GPA Worksheet
One row per course. The credits column is the one that decides the answer, and the one people leave until last.
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The term
- Institution
- Term
- Scale in use (4.0 / weighted)
- Plus-minus grades?
- TOTAL CREDITS
- QUALITY POINTS
- TERM GPA
- Cumulative GPA
- Target GPA
One row per course
| Course | Credits | Grade | Grade points | Quality points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The arithmetic
- Quality points
- grade points x credit hours, per course
- GPA
- total quality points / total credit hours
- A
- 4.0
- B
- 3.0
- C
- 2.0
- D
- 1.0
- F
- 0.0
- Plus / minus
- commonly ±0.3 — CHECK your school's table
- Pass/fail
- EXCLUDED from the division, not counted as 0
Check your institution's rules
- Does it use plus and minus grades, and at what increment?
- Is an A capped at 4.0, or is there a 4.3 for an A plus?
- Weighted scale for honours or advanced courses?
- How are repeated courses handled — replaced, averaged, or both kept?
- Do pass/fail courses affect the GPA at all? Usually not
- Are withdrawals counted, and after which date?
- Which GPA does your programme's requirement refer to — term or cumulative?
The credits column decides the answer
A one-credit A and a four-credit B are not equal. The B contributes 12 quality points and the A contributes 4, so the course you found hardest is usually also the one with the most influence. If your GPA is lower than your grades feel, that is almost always where it is coming from — and it means effort is best spent on the heaviest courses, not the weakest ones.
Cumulative GPA has inertia
It is divided by every credit you have ever taken, so it moves easily early and hardly at all later. An early poor term is worth addressing while it can still be diluted; a late one does less damage than it feels like. Either way, the lever is credit hours as much as grades.