How this calculator works
Most syllabuses divide a course grade into categories that are worth different amounts: homework, quizzes, a midterm, a final. Your grade is not your total points over the points available. It is each category's percentage multiplied by that category's share of the course, added up.
Enter a score and a weight for each category. Scores go in as percentages, or switch to Points and enter raw marks like 46/50. Add or remove categories to match your own syllabus, and rename them to whatever your teacher calls them.
Example: a complete syllabus
Four categories, all graded, weights totalling 100%. This is the case where a final course grade exists:
| Category | Weight | Score | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homework | 20% | 90% | 18.00% |
| Quizzes | 15% | 85% | 12.75% |
| Midterm | 25% | 82% | 20.50% |
| Final Exam | 40% | 90% | 36.00% |
| Final course grade | 87.25% | ||
Course grade = Σ (category score × category weight ÷ 100)
Adding the four contributions together (18.00% + 12.75% + 20.50% + 36.00%) gives 87.25%. Note that this is not the average of the four scores — that would be86.75%. The final exam is worth twice the homework, so it pulls harder.
What your grade means before the course is over
Mid-semester, most of your syllabus has not happened yet, and this is where weighted-grade arithmetic goes wrong most often. Take the same course with the final exam still ahead of you:
| Category | Weight | Score | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homework | 20% | 90% | 18.00% |
| Quizzes | 15% | 85% | 12.75% |
| Midterm | 25% | 82% | 20.50% |
| Final Exam | 40% | Not graded | -- |
| Earned so far, out of 60% graded | 51.25% | ||
You have banked 51.25% of the course. Your grade isnot 51.25% — that would score the final exam as a zero because you have not sat it. It is51.25% out of the60% that has been graded, which is85.42%.
Grade so far = earned points ÷ graded weight × 100
Both figures are on screen in the calculator, side by side and labelled against each other, because both are true and they answer different questions. The big number is where you stand. The breakdown total is how much of the course you have locked in.
Weight you have not entered is not work you have not done
These are two different things, and conflating them is the single most common way a weighted grade calculator lies to you:
- Ungraded weight — categories you have entered a weight for but no score. Real, upcoming work. In the example above that is the final exam, 40% of the course.
- Unallocated weight — the gap between your weights and 100%. Not upcoming work. Just syllabus you have not typed in yet.
If a calculator treats the second as the first, then halfway through entering your syllabus it will confidently tell you what you need on assignments it has never been told about. This one keeps them apart, reports each separately in the status bar, and declines to project a final grade until your weights actually total 100%. Declining is the accurate answer to a question that has not been fully asked.
What do I need on the final?
The arithmetic is short enough to do by hand. Take the course grade you are aiming for, subtract the weighted points you have already banked, and divide by the weight of everything still ungraded.
Needed average = (target − earned points) ÷ ungraded weight × 100
Two of its answers are traps rather than numbers. Below zero does not mean you need a negative score; it means the target is already locked in and a zero on everything left still clears it. Above 100 means the reverse — the target is out of reach whatever you score from here. Both look like arithmetic mistakes if you are not expecting them, and both are the real answer.
The What if? panel comes at the same question from the other end. It runs the projection at 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% and 100% on everything remaining, so you can read the range straight off the screen instead of solving for a single number.
Percentages, letters and where they part company
Everything above is percentage arithmetic, and that part is not a matter of opinion. The letter is. A percentage becomes a letter only against a cutoff table, and the common tables disagree: 92% is an A− on a ten-point scale and a B on a seven-point one, and a school with a 93 cutoff for A calls 92% an A− while a school with a 90 cutoff calls it an A.
So the calculator names its table rather than assuming one. Open View grading scale to see which cutoffs the letter beside your result came from, and switch tables if yours differ. Your school's published table beats every table on the internet, this one included. The GPA scale reference goes through where the common tables diverge and by how much.
Advanced mode, and the choice it quietly makes
Advanced mode lets you enter individual assignments inside each category and averages them for you. Which average, though, depends on the score type, and the two are not the same:
- Percentages — every assignment in the category counts equally. Three quizzes at 100%, 100% and 0% average to 66.7%.
- Points — points are pooled across the category before dividing, so bigger assignments count for more. The same three quizzes as 10/10, 10/10 and 0/50 come to 28.6%.
Both are real grading policies and only your syllabus says which one your teacher uses. Because the score-type toggle looks like a choice about input format, the calculator prints the policy it is applying next to the control. If you are not sure, check whether your gradebook shows a category average that matches one and not the other.
College and high school
The same arithmetic covers both. A college course might be a midterm and a final and nothing else; a high school course might run six categories with homework carrying real weight. Since you add, remove and rename categories yourself, the calculator matches whatever your syllabus says rather than assuming a shape.