GPA Scale

Many teachers provide their students with a percentage grade or letter grade. However, the school and other institutions are more interested in your grade point average or GPA. The GPA scale works to provide you with a way to easily convert your letter or number grade into a GPA. Using the GPA Scale is easy.
Check out the table below to get an idea of how your GPA is calculated based on your percent or letter grade.

What is Your GPA?

The acronym GPA stands for grade point average and it is used by colleges and other institutions to get an idea of how well you are doing overall in your studies. They let these institutions have an idea of how well you are doing in school and some institutions use it to determine if you are still eligible for their services. For example, many scholarships and financial institutions want their recipients to maintain a certain grade point average. This varies depending on the program, but the idea is that they want their recipients to maintain a certain grade level. If the institution requires a GPA over 3.0, they want you to maintain a B average in your classes.

Your GPA can affect your acceptance into various colleges and can open doors for you in the future. Advanced degree and graduate programs may require that the individual maintain a certain GPA in order to be accepted into these classes. Scholarship and grants may be forfeited if the student does not maintain a certain GPA, as well. Your GPA is calculated based on your letter grades. The letter grades are provided a numerical value. The letter grade is determined by the percentage grade in most cases. Therefore, all three amounts are tied together.

Most people have been dealing with letter grades or percentage grades since grade school. Usually, if you have at least a D, you are not failing, but many people try to at least get a C average. Average grades range in the B range, which is usually needed for many college programs. The GPA shows how you are doing overall in your courses. If you are to have an A in one class and a D in another, the GPA accounts for both of these grades and provide an average score, for which the institutions can get an idea of how well you are doing.

Calculating your Grades

When it comes to calculating your grades, the teacher looks at the total points that you earned for each assignment and the total points available for each assignment. The total point earned is taken out of the total points available to get a percentage grade, which can be converted into a letter grade. This is then used to determine your grade point average.

Here is an example of how it works:

The total earned points are divided by the total points and then converted to a percentage. Therefore, if these were your grades, you would have a percentage grade of 83.6 percent. This can be converted into a letter grade of B and a grade point average score of 3.0. When it comes to calculating letter grades, there is a letter grade scale that is used by your professor. Not all teachers use the same scale, but it is pretty much a standard scale. For example, there won’t be a teacher giving you an A on an assignment if the grade is below 70 %.

Calculating Your GPA

It is your overall grade point average that will be important to those that use GPA’s as a decision making tool. In order to calculate your overall GPA, it will be important to get your grade points for each of the courses that you have completed. Once you have this information, you can add these grade point averages together for each of your completed courses and then use this information to get your overall grade point average.

You would simply add these numbers up and then divide by the number of courses that are completed to get the overall GPA. This is the important number that other institutions, such as colleges will consider. This tells your overall grade for all of your classes. Therefore, if you get A’s in some courses but only C’s in others, this will drop your grade point average overall. Also, if you choose to retake a course, you can get an idea of what you need to get in that course, in order to push your grade point average up to a place where you want to be. It can let you know how much your score can be improved if you get a grade point higher in this course.

To calculate your cumulative or overall GPA, all you need to do is add the grade points for each of the courses and then divide by the total number of course. This will give you your average grade points for all your courses. It tells those looking at your grades that you get close to 90 % but just under in most of your classes. You can have one poor grade that brings down your entire GPA, which is why most people repeat a course if they don’t do well in it. If the student retook the Art course and got a 3.7 instead of a 3.3, they could raise their GPA to a 3.74, which is above a 90 and closer to 4.0.

When it comes to finding out how important institutions use your grades to assess your abilities, it is the GPA number that they are focused on. This gives them an idea of overall how well you are doing and what type of student you are. Just one course can alter this average and turn you from a B student to an A student or visa versa.

You need to be able to stay on top of your grades and your GPA, because it says a lot about the type of student you are and the capabilities that you have to be successful. It allows you to be able to get an idea of where you stand when it comes to your education. It can help you to get those scholarships or continue to qualify for financial support through various state and federal programs. You want to make the right impression and keeping track of your GPA is one way to do just that.

Try our simple GPA calculator to calculate your grades.

College GPA Calculator