GPA Calculator (Grade Point Average)
Calculate your GPA (Grade Point Average) for free by entering each course credit hours and letter grade. Add your cumulative GPA and credits from previous semesters to get your combined cumulative GPA.
What Is GPA?
GPA (Grade Point Average) is a weighted average of your grades, where each course counts in proportion to its credit hours. It is the standard grading measure used by high schools and colleges in the United States, Canada, Australia, and many other countries. Each letter grade (A, B+, etc.) is converted into a numeric grade point (A = 4.0, B+ = 3.3, and so on), and the weighted average is calculated across all your credit hours. Because credit hours act as weights, a course worth more credits has a bigger impact on your GPA than a course worth fewer credits.
This calculator uses the widely adopted unweighted 4.0 scale. Colleges, graduate schools, and scholarship programs commonly require applicants to report a GPA that meets a minimum threshold, so having a quick way to check your current or projected GPA is useful when planning your course load or preparing an application.
How to Calculate Your GPA
- Enter your courses Add each course with its name (optional), credit hours, and letter grade. Use the add/remove buttons to match your actual course list.
- Add your cumulative GPA if needed Check "Combine with previous cumulative GPA" and enter your prior cumulative GPA and credit hours to see your combined cumulative GPA.
- Check your result Your semester GPA (and cumulative GPA, if entered) is calculated automatically as you type.
Tips for getting more out of it
- GPA is calculated as total quality points (credits × grade points) divided by total credits — not a simple average of your letter grades.
- A+ is treated the same as A (4.0) in this calculator, but some schools use a different value such as 4.3 for A+. Always check your school's official grading policy.
- Cumulative GPA is only calculated when you enter both your previous cumulative GPA and previous cumulative credits — entering just one of the two will not produce a result.
- You can add up to 30 courses at once. If you need to combine more semesters, use the cumulative GPA feature repeatedly.
When GPA Calculations Are Useful
Study abroad applications
Quickly check whether you meet a target school minimum GPA requirement before applying.
Scholarship eligibility checks
Many scholarships require a minimum GPA, so you can confirm eligibility before submitting an application.
Graduate school applications
See your updated cumulative GPA after adding your most recent semester grades.
Planning your remaining courses
Try different grade combinations for your remaining courses to see what is needed to hit a target GPA.
Glossary
- GPA
- Grade Point Average — a weighted average of your grades based on credit hours.
- Credit Hour
- A unit representing the amount of coursework a class carries. Credit hours are used as the weight in GPA calculations.
- Grade Point
- The numeric value assigned to a letter grade. This calculator uses the common unweighted 4.0 scale (A = 4.0, B+ = 3.3, etc.).
- Quality Points
- Credit hours multiplied by grade points for a single course. GPA equals total quality points divided by total credit hours.
- Cumulative GPA
- Your overall GPA across all semesters combined, as opposed to a single semester GPA.
- Weighted vs. Unweighted GPA
- Unweighted GPA scores every course on the same 4.0 scale; weighted GPA gives extra points for advanced courses like AP or IB. This calculator uses the unweighted method.
Frequently Asked Questions
Side Note — Where Did the GPA System Come From?
The GPA system traces back to late 19th-century American higher education. Mount Holyoke College is often credited as an early adopter, introducing numerical grading around 1897 to compare student performance more precisely than a simple pass/fail system allowed. Over the 20th century, the practice spread to colleges and high schools across the United States.
The 4.0 scale became the standard largely because it combines simplicity with statistical usefulness: a five-level letter system (A through F), refined with plus and minus modifiers, translates cleanly into numbers that can be averaged and weighted by credit hours. This system is not without criticism, however — because it averages grades from courses of very different difficulty on the same scale, students sometimes strategically choose easier courses specifically to raise their GPA, a practice informally known as "GPA hunting."
Grading systems vary widely by country. UK universities use honours classifications (First, Second, Third Class), French institutions grade on a 20-point scale, and German universities use a 1-to-5 scale where 1 is the best grade. GPA is fundamentally an artifact of the American academic system, which is why international applicants often rely on conversion tables or services to translate their home-country grades into an equivalent U.S. GPA.