01What this calculator does
Free high school GPA calculator online – no credits, no sign-up for you. Just paste in the grades for your classes (one per line in the big box) and it will return your unweighted GPA on the 4.0 scale (as a number and as a letter), the highest and lowest graded class, and the total grade points behind your average. Every class is weighted equally (i.e. no need to look up how many credits a given class was “worth” and thus give it more “heft” in your average).
This program can read letter grades (A, A- , B+, C+) and percentages (0-100%) mixed together. Enter your exact grades from report cards. Grades without letters are read as percentages and translated to the corresponding letter. Additionally on this web site are many free, no-login math programs including a BMI calculator and an age-gap calculator.
02The 4.0 grade scale it uses
The grades in U.S. high schools are mostly reported on the 4.0 scale. Each letter has a value in terms of grade points that decrease by one third with each step. This means that there is a difference of about 0.3 between A+ and A and between A- and A. First, a percentage is converted into a letter grade and then the resulting letter is converted into grade points according to the full standard unweighted grading scale listed in the table below.
03Unweighted vs weighted — and why “no credits” is fine
Unweighted GPA: Assigns an unweighted quality point value to every class on a 0–4.0 scale and allows for the calculation of an unweighted GPA without input of credit hours. This is how most high school average GPAs are calculated and can be viewed using this calculator. Weighted GPA: Assigns an increased quality point value for honors, AP or IB classes. The value of an A in these classes could be 4.5 or 5.0. Credit-weighted GPA: Assigns a value to a full-year or higher-credit course that is greater than a short-credit course. The average high school GPA is calculated using unweighted quality points and does not require input of credit hours.
In fact, if every course were 1 credit, then all colleges would be taking an unweighted average to score their applicants against those of other schools. Everyone uses grades reported on an unweighted scale when reporting for a College Guide, such as The Princeton Review lists or U.S. News & World Report’s peer ratings of departments. (The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics reports data on 12th graders by grades on a unweighted scale in its Condition of Education and in its annual High School Longitudinal Study of 2009.)
A general guideline to go by is 3.5+ = A- average / very good / good (competitive), 3.0- 3.5 = B+ / A- average / very good / good (competitive), 2.0- 3.0 = B / C average / fair, less than 2.0 = not enough to graduate / not enough to meet requirements for other schools. According to NCES Fast Facts most graduates have averages in the B range.
Because this is an average, the biggest “pull” or “drag” is your lowest set of grades, so the calculator flags the lowest class for you. As you have more and more classes, each individual grade has less impact, so one rough semester can end up being overcome by later years. Check with your school counselor or your state resources (e.g. Minnesota’s MyHigherEd GPA guide) for how your district rounds to the final reported average and for other assistance.
- Unweighted only. This calculator does not add honors/AP/IB bonus points. If your school publishes a weighted GPA, it will read higher than the number here.
- No credit hours. Every class is weighted equally. If your transcript weights full-year courses more than semester ones, use a credit-weighted calculator instead.
- Scales vary. Percentage-to-letter bands differ slightly by district (some use 90–100 = A). The calculator uses the most common U.S. bands; enter letters directly if your school differs.
- It is an estimate. Your official transcript GPA, set by your school, is the number colleges use. Treat this as a planning figure.
01The unweighted GPA formula
An unweighted high school GPA is calculated as the arithmetic mean of grade points received by a student in high school. For the calculation of an unweighted GPA, each grade given (letter or percentage) is converted to a number on a 4.0 scale. As there are no specified credit hours for high school, there is nothing to weight. Thus, each class is awarded a single grade point value and averaged to compute the GPA.
Where:
- p₁ … pₙ= the 4.0-scale grade point for each class.
- n= the number of classes (each counts once).
- A = 4.0= the top grade point; every other letter scales down from it.
- ± 0.3= the approximate value of a plus or minus modifier.
02Worked example
Say a report card shows six classes: A, A−, B+, B, A and a 92%. Convert each to a grade point, add them, and divide by six — no credits anywhere:
The unweighted GPA for this student would be 3.62 or A−. Since the major GPA tools use a convert → add → divide method and do not require a credit-hours column for a purely unweighted average, averaging other numbers of everyday life (such as the numbers in a spreadsheet) can be done with a free tool on the site such as the conduit fill calculator. No login is required for these tools.