Figure out Your College GPA

In many ways, figuring out your college GPA (grade point average) is actually easier than figuring up your high school GPA. If you know your letter grades and credit hours (a unit of measurement to reflect your weekly time in the classroom), you should be able to find your GPA for a term. You can also use this information to calculate your overall college GPA.

Steps

Calculating Your Semester GPA

  1. Write down your grades. Write down a list of what classes you took during the term. Next to each class, write down the grade you earned. Don't worry about writing down a percentage, just note the letter grade that you got. For example, your list may look something like this:
    • Biology: B
    • Calculus: A
    • History: A
    • Spanish: C
  2. Use a grading scale to note how many points each letter grade is worth. Use your school's grading scale to determine how many points each letter grade earns. For example, you'd build on your list like this:[1]
    • Biology: B (3 points)
    • Calculus: A (4 points)
    • History: A (4 points)
    • Spanish: C (2 points)
  3. List how many credits each course is worth. Once you've made your list, look in your school's course catalog to determine how many credits each course is worth. Sometimes, seminars or labs may be worth fewer credits so it's important to calculate how many credits you took in a term. Write down how many credits each course is worth. For example, your list may now look something like this:[1]
    • Biology: B (3 credit points) at 3 hours
    • Calculus: A (4 credit points) at 4 hours
    • History: A (4 credit points) at 3 hours
    • Spanish: C (2 credit points) at 3 hours
  4. Determine how many grade points (credit points) you earned for your courses. For each course on your list, multiply the credit for your grade by the number of hours the course was worth. Once you've done this for each course, you can add up all of the grade points (credit points) to calculate your total grade points (credit points) for the term. Your list may look like this:[2]
    • Biology: B (3 credit points) at 3 hours = 9 credit points
    • Calculus: A (4 credit points) at 4 hours = 16 credit points
    • History: A (4 credit points) at 3 hours = 12 credit points
    • Spanish: C (2 credit points) at 3 hours = 6 credit points
    • Total = 43 credit points
  5. Determine your semester GPA by dividing credit points by coursework hours. Take your total credit points and divide this number by the number of credit hours you took. Remember not to count any classes you withdrew from.[1]
    • For example, you would divide 43 (credit points) by 13 (credit hours) to get a weighted GPA of 3.3.

Determining Your Overall GPA

  1. Add up your credit points. You can write down a list of all of your credit points, but it will probably be easiest to find this using your transcript. Write down the total credit points from each semester or term. These are sometimes called quality points. Add the points from every semester or term up to determine your total credit points.[3]
    • For example, if you earned 55 credit points for your first term and 29 points for your second term, you would have a total of 84 credit (or quality) points.
  2. Calculate how many credits you took. Write down how many credit hours you took for every term or semester. Add these numbers together to get your total credit hours.[3]
    • For example, if you earned 17 credit hours for your first term and 12 credit hours for your second term, you would have a total of 29 credit hours.
  3. Calculate your overall or cumulative GPA. Take your total credit points and divide this number by your total credit hours. This will average out your grade points for every semester and term you included.[3]
    • For example, take 84 (your total credit points) divided by 29 (total credit hours) to get a 2.89 cumulative GPA.

Tips

  • You can almost always find your semester (and usually cumulative) GPA on your report card or grade report each semester.
  • Most courses are usually worth 3 credit hours. A course may be worth more if it's advanced level or has a lab included.
  • You can also ask your school's financial or academic advising office to pull up your transcript so you can see your current GPA. You may want to check the official records just to make sure they match your own, especially if you rely on them to get financial aid.
  • If you have any credit hours for which you did not receive a grade (for example, by Pass/Fail), remember to ignore them in your calculations.
  • If you would like to update your GPA (rather than calculate it anew) by factoring in only your most recent grades, you can't simply average two GPAs.

Things You'll Need

  • Calculator
  • Transcript (or an accurate memory of all grades received)
  • Paper and Pencil

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 http://www.uc.edu/cat/GPACalculator.aspx
  2. ↑ http://advising.utah.edu/scholastic-standards/calculation.php
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 https://www.mtholyoke.edu/sites/default/files/registrar/docs/calculate_gpa.pdf
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