Calculating GPA

Many students and parents are confused about calculating GPA's. PowerSchool automatically does this for each student. If you wish to do this yourself, here is how.

Start with the grades. Each letter grade has a value with 4.000 being the highest for an A and down to 0.00 for an F. Honors courses get a 1.000 point boost. The table looks like this:

Question_Mark
A+ = 4.000   B+ = 3.333   C+ = 2.333   D+ = 1.333
A = 4.000   B = 3.000   C = 2.000   D = 1.000
A- = 3.667   B- = 2.667   C- = 1.667   D- = 0.667
                  F = 0.0
To calculate the GPA you multiply the number of credits for each class times the number of grade points the letter grade earns. Add together this value for all classes and divide by the total number of credits. Remember, most classes are worth 0.5 credits. Band is the exception at 0.3 because it meets three times per week rather than the usual five times per week.

So let’s consider the report card of a student. He’s taking Honors Spanish 3 and gets the one point grade point boost for it.


Class   Grade   Credits   Grade Points   Multiply
Chemistry   C   0.500   2.00   1.00
Church History   A   0.500   4.00   2.00
Algebra 2   B+   0.500   3.33   1.67
Hon. Spanish 3   C+   0.500   3.333   1.67
Concert Choir   A   0.500   4.000   2.00
English 3   B-   0.500   2.667   1.33
American History   D   .0500   1.000   0.50
        =========   ========   ==========
Totals       3.5       10.17
To determine the GPA we take the multiplied sum and divide it by the total credits. (10.17/3.5) = 2.906