High School GPA Calculator

The unweighted scale is the baseline every US high school uses. Each letter grade maps to a fixed number of points, and your GPA is the credit-weighted average of those points:

GPA = (grade points x credits) added up, divided by total credits

An A earns 4 points, a B earns 3, a C earns 2, a D earns 1 and an F earns 0. If a course carries more credits, it pulls the average harder in the direction of its grade. Two courses, one A in a 1-credit class and one C in a 3-credit class, produce (4 x 1 + 2 x 3) / 4 = 2.50, not the simple average of 3.00 that an unweighted count would suggest.

Most high school courses carry 1 credit per year or 0.5 per semester, but the arithmetic is identical for any credit weight. What changes between schools is usually the weighted layer on top, not the base scale.

Take five courses worth 1 credit each, with grades A, B, B, A, C. The grade points are 4 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 2 = 16 over 5 credits, so the unweighted GPA is 16 / 5 = 3.20.

Now say two of those courses were AP and one was honors, and the school adds 1 point for AP and 0.5 for honors. The weighted points become 16 + 1 + 1 + 0.5 = 18.5, and the weighted GPA is 18.5 / 5 = 3.70. Nothing about the letter grades changed; only the scale did.

Enter those same five grades into the calculator above and it returns 3.20 unweighted and 3.70 weighted, which matches the hand calculation exactly. That is the fastest way to check a transcript before you send it anywhere.

A weighted GPA can exceed 4.0 because the bonuses stack on top of the base scale. A student with straight A grades in ten AP courses could show a 5.0 weighted GPA on a school that adds a full point, while the same transcript shows 4.0 unweighted.

Colleges know the scales vary, so most admissions offices recalculate GPA with their own formula: they strip the bonuses, standardize to a 4.0 scale and sometimes count only core academic courses. That is why the calculator shows both numbers. Reporting only a weighted figure can make a transcript look inconsistent next to school profiles.

The practical rule: use the unweighted number when a form asks for GPA without qualifiers, and give the weighted figure when the question names AP, IB or honors weighting.

A semester GPA covers one term. The cumulative GPA covers every course on the transcript and is built from totals, not from averaging the semester numbers:

Cumulative GPA = all grade points so far, divided by all credits so far

A 3.60 fall semester over 6 credits and a 3.20 spring semester over 6 credits do not average to 3.40 by luck alone; they average to it because the credits are equal. If spring had 8 credits instead, the cumulative figure would be (3.60 x 6 + 3.20 x 8) / 14 = 3.37, not 3.40.

To update a cumulative GPA after a new term, multiply the old cumulative GPA by the old total credits, add the new term's grade points, and divide by the new total credits. The calculator above handles one term at a time, so chain the results this way for a running total.

Not every course counts the same. Gym, art or a lab section may carry 0.5 credits, while a year-long core class carries 1.0. The formula treats a half-credit course as half a vote: an A there adds 2 grade points, not 4.

Suppose four courses are worth 1 credit each with grades A, B, A, B, and a fifth half-credit elective gets an A. Grade points are 4 + 3 + 4 + 3 + 2 = 16 over 4.5 credits, so the GPA is 16 / 4.5 = 3.56. Round only at the end; rounding 3.5556 to 3.56 is fine, but rounding each course before summing drifts the result.

If your transcript lists percentage grades instead of letters, convert them first using your school's published scale, or use a dedicated percentage tool. Mixing raw percentages into a letter-based formula gives a number no college will recognize.

Three errors show up again and again on transcripts that students check by hand:

A fourth mistake is mixing scales. If your school gives +0.5 for an A-minus or -0.3 for a B-plus, that is a school-specific plus or minus policy, not the standard 4.0 scale. Use the school's legend first and treat the calculator result as a check, not the other way around.

Bonus points also differ by school, so a weighted GPA is only meaningful next to its own school profile. The table below shows how the same transcript shifts when the bonus policy changes:

Check the weighted column against your school's published scale before quoting it. Some applications ask for the school-reported GPA exactly as printed on the transcript, in which case no recalculation is needed at all.

GPA is one input among several. The US Department of Education publishes admissions data for thousands of schools, including the middle 50 percent GPA of admitted students. A GPA near the top of that range strengthens an application; a GPA below it puts more weight on test scores, essays and coursework rigor.

Rigor matters alongside the number itself. Admissions officers often prefer a 3.60 weighted GPA loaded with AP courses over a 4.0 unweighted GPA built from standard-level classes, because the first transcript shows a student reaching. Course selection is the part you still control; past grades are fixed.

Keep a running record each semester so senior-year applications do not rely on memory. Two minutes with the calculator after grades post is enough to know where you stand. For federal aid, the satisfactory academic progress rules set a minimum GPA floor that varies by school, so a low transcript can also affect grants and loans, not just admissions.

The reverse conversions come up when a form asks for a letter or a percentage instead of a number. Standard 4.0 bands look like this:

Use the table as a rough guide only. Schools set their own cutoffs, and a 3.50 at one high school can sit on a different percentage footing than a 3.50 at another. For the exact reverse math, the dedicated percentage and letter-grade converters in the related links below apply the standard formula directly.