A four credit course influences semester GPA more than a two credit course. Taking a simple average of their grade points gives both courses equal influence and loses that difference.
Semester GPA uses the grade points and counted credits you enter. It does not guess a grade point from marks, assign letter grades or decide how your university handles excluded courses.
Copy the grade point from the right record
For each course, enter its name, counted credit hours and grade point. The scale field is the highest grade point allowed on your transcript scale. The starting value of four is an editable example.
If you know only a letter grade, use your institution’s official grade point table first. A letter such as B does not have one guaranteed value across every university or grading system.
The nine credit example
Enter Calculus with three credits at 3.5, Programming with four credits at 4.0, and Communication with two credits at 3.0.
Their quality points are 10.5, 16 and 6. Together, that gives 32.5 quality points over nine credits. The semester GPA is 32.5 ÷ 9 = 3.6111 when displayed to four decimal places.
Programming carries the largest share because it has four credits. Its contribution is not simply one third of the result just because there are three course rows.
| Course | Credits | Grade point | Quality points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calculus | 3 | 3.5 | 10.5 |
| Programming | 4 | 4 | 16 |
| Communication | 2 | 3 | 6 |
Which credits should count?
Use the credits included in your university’s GPA calculation. A withdrawn course, an audit course or a pass only requirement may have a special treatment. The calculator does not identify those rules from a course name.
For a failed course, follow the transcript policy on both grade points and counted credits. Do not remove a course solely because its point is low; doing so would change the denominator as well as the result.
Keep transcript rounding in mind
A displayed GPA is rounded. If your official transcript uses a different rounding rule, the final visible digit can differ even when the underlying weighted arithmetic agrees.
Check row labels and credit totals before exporting the worksheet. A duplicated course produces duplicated quality points and duplicated credits, which can be difficult to notice from the final GPA alone.
For several semesters, move to Cumulative GPA and use each semester’s counted credits. That preserves the same weighting principle across your complete record.