How Do You Calculate Your GPA Step by Step Instructions

How Do You Calculate Your GPA Step by Step Instructions SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips How exactly do you take a document as complicated as your transcript and shrink it all down to one number? If you are wondering how to take all the final grades you've gotten in high school and figure out your GPA, then this article will show you exactly how to make that calculation. I'll take you through step by step. What Is a GPA? Most likely, in your high school classes, your final grades are given as letters (A-, B+, etc.) or as percents (92, 85, etc. out of 100). A GPA, or grade point average, first converts those letters or percents into numbers, then averages these numbers together. Because it's made up of all your grades, your GPA is one of the most important factors for college admission. It is a good indicator of your intelligence, work ethic, perseverance, and willingness to push yourself. GPAs are useful for colleges to easily compare you to other students who graduated from your school, and to all the other applicants. Why? Well, imagine you're an admissions officer who is looking at thousands of college applications. Would you rather go through each transcript, add up all the A's and all the B's, and then compare that to the next person, and so on forever? Or would you rather just have an easy summary number that could be used for a quick comparison across the board? Your GPA is that quick summary number. // Turn the hard to eat ingredients of your transcript into the gooey smore deliciousness of a GPA. Probably not with an open flame, though. The Difference Between Weighted and Unweighted GPA There are two main types of GPAs: weighted and unweighted. When schools use unweighted GPAs, they use a scale that goes from 0.0 to 4.0 and doesn't take the difficulty level of classes into account. However, some schools use a weighted GPA model, which takes class difficulty into account by using a scale that goes from 0.0 to 5.0. This gives higher numerical values to grades earned in honors/AP/IB classes. Suppose Jeremy gets an A in standard-level US History while Lakshmi gets an A in AP US History. With unweighted GPAs, both A’s are treated the same- each becomes a 4.0. On the other hand, with a weighted GPA, Jeremy's A would convert to a 4.0, while Lakshmi’s A would convert to a 5.0 to show that her class took a lot more effort to ace. // This article focuses primarily on explaining and calculating unweighted GPAs. For more information on weighted GPAs, check out our other article. Sure, you can pick them up, but doesn't it help to know how much each weighs? How Do You Calculate Your Unweighted GPA? The first thing to do in order to calculate a grade point average is to convert each of the final class grades you’ve gotten so far in high school into the right decimal. Here is the standard unweighted scale for doing this: Letter Grade Percentile GPA A+ 97-100 4.0 A 93-96 4.0 A- 90-92 3.7 B+ 87-89 3.3 B 83-86 3.0 B- 80-82 2.7 C+ 77-79 2.3 C 73-76 2.0 C- 70-72 1.7 D+ 67-69 1.3 D 65-66 1.0 F Below 65 0.0 Then, perform the following calculation: Add all the converted decimal grades together – this is your sum. Count the number of classes you’ve taken. Divide the sum by the number of classes, and you have your unweighted GPA // In the next section, we'll go through an example calculation of an unweighted GPA. Want to build the best possible college application? We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in. Step of an Unweighted GPA Calculation Let me show you an example of how to calculate an unweighted GPA so you can see how this will look inpractice. (To see how to calculate a weighted GPA, check out our other article.) We'll use a sample transcript for incognito CIA operative John Doe. #1: Convert Grades Into Decimals In order to learn how to calculate a GPA, let’s first convert John's letter grades into numbers: 9th Grade 10th Grade th Grade 12th Grade 3.0 4.0 4.0 3.0 4.0 3.0 2.7 3.0 3.3 3.7 3.7 4.0 3.7 4.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 4.0 3.3 3.0 3.3 3.3 4.0 3.7 4.0 4.0 4.0 3.7 4.0 3.0 3.0 2.7 4.0 3.0 // Let’s also count how many classes he took each of those years: 9th Grade 10th Grade th Grade 12th Grade 10 classes 10 classes 8 classes 6 classes #2: Calculate Individual Year GPAs To get each individual year’s GPA, all we need to do is divide the sum by the number of classes. If this division ends up with a long decimal, simply round to the nearest tenth: 9th Grade 10th Grade th Grade 12th Grade 35 / 10 = 3.5 35.7 / 10 = 3.57 27.7 / 8 = 3.46 19.7 / 6 = 3.28 #3: Calculate Cumulative High School GPA To get a cumulative GPA for John’s entire high school career, we add up the sums for all the years and divide by the number of classes he took over all those years: 35 + 35.7 + 27.7 + 19.7 = 8.1 (sum of all final grades) 10 + 10 + 8 + 6 = 34 (total number of classes taken) 8.1 / 34 = 3.47 (GPA) So, his GPA for all of high school is 3.47. Pro tip:the cumulative GPA is NOT an average of each year because the number of classes taken each year is different. // #4: Calculate GPA Submitted to Colleges (Optional) Finally, if we wanted to figure out the GPA that John would send out on his college applications, we would do the same process, but leave off senior year. Since applications go out in the beginning of 12th grade, those final grades don't make it into the application GPA: 35 + 35.7 + 27.7 = 98.4 (sum of final grades from 9th to th grade) 10 + 10 + 8 = 28 (number of classes taken from 9th to th grade) 98.4 / 28 = 3.5 (college application GPA) John’s application GPA is 3.5. Is nicely done, John! What’s Next? // Interested in diving even deeper into the differences between weighted and unweighted GPA? Check out our guide to the benefits and drawbacks of both. Want to see step-by-step weighted GPA calculation? Let us show you how it’s done. Curious how your GPA compares? See what a good or bad GPA score is, and how you stack up against the average high school student. Want to improve your GPA?Check out our in-depth guide to raising your grades, from a writer who got a perfect 4.0 GPA. Read it for free now: