High School GPA Calculator

Calculate your GPA with these steps.

Are you looking for a high school GPA calculator? While many say that GPA is not really important until college, the value of a student's GPA in high school is starting to become increasingly important as college admissions become harder. However, it can often be hard to figure out your GPA. After all, how do grades of A and B or even 88 and 95 turn into a 3.4? While it may seem difficult, finding out your high school GPA is simple with a few guided tips.

What Is GPA?

GPA is an abbreviation for grade point average. The GPA system is a quick way of getting a student's overall academic performance. Instead of reflecting every bad grade, a GPA is an average of the all grades. As a result, one or two bad grades will not really affect a GPA.

For example, let's say that you are a junior. You have taken 20 classes and gotten A's in 19 of them. In one of those 20 courses, however, you received a D. Since the GPA system is an average of your grades, the D will barely make a dent in your GPA. In this case, you would have a 3.85 GPA.

Generally, GPA is calculated on a zero to four scale. Four is generally the highest a student can get and zero is the lowest. However, there are certain schools in which students can receive higher than a four. This is generally when a school weighs an A+ as more than an A, but it is uncommon for a school to do this. If your school does give out GPA higher than a four, it will be harder for you to calculate your GPA without their help.

Using a High School GPA Calculator

There is no handy high school GPA calculator that you can find online that is going to tell you your exact GPA. Many of the calculators online are geared towards college students or specific colleges. However, figuring it out yourself is simple once you figure out how to convert your grades. The process is as follows:

Convert your grades to the GPA scale
Add the numbers all together
Divide by the number of classes you have taken

Step One: Convert Your Grades

For schools that use a letter system (A, B, C, etc.), each letter converts to a number. Use the following conversion scale to do this:

A+=4
A=4
A-=3.67
B+=3.33
B=3
B-=2.67
C+2.33
C=2
C-=1.67
D+=1.33
D=1
F=0

For schools that work on a number system (100, 95, etc.), each number converts to a smaller number.

95=4
90=3.5
85=3
80=2.5
75=2
70=1.5
65=1
60 and below=0
While this may seem complicated, it is not as hard as it looks. Let's say that you have only taken five classes. You received three A's and two B's. In this case, your grades would convert to three fours and two threes on the GPA scale. If your five classes were on a number system and you got four ninety fives, you would have four fours on the GPA scale.

Step Two: Add Your Grades Together

Once you have converted your grades to the GPA scale, it is time to add them all together. If you have three fours, three threes, and two twos, you would add them all together and get 25. You are aiming to add the sum of all of the numbers, not count the amount of numbers that you have.

Step Three: Divide by the Number of Courses

Using the example above, we ended up with a sum of 25. In order to get the GPA, the last step is to divide by the number of courses. In the above example, we will be dividing by eight courses. Doing so would give us a GPA of 3.13.

Quick Tip

It may seem confusing sometimes to remember what numbers you add versus what numbers you divide. An easy way to remember the difference is that you add the small GPA numbers together to get a big number. You divide that big number by the number of courses you have taken.

Your Calculated GPA

It may seem difficult at first but calculating your GPA can be easy. You should remember that calculating your own GPA is only an approximation as your own school may have separate rules. Once you have gone through the math yourself, you will have a better idea of your academic position and may even start asking questions about college.