Unweighted GPA Calculator
Calculate your GPA on a straight scale, with no bonus for honors, AP or IB courses. Every course is worth its grade and nothing more.
Credits are optional. Leave them blank if every course at your school carries equal weight, and each course will count once.
Entries
Unweighted GPA
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Total credits
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Quality points
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| Course | Credits | Grade | Points | Quality points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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An unweighted GPA caps out at 4.0 on a standard scale, however hard your courses were. If you want to see the effect of course difficulty, use the Weighted GPA Calculator.
Related calculators
Weighted GPA Calculator
Add course-level bonuses for Honors, AP and IB classes and compare weighted GPA against unweighted.
High School GPA Calculator
Calculate weighted and unweighted high school GPA with Regular, Honors, AP, IB and Dual Enrollment courses.
GPA Calculator
Calculate your GPA from course credits and grades, using letter grades, percentages or grade points.
How to use this calculator
- Choose the grading scale your school uses.
- Add each course and its grade. Course names are optional.
- Add credit hours only if your courses carry different weights. If you leave them blank, every course counts equally.
How the calculation works
Every letter grade is worth a fixed number of grade points — on a standard scale, an A is 4.0, a B is 3.0 and so on. No bonus is added for an honors, AP or IB course: a B in AP Physics is worth exactly the same 3.0 as a B in a regular class.
With credits left blank, each course counts once and the formula reduces to a plain average of your grade points.
A worked example
Five courses, all carrying equal weight:
| Course | Grade | Grade points |
|---|---|---|
| AP Biology | A | 4.0 |
| Honors English | A- | 3.7 |
| Algebra II | B+ | 3.3 |
| US History | B | 3.0 |
| Spanish III | C+ | 2.3 |
| Total | — | 16.3 |
16.3 ÷ 5 = 3.26.
The AP Biology A and the Algebra II B+ are treated identically to the same grades in any other course. On a weighted scale that AP course would be worth 5.0 instead of 4.0, and the same record would come out at 3.56.
When you need the unweighted number
- College applications. Many colleges recalculate every applicant's GPA unweighted, using their own formula, so that students from schools with different weighting policies can be compared.
- Scholarship thresholds. Some specify unweighted explicitly; others do not say, which is worth asking about.
- NCAA eligibility. The core-course GPA is calculated by the NCAA's own rules, which are not the same as your school's.
- Comparing yourself over time. Unweighted is stable when your course load changes; weighted moves simply because you took more AP classes.
Important notes and limitations
Schools differ on the details
Not every school uses plus and minus grades, and some cap an A+ at 4.0 while others award 4.3. Switch the grading scale above to match yours.
- A college recalculating your GPA may count only core academic courses, dropping electives entirely.
- Some schools report both weighted and unweighted GPAs on a transcript; others report only one.
- Pass/fail courses normally carry no grade points and do not affect this number.
Frequently asked questions
Which GPA do colleges actually look at?
Often their own. Many admissions offices recalculate an applicant's GPA from the transcript using a consistent formula, which is frequently unweighted and sometimes limited to core academic courses. Your school's weighted figure and the one an admissions office works with can be quite different numbers.
Can an unweighted GPA go above 4.0?
Not on a standard scale, where an A is the maximum at 4.0. It can if your scale awards 4.3 for an A+ — switch to that option above if yours does.
Should I leave the credits blank?
Leave them blank if every course at your school counts equally, which is common in high school. Fill them in if your courses carry different credit values, as they usually do in college.
Does taking AP classes hurt my unweighted GPA?
Only if the harder course produces a lower grade. An unweighted GPA gives no credit for difficulty, which is exactly why weighted GPAs exist and why colleges look at your course rigour separately from the number.
Guides that explain this
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Weighted vs Unweighted GPA
What the two scales measure, why an AP class can push a GPA above 4.0, and which one colleges actually look at.
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How High School GPA Is Calculated
Unweighted and weighted methods, how Honors, AP and IB are treated, and why colleges often recalculate your GPA themselves.