GPA Calculator (US 4.0 Scale)

Calculating your Grade Point Average (GPA) is essential for tracking your academic progress and meeting requirements for scholarships, graduate school admissions, and career opportunities. The US 4.0 scale is the most widely used grading system in American colleges and universities, and understanding how it works gives you the power to plan your academic strategy effectively.

Step 1: Gather Your Course Information

For each course, you need two pieces of information: the letter grade you received and the number of credit hours the course is worth. Credit hours are typically listed in your course catalog or on your transcript. Most standard courses are 3 credit hours, while lab courses may be 1 or 4 credits, and some intensive courses may be 4 or 5 credits.

Step 2: Convert Grades to Grade Points

Each letter grade corresponds to a specific number of grade points on the 4.0 scale. An A or A+ equals 4.0, an A- equals 3.7, a B+ equals 3.3, a B equals 3.0, and so on down to an F which equals 0.0. Our calculator includes a complete grade scale reference table so you can verify the conversion for any grade.

Step 3: Calculate Quality Points

For each course, multiply the grade points by the credit hours to get quality points. For example, an A (4.0) in a 3-credit course yields 12.0 quality points, while a B+ (3.3) in a 4-credit course yields 13.2 quality points. This weighting ensures that courses with more credit hours have a proportionally larger impact on your GPA.

Step 4: Compute Your GPA

Add up all quality points across your courses and divide by the total number of credit hours. The result is your GPA. For cumulative GPA, include all courses from all semesters in the calculation. Our calculator handles this automatically — simply add your semesters and courses, and the results update in real time.

Tips for Using This Calculator

Use the "Add Semester" button to organize your courses by term. You can rename semesters to match your actual academic terms (Fall 2024, Spring 2025, etc.). The calculator shows both individual semester GPAs and your cumulative GPA across all semesters. Use the copy button to save your results for reference, and the clear button to start fresh with a new calculation.