College GPA Calculator

Multiply each course's grade points by its credit hours to get quality points, add the quality points, and divide by the credit hours.

Take five courses graded A-, B+, B, A and C+ for 3, 4, 4, 3 and 1 credit hours. On the Plus/minus 4.0 (A- is 3.7) those letters are worth 3.70, 3.30, 3.00, 4.00 and 2.30 grade points, which give 11.1, 13.2, 12, 12 and 2.3 quality points. They add up to 50.6 quality points over 15 hours, a GPA of 3.37.

That is one term. Carrying the same arithmetic across every term on the transcript, with each term's hours kept whole, is what the cumulative GPA calculator does, and averaging the term GPAs instead gives the wrong answer whenever the terms carry different loads.

Credit hours decide how much a grade counts, so a four-hour course moves a GPA four times as far as a one-hour course with the same letter.

The C+ in Public Speaking in that example carries 1 credit hour and contributes 2.3 quality points. Raise it to 4 credit hours and the same grade contributes 9.2 quality points over 18 hours, which drops the GPA from 3.37 to 3.19.

This is why a course count is not a substitute for credit hours, and why the running total of quality points and GPA hours is the pair a transcript carries.

Colleges split on what a plus and a minus are worth. One convention puts an A- at 3.70 and a B+ at 3.30, and the other steps in thirds, putting the same A- at 3.67 and the B+ at 3.33. Both sit in the form's scale menu.

On the five courses above the two tables give 3.37 and 3.38. A college that awards no plus or minus in the GPA at all prices every A- as an A, which turns the same transcript into 3.33. Some registrars also carry an A+ at 4.33 and cap the reported GPA at 4.00, which is the third option in the menu and is printed in full on the GPA scale page.

Sources: Academic grading in the United States and University of Toledo Registrar: Calculating GPA, both read 2026-09-20.

A P, an NP, a W, an I and an AU earn no grade points, so they leave both the quality points and the GPA hours and the division runs on what is left.

Add a course graded P to the five above and the GPA stays at 3.37, because the quality points stay at 50.6 and the hours stay at 15. The working above lists every course left out for that reason. Credits earned and GPA hours are separate totals on a transcript, and a passed course adds to the first without touching the second.

The letter itself comes from a percentage the instructor's own cutoffs turn into a grade, which is where the grade calculator and the final grade calculator pick the course up.