How to Calculate Cumulative GPA

Cumulative GPA vs. semester GPA

Your semester (or term) GPA covers one term. Your cumulative GPA covers every graded course you have taken at your school, so it is the number that follows you.

What differs	Semester GPA	Cumulative GPA
Courses included	One term	Every term so far
You divide by	That term’s credits	All credits to date
How much it moves	Can swing a lot	Moves less over time
Where it shows	Term grade report	Transcript, applications
Often used for	Dean’s list	Graduation, Latin honors

Why you can’t average your semester GPAs

Each semester GPA hides how many credits stand behind it. Take the student whose first year you’ll follow through this guide: a 3.73 over 15 credits in the fall, then a 2.42 over 9 credits in the spring.

• Averaging the two GPAs gives (3.73 + 2.42) ÷ 2 ≈ 3.08.
• The real cumulative GPA is 77.8 quality points ÷ 24 credits ≈ 3.24.

The fall carried more credits, so it should count for more, and averaging the GPAs throws that away. A plain average only works when every term has exactly the same number of GPA credits. The next section shows how to do it the right way.

How to calculate cumulative GPA in 5 steps

Pull up your transcript or student portal, because you need every term’s grades and credits. You’ll learn the method once on the same student’s fall semester, and section 3 adds the spring.

Grade → points × creditsQuality pts

Fall semester: five courses, 15 credits, a 3.73 GPA

Course	Grade		Grade points		Credits		Quality points
English Composition	A	→	4.0	×	3 cr	=	12.0
Calculus I	A–	→	3.7	×	4 cr	=	14.8
Intro to Psychology	A	→	4.0	×	3 cr	=	12.0
General Biology	B+	→	3.3	×	4 cr	=	13.2
Biology Lab	A	→	4.0	×	1 cr	=	4.0
Total quality points 56.0 ÷ Credits counted 15 = GPA 3.73

1. Convert each letter grade to grade points. Use your school’s scale, or the standard 4.0 scale in section 4. The student’s A− in Calculus I is worth 3.7.
2. Calculate quality points for each course. Multiply the grade points by the course’s credits: 3.7 × 4 credits = 14.8.
3. Total your quality points. Add every course in every term. The student’s five fall courses come to 56.0.
4. Total your GPA credit hours. Add the credits of every letter-graded course, F grades included, and leave out pass/fail, withdrawals and incompletes (section 5). The fall adds up to 15.
5. Divide quality points by credits. 56.0 ÷ 15 ≈ 3.73. Round to two decimals, unless your school truncates (cuts off the extra digits).

The fall is only half of this student’s year, though.

Cumulative GPA example: a sample transcript

Your fall left you with 56.0 quality points over 15 credits. The spring was lighter but tougher: three courses and 9 credits.

Grade → points × creditsQuality pts

Spring semester: three courses, 9 credits, a 2.42 GPA

Course	Grade		Grade points		Credits		Quality points
Calculus II	C	→	2.0	×	4 cr	=	8.0
General Chemistry	B–	→	2.7	×	4 cr	=	10.8
First-Year Seminar	B	→	3.0	×	1 cr	=	3.0
Total quality points 21.8 ÷ Credits counted 9 = GPA 2.42

To combine the terms, add both totals and divide once:

Cumulative GPA = (56.0 + 21.8) ÷ (15 + 9) = 77.8 ÷ 24 = 3.2416… ≈ 3.24

Each new term works the same way: add its quality points to 77.8 and its credits to 24, then divide again. Every one of those sums starts with turning letters into points.

Grade conversion scale for cumulative GPA

If your school doesn’t publish its own scale, use this one for step 1. Most U.S. schools start from it.

Band	Letter grade	% range	Grade points
Excellent	A+	97–100	4.0
	A	93–96	4.0
	A−	90–92	3.7
Good	B+	87–89	3.3
	B	83–86	3.0
	B−	80–82	2.7
Average	C+	77–79	2.3
	C	73–76	2.0
	C−	70–72	1.7
Low pass	D+	67–69	1.3
	D	63–66	1.0
	D−	60–62	0.7
Fail	F	Below 60	0.0

Your school’s own values always win. Some colleges skip plus and minus grades, and a few give an A+ more than 4.0, so use the scale printed in your catalog or on your transcript key. Some grades never reach the scale at all.

Special cases and course types

Not every grade on your transcript goes into the math. The table shows how the common exceptions usually work, and real school rules follow it.

Grade or course	Quality points	In GPA credits?
Repeated course	Varies by school	Replaced, or both count
Pass (P, S, CR)	None	No
Incomplete (I)	None for now	Not until a grade is posted
Withdrawal (W)	None	No
Transfer credit	Varies by school	Varies by school
AP or IB exam credit	None unless a grade is posted	No

Repeated courses

At the University of Memphis, the first attempt drops out of your cumulative GPA and the second and later attempts count. Schools without a replacement rule keep both grades in, so check your catalog before you retake a class.

Pass/fail, incomplete and withdrawal grades

Memphis leaves CR and NC (credit and no credit) grades out of GPA, and a W doesn’t affect it either. A W still counts as credits you attempted, and some scholarships limit those.

Transfer credits

Some colleges post transfer courses as credit only, so their grades stay out of your GPA. Others count them: Memphis counts most transfer work in its overall GPA, and John Jay College averages your earlier colleges’ GPA with its own when it decides Latin honors.

AP and weighted high school courses

High schools that weight grades add a boost for Honors, AP or IB classes, often 0.5 or 1.0 point, so a weighted cumulative GPA can top 4.0. Colleges may recalculate it their own way: the University of California counts only its required college-prep (A–G) courses from 10th and 11th grade, with extra Honors, AP or IB points for at most eight semesters (no more than four from 10th grade).

In college, AP exam credit usually counts toward your degree, but credit without a posted grade adds nothing to your quality points or GPA credits. Once you know which grades count, you can plan how to move your own number.

Strategies to raise your cumulative GPA

Your cumulative GPA rises only when new grades beat your current average, and the more credits you have, the more new credits it takes to move.

How many A credits it takes

To find the credits you need at a given grade, use: credits needed = current credits × (target − current GPA) ÷ (new grade points − target).

The same student now has a 3.24 over 24 credits. To reach 3.50 with straight A’s: 24 × (3.50 − 3.2416) ÷ (4.0 − 3.50) = 12.4, so 13 credits of A’s. Starting from a 3.0, it looks like this:

Credits completed at 3.0	A credits to reach 3.3	A credits to reach 3.5
30	13	30
60	26	60
90	39	90

Grades at or below your target can never get you there, however many credits you take. A B (3.0) can’t lift a 3.0 GPA at all.

Ways to move it faster

• Act early. A 15-credit semester of A’s would lift this student to 137.8 ÷ 39 ≈ 3.53 now, but only to about 3.35 after 90 credits at the same 3.24.
• Retake a low grade if your school replaces it. Replacing the C in Calculus II with a B adds 4 quality points and no credits: 81.8 ÷ 24 ≈ 3.41. A brand-new 4-credit A only reaches 93.8 ÷ 28 ≈ 3.35.
• Put your effort where the credits are. A B instead of a C in 4-credit Calculus II adds 4 quality points; the same jump in the 1-credit seminar adds only 1.
• Withdraw before an F, if the deadline allows. An F in General Chemistry would have left this student at 67.0 ÷ 24 ≈ 2.79. A W keeps the course out: 67.0 ÷ 20 = 3.35.

The Raise GPA Calculator, in Keep planning at the end of this page, runs this math with your own GPA, credits and target.

Frequently asked questions