GradeCalc

High School GPA Calculator

Enter your classes and mark which are honours, AP or IB. We show your unweighted GPA, your school-weighted GPA, and why colleges will recalculate a third one.

High school GPA

Set each course to the level your transcript shows. Honours adds 0.5 and AP or IB adds 1.0 to the weighted figure only — the unweighted 4.0 number never moves. Most colleges recalculate a third GPA of their own; the conversion tables explain why the three disagree.

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Your GPA3.57

unweighted · 3.93 weighted · 7 courses

Weighted (5.0 scale) 3.93
Courses counted 7
Unweighted (4.0) 3.57

Unweighted
3.57
Weighted
3.93
Courses counted
7
Bumps
Honors +0.5 · AP/IB +1.0 · capped at 5.0

This calculator needs JavaScript to recalculate. The answer shown above was worked out when the page was built and is correct for the date in the address bar.

Last checked

You have more than one GPA, and that is normal

A high school transcript can legitimately produce three different numbers at once, and students find this out at the worst possible moment — while filling in an application that asks for a specific one.

  1. Your unweighted GPA. Every A is 4.0 regardless of course difficulty. Capped at 4.0.
  2. Your school-weighted GPA. Honours and AP courses get a bump, so this can exceed 4.0 and is often reported on a 5.0 scale. This is the number on your transcript.
  3. The recalculated GPA a university computes for itself. Many admissions offices strip out electives and non-core courses, apply their own weighting rules, and rebuild a GPA from your academic core only. That number is not on your transcript and you never see it.

Almost no calculator explains the third one, and it is the one that surprises people. If your GPA is carried by an A in Studio Art and a B in AP Chemistry, the recalculated version will look worse than the one you have been quoting.

The bump conventions

+0.5 for honours, +1.0 for AP or IB is the most common scheme in US high schools. It is a convention, not a standard. Some districts add 0.5 to everything advanced. Some add nothing at all and report unweighted only. Some cap the weighted GPA at 4.5 rather than 5.0. Dual enrolment is treated inconsistently even within a single district. Your student handbook decides this, and it is worth five minutes to check before you build a course schedule around it.

Worked example

Seven courses — two AP, one honours, four regular:

  • AP US History — B+ (3.3) → weighted 4.3
  • AP Biology — A− (3.7) → weighted 4.7
  • Honors Precalculus — B (3.0) → weighted 3.5
  • English 11 — A (4.0)
  • Spanish III — A− (3.7)
  • Studio Art — A (4.0)
  • Physical Education — B+ (3.3)

Unweighted: 25.0 ÷ 7 = 3.57. Weighted: 29.0 ÷ 7 = 4.14.

Same transcript, both correct, 0.57 apart. Both get asked for, which is why this calculator returns them together rather than making you run it twice.

The formula

Unweighted: GPA = Σ pᵢ ÷ n where p is the standard grade points for the letter.

Weighted: GPA = Σ (pᵢ + bᵢ) ÷ n where b is the level bump — 0 for regular, 0.5 for honours, 1.0 for AP or IB by default, all adjustable above.

Most US high schools weight every course equally regardless of how many periods it meets, which is why there is no credit term here. If your school does assign credits to courses, use the credit-hour version instead.

Where this stops being reliable

Some schools grade on a 100-point scale and convert to GPA using their own percentage bands, which are not universal — an 89 is an A− at one school and a B+ at another. Some weight semester-long and year-long courses differently. Dual-enrolment courses are sometimes weighted as AP, sometimes as honours, sometimes not at all. And whether freshman year counts toward the reported GPA varies by district, though it almost always appears on the transcript regardless.

When your school's number and this one disagree, your school's number is the one on your transcript.

Common questions

How does weighted GPA work in high school?

Advanced courses get extra grade points before averaging. A B in AP Biology is worth 3.0 unweighted and 4.0 weighted under the common +1.0 convention. Because of the bump, weighted GPAs can exceed 4.0, which is why many schools report them on a 5.0 scale.

Do AP classes raise your GPA?

They raise your weighted GPA — usually by a full point per AP course under the common convention. They do nothing to your unweighted GPA, where a B in AP Biology is the same 3.0 as a B in regular Biology. Since colleges look at both, and at the difficulty of your schedule directly, the honest answer is that AP courses help in more than one way and none of them is a shortcut.

How do I calculate my GPA from my transcript?

List every course with a letter grade, mark which were honours, AP or IB, and enter them above. If your transcript already shows a cumulative GPA, use it as a check — if yours comes out different, the usual causes are a course you missed, a different bump convention, or your school excluding non-academic courses.

Why is my school's GPA different from the one I calculate?

Three likely reasons: your school uses different bump values than the +0.5 / +1.0 defaults, it excludes certain courses like PE or study hall, or it weights year-long courses more than semester ones. Your student handbook spells out which, and it is the authority.

What does an unweighted 4.0 mean if weighted GPAs go up to 5.0?

It means straight As. An unweighted 4.0 is the maximum on that scale and cannot be beaten — the 5.0 scale exists to distinguish between students who all have straight As by rewarding harder schedules. A 4.0 unweighted with six AP courses and a 4.0 unweighted with none look identical unweighted and very different weighted.

Does freshman year count toward my GPA?

It is on your transcript and included in your cumulative GPA at nearly every school. Some colleges de-emphasise it when they recalculate, and a small number of schools exclude it from the reported figure. Assume it counts.

What is the highest GPA I can get?

4.0 unweighted, always. Weighted depends on your school's scale and how many advanced courses you take — 5.0 is the common ceiling, though a schedule of all-AP courses with straight As is the only way to reach it, and some schools cap lower at 4.5.

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