Semester and Cumulative GPA Calculator
List your classes with their credits and grades, term by term, and get both your term GPA and your overall figure. Save a PDF when you need a copy.
Working out your GPA
- Set the grading scale first. Pick Standard 4.0, Standard Plus/Minus or Weighted 5.0, or the preset for Arizona State, NYU or Harvard.
- Fill in the first term: each class, its credit hours and your letter grade.
- Add another term for each one you've finished. Your overall GPA updates as you go.
- Print or save a PDF if an adviser or application needs it. Everything also stays saved in this browser for next time.
Doing the maths by hand
GPA is an average weighted by credits. Turn each letter grade into points, multiply by the class's credit hours, add those totals together and divide by all the credits you took.
Say you took a 4-credit lab class and got a B+ (3.3 on a plus/minus scale), plus two 3-credit classes with an A- (3.7) and a C+ (2.3). That's 13.2 + 11.1 + 6.9 = 31.2 grade points across 10 credits, so a GPA of 3.12. The lab class matters most because it carries the most credits.
One term vs your whole record
Term GPA looks at a single semester or quarter. Cumulative GPA pulls in every graded class so far. Dean's lists and academic probation are often judged term by term, while scholarships, transfer applications and graduate schools mostly ask for the cumulative number.
The more credits you've built up, the harder the cumulative figure is to shift. That's worth knowing in both directions: an early bad term can be recovered, but a late surge has less effect than you'd hope.
Why harder classes can earn more points
Many US high schools weight GPA so that Honors, AP and IB classes earn extra, putting an A at 5.0 rather than 4.0. The Weighted 5.0 option uses those values. Colleges often strip the weighting out and recalculate on their own terms, so it's usual to report the version shown on your transcript.
Picking the right scale
Plus and minus grades are where universities differ most. One might give a B+ 3.3 and an A+ 4.3, while another caps the A+ at 4.0. The ASU, NYU and Harvard presets follow those universities' published values. For anywhere else, compare the Standard Plus/Minus values with the key on your transcript.
If you study outside the US, a GPA may not be the right measure at all. Try the degree classification calculator for UK honours, the WAM calculator for Australia, or the Saudi GPA calculator for the 5.00 scale.
Before your next term
Run a few what-if scenarios. Add next term's classes with the grades you're aiming for and see where your overall GPA would land. For a class with a final exam still to come, the final grade calculator tells you the score you need.
- Put your effort where the credits are: a 4-credit class moves the average more than a 1-credit seminar.
- Check your school's grade replacement policy before retaking a class.
- Remember that pass/fail and withdrawn classes usually don't count towards GPA.
Aiming to pull your GPA up?
See how a strong answer to your own brief is put together, with feedback on where marks are won. Have a look at our coursework help.
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