and a C in 3 credits is 2.0 × 3 = 6 — 30 quality points over 10 credits is a 3.00 GPA. Try it in the calculator.
An unweighted GPA treats every course the same and tops out at 4.0 — an A is 4.0 whether the class is regular, Honors, or AP. A weighted GPA gives harder courses extra credit by adding a bonus to the grade point: commonly +0.5 for Honors and +1.0 for AP/IB. So an A in a weighted AP class can be worth 5.0 instead of 4.0, which is why a weighted GPA can rise above 4.0. The bonus applies only to passing grades.
Use only that semester's courses. For each one, multiply its grade point by its credits to get quality points, add the quality points for the semester, and divide by the total credits taken that term. A semester GPA covers just that term; a cumulative GPA repeats the same math across every course you have ever taken. The formula is identical — only the set of courses changes. Enter a single term in the calculator for a quick semester GPA.
It depends on context, but on an unweighted 4.0 scale a 3.0 is a solid B average, 3.5 and up is strong, and 3.7 to 4.0 is excellent. Many selective colleges report admitted students with unweighted GPAs in the high 3s. There is no single cutoff, since schools also weigh course rigor, the trend over time, and the rest of your record. Treat a GPA as one signal among many, not a verdict.
Usually not. A pass or fail mark has no letter and therefore no grade point, so most schools leave pass/fail courses out of the GPA entirely, even though the credits may still count toward graduation. A failing grade in a pass/fail course sometimes does count as an F. Because policies vary, leave pass/fail courses out of this calculator unless your school explicitly assigns them a grade point, and check your handbook for how they are handled.
On a weighted scale they raise the grade point before it is multiplied by credits: commonly +0.5 for an Honors course and +1.0 for an AP or IB course. So a B in a weighted AP class is treated as 4.0 instead of 3.0, and an A becomes 5.0. The bonus applies only to passing grades, and it only changes your weighted GPA — your unweighted GPA still caps each course at 4.0 regardless of level.
Because the weighting bonus is added on top of the grade point. An A is normally 4.0, but in a weighted AP/IB course it becomes 4.0 + 1.0 = 5.0, and in an Honors course 4.0 + 0.5 = 4.5. If many of your courses are weighted, the credit-weighted average of those higher numbers can land above 4.0. A weighted GPA over 4.0 is normal and expected; an unweighted GPA never exceeds 4.0 on this scale.
Common mistakes with this calculator
These are the errors that produce a wrong number — not bad inputs, but wrong
assumptions about what to enter.
Mixing weighted and unweighted scales
Toggling weighted mode on and then entering regular-course grades that already include a school-applied bonus double-counts the weighting. Use unweighted mode unless you are applying the +0.5 / +1.0 bonus yourself from your course list. Many schools report only an unweighted GPA on the transcript — check which version a given form is asking for before choosing a mode here.
Treating all courses as the same credit weight
GPA is not a plain average of letter grades — it is credit-weighted. Entering a 1-credit PE elective and a 4-credit lecture as equal rows is only arithmetically correct if you also set the right credit count for each. Leaving credits at a default when your actual courses have different loads will shift the result meaningfully, especially for your heaviest courses.
Assuming the 4.0 cap applies to weighted GPA
An unweighted GPA never exceeds 4.0, but a weighted GPA can. An A in a weighted AP course contributes 5.0 grade points per credit, so a weighted result above 4.0 is normal, not an error. Colleges that ask for an unweighted GPA want the 4.0-capped version; confirm which is requested before reporting the number.
Including pass/fail courses
Pass/fail grades carry no grade point on the standard 4.0 scale, so they do not belong here unless your school explicitly assigns them a numeric value. Entering them as a B or C to represent “passing” introduces scores that were never part of your official GPA calculation. Leave pass/fail rows out unless your registrar's scale lists a grade point for them.