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GPA CollegeCalculator

Cumulative GPA calculator

Enter the GPA and credits already on your transcript, add this term's courses, and see where your overall average lands.

The default at most US colleges. A and A+ are both worth 4.0.

Your current record

Fill these in to see what this term does to your overall cumulative GPA.

Leave blank if this is your first term.

Total credit hours on your transcript so far.

Your GPA

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Add a course and pick a grade to see your GPA.

Everything you type stays in this browser. Nothing is sent to a server, and your entries are saved locally so you can come back to them.

What does a cumulative GPA measure?

Your cumulative GPA is every graded credit hour you have taken, averaged together and weighted by how many credits each course carried. It is the number registrars use for honors, scholarships and academic standing, and the one graduate programs read first.

A term GPA covers one term. A cumulative GPA covers the whole record, so the more history sits behind it, the less any single term can move it.

Why is a cumulative GPA hard to raise?

Suppose you have a 2.80 over 30 credits and you want a 3.00. A perfect 4.00 across the next 15 credits gets you to 3.20, comfortably clearing it. Now suppose you have a 2.80 over 90 credits. That same perfect 15-credit term only reaches 2.97, and you still miss.

Both students earned the same 4.00 over the same 15 credits. The second one has 90 credits already in the average, so the new term counts for less. Repairing a GPA works far better early than in a final year. If you have a specific number in mind, the target GPA calculator will tell you whether it is still arithmetically reachable.

Getting the inputs right

  • Current GPA is the cumulative figure on your latest transcript, not your last term.
  • Credits earned means graded credit hours. Include failed courses, since an F contributes zero points but still counts credits.
  • Exclude withdrawals, pass/fail passes and incompletes. They sit outside the average entirely.
  • Repeated courses depend on your school’s policy. If a retake replaces the original, remove the old attempt from your credit total before you start.

Institutional GPA versus recalculated GPA

The GPA your school prints is not always the GPA an application reader uses. The application services for medical, dental and law school, and many graduate programs, recalculate from your raw transcripts using their own rules, commonly counting every attempt at a repeated course and folding in credits from every institution you attended. If you have studied at more than one school, run the transfer GPA calculator to see the combined figure they are likely to compute.

Common questions

How do I calculate my cumulative GPA?
Multiply your current GPA by the credits you have already earned to get your existing quality points. Add the quality points from your new term, then divide the total by all your credits combined. If you have a 3.20 over 45 credits, that is 144 quality points, and a 3.60 term over 15 credits adds 54 more, giving 198 over 60 credits, which is a 3.30 cumulative GPA.
Why does my cumulative GPA move so little now?
Because it is credit-weighted. In your first term, 15 credits are your entire record, so one strong term moves the number a long way. By senior year those same 15 credits are a fifth of your transcript, so the same term moves it far less. This is why raising a GPA gets steadily harder rather than easier.
What counts as credits already earned?
Every graded credit hour on your transcript, including courses you failed, because an F carries zero grade points but still occupies credit hours in the denominator. Do not count withdrawals, pass/fail passes or incompletes, since those are excluded from the GPA on both sides.
Should I include transfer credits?
Usually not for your institutional GPA. Most schools accept transfer credit toward your degree without folding the grades into your GPA. Graduate and professional programs often do combine everything, which is what the transfer GPA calculator is for.
Is cumulative GPA the same as overall GPA?
At one school, yes. Cumulative GPA, overall GPA, institutional GPA and career GPA all describe every graded credit you have taken there, averaged and weighted by credit hours. A combined GPA across several schools is different, and the transfer GPA calculator covers it.

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