GPA Calculator
Calculate your cumulative GPA from individual course grades and credit hours, with both letter and percentage grade support.
GPA is a weighted average of grade points across courses, where each course's weight is its credit hours. A 4-credit course counts twice as much as a 2-credit course. Getting this calculation right matters for scholarship eligibility, graduate school applications, academic standing, and honor society thresholds.
Standard 4.0 scale: A=4.0, A-=3.7, B+=3.3, B=3.0, B-=2.7, C+=2.3, C=2.0, C-=1.7, D+=1.3, D=1.0, F=0.0. Some schools do not use +/- grades; check your institution's specific scale.
How GPA is calculated
GPA = Total Quality Points / Total Credit Hours. Quality points for a course = Grade points × Credit hours. A B+ in a 4-credit course = 3.3 × 4 = 13.2 quality points. Sum quality points for all courses, divide by total credit hours. This produces the weighted GPA that accounts for heavier-credit courses having more influence on the final number.
Cumulative vs semester GPA
Semester GPA covers only the current term. Cumulative GPA covers all completed coursework. Cumulative GPA is generally what matters for academic standing, scholarships, and graduate applications. You can calculate cumulative GPA by including all courses taken to date, or calculate your new cumulative GPA by combining previous and current semester data.
Frequently asked questions
How much will one bad grade hurt my GPA?
The impact depends on how many credits you have already completed. Early in college (30 credits), a single D in a 3-credit course drops a 3.5 GPA to about 3.36. With 90 credits completed, the same D drops a 3.5 GPA to only 3.47. The more credits completed, the more buffered your GPA is against individual course outliers.
Can I bring my GPA up after a bad semester?
Yes, but recovery is slow because cumulative GPA is heavily weighted by total credits. A student with a 2.5 GPA after 60 credits who earns a 4.0 for the next 30 credits will have a 3.0 cumulative GPA. Use the Grade Needed calculator to model what GPA is achievable before graduation.