GPA Calculator — Weighted and Unweighted (4.0 Scale)

Course Grade Credits Level

Your GPA
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Nothing to sign up for. Add your courses, pick letter grades, and the GPA updates as you type. Switch to weighted to give Honors and AP/IB classes their bonus.

How to use it

  1. Choose Unweighted for a standard 4.0 GPA, or Weighted if your school gives extra credit for Honors and AP/IB.
  2. Enter each course, its letter grade, and how many credits it is worth (most full-year high-school courses are 1.0; a semester course is often 0.5).
  3. On the weighted scale, set the level for each course.
  4. Your GPA appears immediately — no button to press.

Why your school’s weighted GPA may not match this number

The unweighted 4.0 scale is close to universal: A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, D = 1, F = 0. Weighting is not. Districts disagree on almost every detail, which is why two students with identical transcripts can have different weighted GPAs.

The common variations:

  • Bonus size. The most common scheme is +0.5 for Honors and +1.0 for AP/IB, which is what this calculator uses. Some districts award +1.0 for both; others give +0.33.
  • Plus and minus grades. Many schools count an A− as 3.7 and a B+ as 3.3; others record only whole letters. This calculator uses the ± values because they are more common at schools that weight.
  • Which courses qualify. Some districts weight only core subjects, excluding electives and PE even at Honors level.
  • Capped maximums. A few districts cap weighted GPA at 4.5 or 5.0 regardless of how many AP courses you take.

Use this figure for planning and self-tracking. For anything official — scholarship applications, NCAA eligibility, college forms — take the GPA printed on your transcript, because that is the one the institution will read.

Grade to grade-point conversion table

The percentage bands differ between schools, so treat that column as typical rather than authoritative — your syllabus is the authority. The grade-point column is close to universal on the unweighted 4.0 scale.

Letter Typical percentage Unweighted points + Honors (0.5) + AP / IB (1.0)
A+ 97–100 4.0 4.5 5.0
A 93–96 4.0 4.5 5.0
A− 90–92 3.7 4.2 4.7
B+ 87–89 3.3 3.8 4.3
B 83–86 3.0 3.5 4.0
B− 80–82 2.7 3.2 3.7
C+ 77–79 2.3 2.8 3.3
C 73–76 2.0 2.5 3.0
C− 70–72 1.7 2.2 2.7
D+ 67–69 1.3 1.8 2.3
D 63–66 1.0 1.5 2.0
D− 60–62 0.7 1.2 1.7
F Below 60 0.0 0.0 0.0

Note on A+ and on F. Most schools cap A+ at 4.0, which is what this calculator does; a minority use 4.3, which is why a straight-A student can show a GPA above 4.0 on an unweighted scale. And an F earns no honors bonus anywhere — failing an AP course is worth 0.0, not 1.0.

The five weighting schemes you are likely to meet

There is no national standard for weighted GPA. Two students with identical transcripts at different schools can differ by half a point.

Scheme Honors bonus AP / IB bonus Maximum GPA Where you see it
Standard weighted +0.5 +1.0 5.0 The most common US model, and this calculator’s default
Flat weighted +1.0 +1.0 5.0 Districts that treat all advanced courses alike
Incremental +0.33 +0.67 4.67 Schools avoiding large swings from a single course
Capped weighted +1.0, limited +1.0, limited 4.4 in practice The University of California model — see below
Uncapped weighted +1.0 +1.0 No ceiling Districts where heavy AP loads push GPAs past 4.5

A practical consequence: weighted GPAs are not comparable between schools, and admissions offices know it. That is why several of them throw your weighted figure away and compute their own.

How colleges recalculate the GPA you send them

This is the part most GPA calculators leave out. The number on your transcript is frequently not the number that gets used.

University of California — capped weighted GPA

The UC system ignores your school’s GPA entirely and rebuilds it under its own rules:

  • Only “a–g” approved courses count. Electives outside that list are excluded.
  • Only courses from 10th and 11th grade count, including the summers after 9th and after 11th. Ninth-grade and senior-year grades are excluded from the calculation.
  • +1 point for each UC-approved honours, AP or IB course — but only where the grade is C− or higher. A D in an AP course earns no bonus.
  • Honours points are capped at 8 semesters, of which no more than 4 semesters may come from 10th grade.

The cap is why UC capped weighted GPAs cluster just above 4.0 and rarely exceed about 4.4, however many AP courses a student takes. Taking a twelfth AP course does not raise this figure.

NCAA — core-course GPA

Athletic eligibility uses a third number again: a GPA over 16 NCAA-approved core courses, which excludes most electives. Division I requires a 2.3 core-course GPA. Standardized test scores are no longer required, and the old sliding scale that let a higher GPA offset a lower test score has been withdrawn. There is also a timing rule: 10 of the 16 core courses — 7 of them in English, maths and science — must be complete before the start of the seventh semester, meaning before senior year. Grades earned after that point cannot repair a core GPA.

Common Application and individual colleges

On the Common App you self-report the GPA exactly as your transcript states it, with the scale and whether it is weighted. Many colleges then recalculate on their own basis — commonly unweighted, academic courses only. This is the practical argument for keeping your unweighted GPA healthy rather than relying on weighting to carry it.

Why averaging your yearly GPAs gives the wrong answer

A cumulative GPA is a credit-weighted average of every course, not an average of your yearly averages. The two agree only when each year carries identical credits — which is rarely true.

Take a student who took 4 one-credit courses in her first year, all B (3.0), then 8 one-credit courses the next year, all A (4.0):

Method Working Result
Averaging yearly GPAs (3.00 + 4.00) ÷ 2 3.50
Credit-weighted (correct) (4×3.0 + 8×4.0) ÷ 12 = 44 ÷ 12 3.67

A 0.17 discrepancy, and it grows as course loads become more uneven. Enter every course from every year into the calculator together and it handles this correctly.

Getting the credits right

Credits are where most manual GPA calculations go wrong. Common conventions:

  • Full-year course: 1.0 credit
  • Semester course: 0.5 credit
  • Block or trimester schedules: often 0.5 per term, so a year is still 1.0
  • Lab sciences: sometimes 1.5 where the lab is credited separately
  • PE, health, homeroom: frequently 0.5, and sometimes excluded from GPA entirely
  • Pass/fail and audited courses: normally excluded — set credits to 0 or leave them out
  • Repeated courses: policies differ. Some schools replace the original grade, others average both. Enter whichever your transcript shows

If your transcript lists hours rather than credits, use the hours consistently — a credit-weighted average is unaffected by the unit, only by the ratios.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good GPA?

Unweighted, 3.0 is solid, 3.5 is strong, and above 3.7 is competitive for selective admissions. Context matters more than the number: a 3.6 with four AP courses generally reads better than a 4.0 with none.

How do I calculate cumulative GPA across years?

Enter every course from every year together, with its credits. Credit-weighted averaging across the whole list gives the cumulative figure — averaging your yearly GPAs does not, unless each year carried identical credits.

Does a pass/fail course count?

Usually not. Leave it out, or set its credits to 0.

Can weighted GPA go above 4.0?

Yes. With enough AP/IB courses a weighted GPA can exceed 4.0 — 4.5 and higher is common at schools with uncapped weighting.

Is my data saved?

No. Everything runs in your browser and disappears when you close the tab.

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