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An A is 4.0 in every course, whatever the course is. Nothing can lift the average above 4.0, so this is the scale where a perfect record is exactly 4.00.
| Course | Grade | Credits | Worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.7 | |||
| 3.3 | |||
| 3 | |||
| 4 |
This scale reads A+ as 4, A as 4, A− as 3.7, B+ as 3.3, B as 3, B− as 2.7, C+ as 2.3, C as 2, C− as 1.7, D+ as 1.3, D as 1, D− as 0.7, F as 0. Yours may differ — type the points straight into the grade cell instead.
3.48
across 14 credit hours, out of a possible 4
Optional. Fill both boxes to fold this term into the record.
The presets here are conventions in common use, not a standard. Point values differ between institutions on the same letters — an A+ is capped at 4.0 in some places and worth 4.3 in others, and bonus sizes for advanced courses are set locally. Read the values off your own handbook and type them in where they disagree.
Admissions offices and scholarship committees very often recalculate a grade point average themselves, on their own scale, from the courses they care about. A figure produced here describes the courses you entered on the scale you picked; it is not a prediction of what someone else will compute from the same transcript.
A grade point average has no meaning until you say which scale produced it, so a GPA quoted on its own is an incomplete statement. An unweighted 4.0 caps a perfect record at exactly 4.00. A weighted 4.0 adds points for the difficulty of a course, so 4.3 or 4.7 is possible and a transcript can carry both figures. Elsewhere the top is 5.0, or a ten-point CGPA, or a mark out of 20 where anything above 16 is exceptional. The selector at the top of this tool sets the letter values, the ceiling and whether a difficulty bonus exists at all.
Each course contributes its point value multiplied by its credit hours. Add those products up, divide by the credit hours behind them, and that quotient is the average. It is not the mean of the letters, which is why a poor result in a four-credit laboratory subject stings more than the same result in a one-credit seminar.
Take the four courses the tool opens with. An A minus worth 3.7 over four credits contributes 14.8 quality points; a B plus at 3.3 over three credits gives 9.9; a B at 3.0 over four gives 12.0; an A at 4.0 over three gives 12.0. That is 48.7 quality points across 14 credit hours, and 48.7 divided by 14 is 3.48.
Where a weighted average is used, an advanced or accelerated course usually adds half a point or a full point to whatever the letter is worth, so a B in an AP subject can be worth more than an A somewhere easier. Nothing standardises the size of that bonus, which subjects qualify for it, or whether a cap applies once the average passes 4.5. Two schools in one district can and do differ.
Because of that, the tool shows the unweighted figure beside the weighted one whenever a bonus is in play. They describe the same term and they are not interchangeable: one says how well the work went, the other also says how demanding the timetable was.
Anything carrying zero credit hours is dropped rather than counted as a zero, and the count of dropped rows is shown so nothing disappears silently. Pass and fail results usually behave that way on a real transcript too: the credit is awarded, the average is untouched.
Repeated courses are the other common surprise. Some institutions replace the old result, some average the two attempts, and some leave both on the record and count both. That policy sits in the handbook rather than in any arithmetic, so enter whichever attempts your own rules say to count.
On an unweighted scale, never — 4.0 is the value of the best available grade and no combination of courses exceeds it. On a weighted scale it happens routinely, because the bonus for advanced courses is added on top of the letter value before the credit weighting is applied.
Quote whichever the person asking has asked for, and say which one it is. Application forms usually specify, and sending a weighted figure where an unweighted one was requested reads as an inflated claim even when it is an honest mistake.
Most often because the institution uses point values you have not entered — a capped A plus, a different value for a minus grade — or because its policy excludes transfer credit, repeated attempts or non-degree courses. Edit the grade cells to match the handbook and the two figures converge.
Frequently not. Many recalculate from the transcript on their own scale, counting only academic subjects, stripping local bonuses or adding their own. Treat any figure worked out here as your own planning tool rather than as the one that will be read.