Weighted GPA calculator and unweighted GPA calculator: the 5.0 scale, the Honors and AP weights schools use, how to convert a weighted GPA to unweighted (and why you usually cannot), what colleges do with each, a worked example, and a printable table

Two GPAs sit on most US transcripts: the unweighted GPA, every course on the 4.0 scale, and the weighted GPA, in which harder courses carry extra points. They answer different questions, they cannot be converted into each other without the course list, and each is misread in its own way. This page computes both at once from the same courses and shows what separates them.

Download the weighted and unweighted GPA table (PDF) (the 5.0 scale by letter and level, the worked example, the maximum weighted GPA for every mix of courses and a blank course table; two pages, free).

The calculator

The scale, both ways

The bonuses: 0.5 for Honors and 1.0 for AP, IB and college courses taken in high school are the North Carolina State Board's quality points, in force for every North Carolina high school since 2015-16, and the same two numbers are in the Alexandria City, Virginia scale, which applies them down to C+ and leaves C-, D+ and D unweighted. Other districts weight only AP, or weight Honors at 0.25, or report class rank from the weighted GPA and the GPA itself unweighted. The handbook's table is the one that counts; the calculator's two bonus fields take whatever it says.

Worked example

Six courses, two of them weighted:

Unweighted GPA 3.64; weighted GPA 3.91; the difference, 0.27, is the two bonuses (1.0 and 0.5, each on a 1-credit course) spread over 5.5 credits: (1.0 + 0.5) / 5.5 = 0.273. That is the general rule: the gap between the two GPAs is the total bonus earned divided by the total credits, so it grows with every weighted course taken and passed.

Converting between the two

Weighted to unweighted needs the course list. The gap is the sum of bonuses over credits, and the sum of bonuses is unknown from the GPA alone: a 4.3 weighted could be 3.8 unweighted with three AP courses in six, or 3.55 with five. With the list: remove each course's bonus and recompute, which the calculator does in the same click.

Unweighted to weighted likewise. The only shortcut is for a transcript with the same level throughout: all-AP straight A is 4.0 unweighted and 5.0 weighted; all-Honors B is 3.0 and 3.5.

The maximum weighted GPA, by the share of courses that are weighted, with straight A grades:

A 4.4 weighted at a school where half the courses can be AP is near the ceiling; the same 4.4 at a school with every course AP is a B+ average. This is the reason colleges ask for the school profile along with the transcript.

What colleges do with each

The College Board's description of the 4.0 scale notes that some schools weight AP and Honors courses and that colleges may apply their own weighting. Most do: a common practice is to recompute an unweighted GPA from academic courses (English, mathematics, science, social studies, language) and then read the course list for rigor, so that a student who took the hardest courses available is credited for it without the arithmetic of a particular district's bonus. The practical reading: the unweighted GPA is what compares students across schools, the course list is what shows rigor, and the weighted GPA is the school's own summary of the two, useful for class rank and local scholarships. The GPA scale page has what the Common App asks for.

Which to raise

The unweighted GPA moves only with grades; the weighted GPA moves with grades and with course choice. A B in an AP course (4.0 weighted) and an A in a standard course (4.0 weighted) are equal on the weighted scale and a full point apart on the unweighted, which is the trade-off every course selection makes. The rule most counselors give is to take the harder course where a B or better is realistic and the standard course where it is not, because a C in AP (3.0 weighted, 2.0 unweighted) loses on both scales. The high school GPA calculator gives this term's number; the cumulative GPA calculator shows what it does to the transcript.

Download the weighted and unweighted GPA table (PDF) (the 5.0 scale by letter and level, the worked example, the maximum for every course mix and a blank course table; two pages, free).

Where to get help

A 1-on-1 online class with a tutor who holds a master's in mathematics and teaches the US curriculum, Algebra 1 to AP Calculus, chemistry and physics, at 7 am before school, after 4 pm and on weekend mornings, US time, for US$10 to $13 an hour: the grade worked out above read together in the free 30-minute first class, the category or the course where five more points cost least found, and the term spent on exactly that. How online tutoring from India to the USA works, or the 1-on-1 online tutoring page.

Questions parents ask

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