How to calculate grades

A course grade is not a GPA

These are different calculations over different inputs, and mixing them up is the reason a lot of hand arithmetic goes wrong. A course grade is a percentage inside one course, computed from that course's assignments and its own weighting. A GPA is an average acrosscourses, where each course contributes one letter grade weighted by credit hours.

They meet at exactly one point: your course percentage becomes a letter grade, and that letter is what enters the GPA. That step uses your school's cutoff table, not a universal one — see the GPA scale for the widely used version and why it is a convention. If a GPA is what you are after, how to calculate GPA is the guide you want.

Weighted categories

Nearly every syllabus works this way: named categories, a percentage of the final grade each, and the weights adding to 100. For each category, multiply your score by its weight and divide by 100. That product is the category's contribution to the course, in course-percentage points. Add the contributions up.

The contributions total 50.10% out of the 60% of the course that has been graded. Dividing one by the other gives the grade on graded work:

50.10% ÷ 60% = 83.5%

That figure is not the course grade. It is the grade so far, and the difference is the 40% sitting ungraded in the final exam row. A course grade only exists once every category has a score.

Ungraded work is not the same as missing weight

This is the distinction worth getting right, and the one most grade calculators collapse. There are two different reasons a syllabus might not add to 100 in front of you.

• Allocated but not graded. You have entered the category and its weight; the score is blank because the work has not happened yet. The calculator knows the assignment exists and how much it is worth, so it can tell you the best and worst cases.
• Not allocated at all. You have not entered part of the syllabus. The calculator has no idea whether the missing 40% is one final exam or six quizzes, so any best case it printed would be invented.

Enter the same three graded categories from the example and leave the final exam out entirely, and the grade so far is unchanged at 83.5% — that part only ever depended on graded work. What changes is everything about the future: 40% is now unallocated rather than ungraded, and the correct output for the best possible grade is no figure at all.

Points-based syllabi

Some courses skip weights and grade out of a points total: assignments are worth so many points each, and your grade is the points you earned over the points available. If that describes your syllabus, the arithmetic is simpler — no weighting at all, just a division.

501 ÷ 600 = 83.50%

Divide only by the points that have been graded, not by the course total. Dividing 501 by 1000 would score the ungraded final as a zero and report a failing grade to a student who is doing fine.

To use a weighted calculator with a points syllabus, convert: each category's points possible as a share of the course total is its weight.

Run those weights through the weighted method and the answer is 83.50% — the same figure the direct division gave. That agreement is not a coincidence, and it is not taken on trust either: both numbers on this page are computed, so if the two methods ever disagreed the page would say so.

The parts syllabi handle differently

Four rules that vary by course, all of which change the answer rather than the method.

• Dropped lowest scores. If a category drops its lowest quiz, work out the category's own percentage with that score removed first, then use the result as the category score. Dropping it from the course total instead double-counts the adjustment.
• Extra credit. Usually added to a category's earned points without raising its possible points, which is how a category score goes above 100%. That is legitimate and worth entering as-is rather than capping.
• Curves. Applied after everything on this page, and often not by a formula you can reproduce. A curve is the instructor's, so any figure you compute beforehand is the pre-curve grade.
• Rounding at the boundary. Whether 89.5% becomes an A− is a policy question, and one worth knowing before you decide whether a final assignment matters. Some courses round, some truncate, and some round only at the instructor's discretion.

Questions

What is my grade if some categories are not graded yet?

Your grade on the work that has been graded, which is not the same as your course grade. In the example here, 60% of the syllabus is graded and carries 50.10% of the course, giving 83.5% so far. The remaining 40% has no score yet, so the course grade is genuinely not determined — anything between 50.1% and 90.1% is still reachable.

My syllabus uses points, not percentages. Which do I enter?

Either, as long as you do not mix them. A points syllabus can be converted: each category's share of the total possible points is its weight. The 1000-point course on this page converts to weights that reproduce the same grade — 83.50% either way — so the conversion is safe when the points possible are known for every category.

Why do my weights need to total 100?

Because anything less means part of the course is undescribed, and a calculator cannot tell undescribed weight apart from work not yet graded unless you enter it. Entering only the graded categories in the example leaves 40% unaccounted for, and the honest output for the best and worst case is then nothing at all rather than a number.

What percentage is a B?

That depends on your school. There is a common convention — roughly ten points per letter, with pluses and minuses inside each band — but the boundaries are set locally and vary by several points between institutions and sometimes between departments. The GPA scale page sets out the widely used table and says plainly that it is a convention rather than a standard.

Does my course grade go into my GPA as a percentage?

No. The percentage becomes a letter grade using your school's cutoffs, the letter becomes grade points, and the grade points enter the GPA weighted by the course's credit hours. Two students with the same percentage at different schools can contribute different grade points, which is why that step cannot be skipped or assumed.

Do it with a calculator

The weighted grade calculator takes categories in either scoring mode, keeps allocated weight and graded weight separate the way this page describes, and shows the contribution of every row so you can check it against the tables above.

Once you have a percentage and need the letter and grade points that follow from it, the GPA scale converts in any direction and states the cutoffs it is using. For averaging finished courses together, use how to calculate GPA.