Cumulative GPA Calculator

How to calculate cumulative GPA

To calculate a cumulative GPA, multiply each class’s grade value by its credit hours, add the results for every class in every term, and divide once by the total GPA hours. Georgia Tech’s registrar gives the first step as an example: a C in a three-hour course is six quality points.

The names change by registrar. The product is quality points at Georgia Tech and grade points at the University of Florida. The divisor is GPA hours at Southern Indiana, G.P.A. credits at SUNY Empire and “letter graded units” on a Berkeley residential-life page. At Southern Indiana and at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, an F earns no points and its hours still count.

In the two terms below, fall is 43 quality points over 14 GPA hours, a term GPA of 3.07, and spring is 49 over 14, a 3.50. The formula divides the totals, 92 by 28, for a 3.29; that 28 is the figure some calculators label total credits. For classes with no credit hours there is a GPA calculator without credits.

Sources: Georgia Tech Registrar, Grade Point Average Calculation · University of Florida catalog, Grades and Grading Policies · University of Southern Indiana Registrar, Grade Point Average · University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Registrar, Grade Point Average · UC Berkeley Residential Life, GPA Calculator · SUNY Empire State University Registrar, G.P.A. Calculator.

The grade scale is your college’s, not a standard one

No standard sets what a B+ is worth. Of 978 verified US scales on a letter-based 4.0 scale, 458 use whole letters only, 296 put a B+ at 3.3, 169 at 3.33, 42 at 3.5 and 13 elsewhere; an A+ is above 4.0 at 14. Take one term: an A over 4 hours and a B+, B+, B and C+ over 3 hours each. It is 3.23 on the College of Charleston’s scale, 3.248 on SUNY Empire’s (3.25 rounded) and 3.34 on Rutgers–Newark’s. With the plus signs dropped, as at Montgomery College, the same term is 3.06.

Source: GPAWise verified grading schemes, each read from the university’s own document (see our methodology). The calculator above loads your university’s scale by name. Not listed here? Find your university’s calculator.

How to calculate your semester GPA

A semester GPA is the same division over one term’s classes: that term’s quality points over that term’s GPA hours. Rose-Hulman’s catalog sets the two figures side by side. Its term GPA divides the grade points earned in a term by the credits attempted in that term, and its cumulative GPA divides the total accumulated grade points by the total credits attempted. “Credits attempted” is Rose-Hulman’s wording for the divisor this page calls GPA hours.

So a term GPA starts from nothing each term and the cumulative GPA never does. The University of Southern Indiana computes both at the end of each term, and Rose-Hulman’s grade report shows the two together. The calculator does the same: each term you add shows its own GPA, and the running total is the cumulative figure across all semesters. For a 10-point scale, use the 10-point CGPA calculator.

1. List the term’s classes that carry a letter grade, with the credit hours of each.
2. Multiply each grade value by its credit hours to get that class’s quality points.
3. Add the quality points, and add the credit hours.
4. Divide the points by the hours. That is the semester GPA.

Sources: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology catalog, GPA · University of Southern Indiana Registrar, Grade Point Average.

Why averaging your semester GPAs gives the wrong cumulative GPA

Averaging your semester GPAs gives the right cumulative GPA only when every term carried the same GPA hours. The cumulative figure adds the quality points first and divides once, so each term counts in proportion to its hours. It is a weighted average, and a simple average ignores the weights.

Take a 16-hour fall at 2.50 and one 3-hour summer class at 4.00. The fall holds 40 quality points and the summer class 12, so the cumulative GPA is 52 ÷ 19 = 2.74. The average of the two term GPAs is 3.25, which is 0.51 too high. The shortcut does work when the terms match: the two 14-hour terms in the first example average to the same 3.29.

A term’s GPA is still usable. Multiply it by that term’s GPA hours and its quality points come back, to the precision of the printed GPA, so the calculator accepts a whole term as one line: that term’s GPA and GPA hours.

Source: arithmetic on the definition in Rose-Hulman’s catalog: total accumulated grade points over total credits attempted.

Cumulative GPA with your current GPA: use GPA hours, not credits earned

To add a term to your current GPA you need two numbers from your transcript, and the second is GPA hours, not credits earned. They are separate columns. At the University of Southern Indiana, transfer courses are included in earned hours and excluded from GPA hours, quality points and the GPA. Texas Tech’s own calculator asks for “cumulative GPA hours (NOT credit hours)”. SUNY Empire’s registrar asks for “Total G.P.A. credits”, the University of Missouri’s for “Previous GPA hours attempted” and Florida State’s for “Total Units Taken Toward GPA”.

The difference is large for a transfer student. Say the transcript shows 75 credits earned, 60 transferred in and 15 taken at the new university, with a 2.80 GPA. The GPA hours are 15. Add a 15-hour term at 3.60 and the new cumulative GPA is 96 ÷ 30 = 3.20. Put the 75 in a field labelled total credits and the answer is 264 ÷ 90 = 2.93, which is 0.27 too low. SUNY Empire’s registrar notes that the transcript displays both figures, the cumulative G.P.A. and the G.P.A. credits behind it.

Sources: University of Southern Indiana Registrar, Grade Point Average · Texas Tech University, GPA Calculator · SUNY Empire State University Registrar, G.P.A. Calculator · University of Missouri Registrar, GPA Calculator · Florida State University, GPA Calculator.

How to raise your cumulative GPA: the GPA you need next term

The term GPA you need to reach a target is the target times your total GPA hours after the term, minus your current quality points, divided by the term’s GPA hours. From a 2.80 over 60 GPA hours, a 3.00 after a 15-hour term takes (225 − 168) ÷ 15 = 3.80.

The same record answers two more questions. Holding a steady average of 3.50, the hours needed to reach 3.00 are 60 × 0.20 ÷ 0.50 = 24. And some targets are out of reach in one term: a 3.50 after 15 hours would need 94.5 ÷ 15 = 6.30, above the 4.0 an A earns, and takes 60 × 0.70 ÷ 0.50 = 84 hours of nothing but A grades. Where an A+ is worth 4.3 or 4.33 the ceiling is higher. One 3-hour A moves that 2.80 to 2.86.

SUNY Empire’s registrar builds the same questions into its own calculator: the average needed on current courses to raise a cumulative G.P.A. to a goal, and the additional credits it takes at a maintained average. The calculator’s target GPA mode answers both, and says so when a target cannot be reached next term. For one class, the final grade calculator gives the score needed on the final.

Source: arithmetic on the formula above; the two questions are those of the SUNY Empire State University Registrar’s G.P.A. Calculator.

Repeated classes, transfer credit and pass/fail

A repeated course is counted three ways by the four institutions in the table: every attempt, only the most recent attempt, or only the higher grade. The rule moves the result. Take 27 GPA hours at 3.00, plus a 3-hour class failed and then repeated for a B. With every attempt counted the GPA is 90 ÷ 33 = 2.73; with the earlier attempt dropped it is 90 ÷ 30 = 3.00. Mark the earlier attempt in the calculator and it shows the GPA with both attempts counted and with the earlier one dropped.

Transfer credit is the second rule to check. Georgia Tech, the University of Florida, Rutgers–Newark, SUNY Empire and Southern Indiana each keep grades earned elsewhere out of their own GPA. Pass/fail grades stay out at Florida, Georgia Tech and Southern Indiana, and withdrawals stay out at Southern Indiana and Montgomery College. Chattanooga’s GPA hours leave out courses graded S, NC, I and W.

Rounding is the third. Georgia Tech’s averages are truncated after two decimal places, Chattanooga’s are not rounded, and Florida’s is shown to the hundredths place without rounding up. So the 2.727 above prints as 2.72 at Georgia Tech, where a calculator that rounds shows 2.73. This one shows three decimal places beside the rounded figure.

Sources: each name in the table links to that institution’s own page. For transfer credit, pass/fail and rounding, also: Rutgers University–Newark, How to Calculate Your Cumulative GPA · SUNY Empire State University Registrar · University of Southern Indiana Registrar · University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Registrar.

Major GPA: which classes count

A major GPA is the same division over fewer classes, the ones that count in your major, and the list is set locally. At Rose-Hulman each academic department decides which courses go into the GPA in major, and its GPA requirement is 2.000 in the major as well as overall. Claremont McKenna’s registrar does not calculate a major GPA and publishes steps for doing it by hand: include every course that counts in the major and any other that could, leave out transfer and study-abroad courses, AP or IB credit and credit/no-credit courses, and never combine two majors.

Neither draws the line at the department’s own classes. Claremont McKenna’s test is whether a course counts, or could count, in the major; Rose-Hulman leaves the list to each department. Take your department’s list, check those classes in the calculator, and a major GPA appears beside the cumulative one.

Sources: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology catalog, GPA · Claremont McKenna College Registrar, Calculating Major GPA.

The cumulative GPA that law and medical schools calculate

An application service rebuilds your cumulative GPA on its own rules, so its figure can differ from your transcript’s. The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) says the variation “is rarely substantial”. It converts every grade it can to its own 4.0 scale and counts repeated courses whose units and grades appear on the transcript. AMCAS, the medical school application service, counts every attempt of a repeated course even if your school does not. A repeat is one place the figures part: the repeat example is 3.00 on a transcript that keeps only the later attempt, and 2.73 to both services.

Sources: Law School Admission Council, Transcript Summarization · Association of American Medical Colleges, AMCAS Applicant Guide, Grades Factored Into AMCAS GPA Calculations.

What a 3.7 or a 3.4 cumulative GPA clears

Neither a 3.7 nor a 3.4 is good or bad by any published rule, because no official body publishes one. What institutions publish are lines, and each figure clears some and misses others. Both are above 2.0, a published minimum at the four institutions in the table, though not the same line at each. Graduation honors are where the two part. A 3.7 is above Georgia Tech’s 3.55 for highest honor and inside Southern Indiana’s 3.600 to 3.799 for cum laude, short of its 3.800 for magna cum laude. A 3.4 is above Georgia Tech’s 3.35 for high honor and below Southern Indiana’s first line. Each also asks for at least 60 credit hours earned there. Where honors go by a share of the graduating class and not by a GPA line, the class rank calculator gives the rank a top 5% needs.

Federal student aid has its own line. In a program longer than two academic years, satisfactory academic progress requires a C average or its equivalent at the end of the second academic year, or academic standing consistent with the institution’s requirements for graduation. Your college’s own policy sets the GPA required at each evaluation, so nothing here makes a lower GPA safe before then.

Sources: Georgia Tech catalog, Scholastic Regulations · Georgia Tech catalog, Undergraduate Degrees · University of Southern Indiana Registrar, Graduation Honors · 34 CFR 668.34, Satisfactory academic progress. Each name in the table links to the document.

Frequently asked questions