GPA Calculator

Grade point average is a credit-weighted mean, and the weighting is the part people forget. Each course contributes its grade point value multiplied by its credit hours, and the total is divided by total credits. A four-credit course therefore influences your GPA twice as much as a two-credit one, which means a poor grade in a heavy course does considerably more damage than the same grade in a light one.

The consequence that matters most practically is inertia. In your first term, every grade is a large fraction of the total and your GPA swings wildly. By the time you have ninety credits behind you, a single course barely registers — recovering from a weak first year requires sustained performance across many subsequent terms rather than one strong semester. This is why the arithmetic argues for taking the first year seriously even though it feels furthest from graduation.

Scales vary more than students expect. Most US institutions use a four-point scale with plus and minus modifiers, but some omit modifiers entirely, some treat an A-plus as 4.3, and high schools frequently weight honours and advanced placement courses on a five-point scale. Any GPA quoted without its scale is ambiguous, which is why transcripts state the scale explicitly and why comparing GPAs across institutions is less meaningful than it appears.