College GPA Calculator

If you're wondering what's your college GPA, wait no longer - our college GPA calculator is here for you. Type in the grades from your courses as well as the credits you've got for each of them, and in no time, you'll find your GPA. Not sure what GPA is or how to calculate college GPA? We're here to help. If you want to understand the college GPA scale and check out what the 4.0 GPA scale looks like, jump to the next paragraph. Wondering what a good GPA in college is? Well, it depends (as always...), but we gathered some data on average college GPA, which can give you a small hint.
Moreover, you'll find a paragraph with a detailed step-by-step explanation of how to use this college GPA calculator as a cumulative college GPA calculator. Are you ready? Wait no longer. Read on and try our calculator!

If you're looking for a calculation of GPA for college admittance, check out this useful high school GPA calculator - it works in a similar way, but it has more options on weighting the courses (like special weights if the course was really demanding, AP, IB, etc.). Additionally, you may find the final grade calculator useful - it helps to determine your final grade or what you can do to improve your result. Also, check out the 529 plan calculator if you're planning to save for college.

GPA stands for Grade Point Average, and it's one of the measures of students' achievements and academic performance. The calculation is done by converting the grades to a numerical scale and averaging them according to given credits (weights). GPA may be calculated on the basis of grades from one semester, a year, or even your whole academic career.

Although GPA is a basic estimator and may vary a bit between schools, it's a measure often used by academic institutions and potential employees. It finds application in assessing and comparing students and creating the rankings for:

• Scholarship awards, merit-based financial aid, funding programs;
• Graduation honors and awards; and
• Job interviews and admission decisions.

Most schools in the US use a so-called 4.0 GPA scale - a 4-point grading scale. The table below shows a typical letter grade/GPA conversion system:

Some schools give 4.3 scores for an A+ grade, so in that case, it's possible to obtain a final score exceeding the standard maximum 4.0 GPA. Although the values in the table are the ones most often used by academic institutions, the percentage intervals, and the college GPA scale may differ between schools, so check out your school rules and statute.

You've already found out what GPA is, so the time has come for some maths. A general formula for the calculation of college GPA is:

So, simply speaking, it's a ratio of the sum of weighted grades divided by all credit points. It's not a difficult task to find a GPA value yourself! The most demanding part is calculating the weighted average of your courses. Let's have a look at the exemplary calculation:

Assume we want to find the GPA of our four courses with different credit points.

How to calculate college GPA manually?

1. First, convert letter scores into numbers. Use the table from the previous paragraph.

2. Then, sum up all multiplications of the course grade and respective credits

$3 \times 4.0 + 4 \times 3.3 + 2 \times 2.0 + 2 \times 2.7 = 34.6.$

3. Divide the result by the sum of all credits and round to 3 significant figures:

$\frac{34.6}{4+3+2+2} = 3.145145145... \approx 3.15.$

How to calculate it faster? Use our college GPA calculator!

1. Select your grade for the first course. So it's 'A' for our first exemplary class - Maths.

2. Enter the class credits. Change the default value from 1 to 3.

3. Repeat until all courses from the list are included. It's ok if you want to enter less than five courses - the calculator will ignore the blank boxes.

   For our case, we'll select:

   • Course #2 (Physics) grade as B+, with respective credits: 4
   • Course #3 (Biology) grade as C and type the credits: 2
   • Course #4 (Chemistry) grade: B- and respective credits: 2

4. Here you go! The college GPA calculator did all the maths, and the GPA value is displayed.

If you don't have the credits for courses, leave the default value 1. Every course will be treated equally, and our calculator will not use the weighted average but the standard arithmetic average.

With this calculator, you can also calculate your cumulative GPA. Just hit the Advanced mode button below the tool, and two boxes will appear - for your current GPA score and the sum of credits you got.

Returning to the example from a previous paragraph: assume that we've just calculated the scores from the second semester, and we'd like to know the cumulative GPA after the whole freshmen year.

1. Assume that we finished the first semester with a GPA of 3.3. Type that value into the Cumulative GPA box.
2. During the first semester, we did courses for 16 credits. Enter 16 into Credits.
3. Under the calculator you'll find the GPA (3.15) and also cumulative GPA, which is equal to 3.24 in our example.

It's hard to pick one single number to estimate the average college GPA. The grades are rising through the years (check out the great charts on grade inflation website). There are differences among schools, fields of study, gender, ethnicity, and place of studying, to name only a few factors.
If - after that introduction - you still want to see one number, here it is - average college GPA is around 3.15: 3.0 for public schools and 3.3 for private colleges and universities according to 2010 studies. A is now the most common grade in all types of colleges, and it's obtained more and more often. Grade point averages have increased around 0.1 points every ten years - in the 1950s, an average GPA was 2.52.

You need to remember that the average college GPA depends a lot on the major: science majors tend to have lower GPAs than humanities majors (e.g., 2.78 and 2.90 are the average GPAs in Chemistry and Maths, respectively; whereas Education has a GPA equal to 3.36). Another critical factor is the school you're attending - highly selective colleges like Harvard or Stanford have higher average undergraduate GPAs than schools with high acceptance rates. You can read more about the average college GPA topic on the Prep scholar website.

Well, the answer to such a question is quite obvious - it really depends on your ambition, the college you're attending, your major, and many other factors.

Generally speaking, a 3.0 GPA is a "B" mark - which stands for average. Many times it's the lowest score you can get to continue specific majors or courses. A 3.5 GPA is often seen as above average, good, or even very good result, but - as we said before - it may vary for your major and school.

If your GPA is not as high as you would like it to be - don't worry so much, as a GPA score is relatively low on the employers' list. More important factors are internships and work experience, your major, volunteering, or even extracurricular activity.