GPA (Grade Point Average) is a single number that summarizes academic performance across courses, from a single semester to an entire degree. US schools use a letter grade system: the score earned in a course is expressed as a letter (A, A-, B+ … F), and each letter maps to a grade point on a 4.0 scale. GPA is a credit-hour weighted average of those grade points — a course worth more credit hours affects your GPA more than one worth fewer credit hours.
How do you calculate GPA?
- Formula: GPA = Σ(credit hours × grade points) ÷ Σ(credit hours)
- Example: 4 credits at A (4.0), 3 credits at B (3.0), 3 credits at C (2.0) → (4×4.0 + 3×3.0 + 3×2.0) ÷ 10 = (16 + 9 + 6) ÷ 10 = 3.10
- Higher-credit courses have a bigger effect on your overall GPA than lower-credit ones.
What's the difference between weighted and unweighted GPA?
Colleges often recompute applicants' GPA on an unweighted scale so students from schools with different weighting policies can be compared on equal footing. This tool's GPA Calculator tab lets you toggle between the two so you can see both numbers for the same set of courses.
How do you calculate cumulative GPA (CGPA)?
Because CGPA blends every semester together, a single strong or weak semester moves the cumulative number less as your total credit hours grow — this is why GPA recovery gets mathematically harder the further along you are. The Cumulative GPA tab also includes a target scenario: tell it your goal GPA and how many credit hours you have left, and it works out the average you'd need to hit it.
How do you calculate a weighted course grade?
Weights don't need to add up to exactly 100 — the calculator normalizes automatically by dividing by the total weight you entered, not a fixed 100. This makes it easy to add or remove assessments (quizzes, homework, projects, a midterm and a final) without recalculating every other weight by hand.