Have you ever wondered, “What is a GPA?” Maybe you already know that it stands for grade point average, but you have no idea how your school calculates them. Or maybe you’ve heard all about weighted and unweighted GPA scales from your older classmates and teachers but trying to understand them makes you want to scream and tear out your hair?
You definitely shouldn’t go to that extreme, because we’ve all totally been there before and have lived to tell the tale. This article will walk you through the answers to each of these questions, as well as provide you with the best advice on how to tackle the tricky answers.
When you’re done reading, you’ll be a GPA scale pro and also be a lot less stressed.
Sound good to you? Then let’s get started.
What is a GPA?
GPA is a common abbreviation for grade point average. Basically, by giving you a GPA, your school is putting a number on your academic achievement.GPAs are helpful because your school can use it to keep track of the final grades you receive in all of your classes, see how you stack up against your classmates, and make sure that you are on track for college.
How often your official GPA becomes available to you depends on how your school divides up each semester. Some schools send home report cards once a quarter, others every six weeks, and still others every nine weeks. Regardless of the time frame, each time your teacher posts your final letter grade (A, A-,B, etc.) your school will convert it to a corresponding number. What happens next is that each of the numbers is added together, and then divided by the number of classes you took; hence the name, grade point average.
GPAs tend to fluctuate more earlier in high school, as you have taken fewer classes, but they are harder to pull up by your junior or senior years, especially if your early grades are poor. The GPA that you apply to college with is usually the one you have at the end of the fall semester your senior year. It is made up of the average of the grade points from every single one of the classes you took in high school.
Now, we wish the GPA discussion could end here, but there is still much more to say. This is because there are different kinds of GPA scales! While most schools just report the grades you earned, some schools take the difficulty of the classes into account when calculating the grades of students. These are called weighted and unweighted GPA scales.
Keep reading to find out how they work!
What are the different kinds of GPA scales?
Just because nothing can ever be simple, there are two kinds of GPA scales used to report high school students’ grades. After you’ve read about each, be sure to find out from your guidance counselor ASAP® which one your school uses. Understanding which one applies to you will help you understand your chances when picking out colleges.
Unweighted GPA Scale
This is the scale most widely used by American high schools and colleges. And, until recently, it was the only scale. If your school uses this one, the perfect GPA is a 4.0, which means that you have straightAs. If you have a 3.0, you have straight Bs, and so on and so forth. The unweighted GPA scale also means that each class is scored the same, regardless of its difficulty. So if you took AP® Physics and got a B+ and your friend took academic Physics and got a B+, it would have the same impact on both your GPAs.
| Letter Grade | GPA |
| A+ /A | 4.0 |
| A- | 3.7 |
| B+ | 3.3 |
| B | 3.0 |
| B- | 2.7 |
| C+ | 2.3 |
| C | 2.0 |
| C- | 1.7 |
| D+ | 1.3 |
| D | 1.0 |
| F | 0.0 |
Weighted GPA Scale
If your GPA is weighted, it means that a 5.0 a perfect score. You won’t find it in college, since it considers the difficulty of the courses you take when awarding your grades. There would likely be some backlash from the English department if the college administration decreed that all the Biology courses were the hardest at the university. But that’s not the case for high schools.
With the introduction of AP® classes, administrators decided that there needed to be a way to set apart the high-achieving students that took them from their peers.Now days, if you get an extra 1.0 added to your GPA just for taking an AP® or honors course. If you get a B in AP® Physics, it’s the same thing as getting an A in its academic counterpart.
Occasionally, schools over “intermediate” classes that are more challenging than academic courses, but not quite as hard as AP. For this, you’ll find an extra .5 added to your GPA. So an A in the class would be a 4.5
Why are GPA scales important for college admissions?
A student’s high school GPA is often thought of as the most important part of his or her college application. This is because rather than providing a single snapshot from one Saturday morning out of your entire academic career (like results from taking the SAT® or the ACT® might do) your GPA shows admissions officers what kind of student you have been for your entire four years of high school. If they are curious about how you will be able to handle the work at their school, your GPA and the scale that it is reported on act as the best indication.
Maybe you did not take school that seriously your freshman year, but by the spring of your sophom*ore year you realized just how important excelling academically would be for your future. Your transcript and GPA will reflect that change. While admissions officers typically like to see great grades across the board, drastic improvements, if explained in other areas of your application, will usually also give your application a small boost.
College admissions officers will also be curious about the number of AP® or honors classes that you took during your high school career. It’s important for you to understand the weighted and unweighted GPA scales that we touched on above, because it will help you gauge your chances for different colleges.
Are you curious to find out why that is? Well then, keep reading.
What is a good GPA for college?
The answer to this question really depends on the kind of college that you want to go to. It’s the same sort of situation as your standardized test scores: to get into highly competitive schools or receive generous scholarships, your numbers need to be higher.
You can read all about average high school GPAs here, but we’ll break down some of the most important information right below, so stay put!
Typically, a good GPA for college is one that puts in the top 25% of applicants for that specific school.We will list out some general ranges for you in a moment, but if you don’t see your favorite school on the list, all you need to do is complete a quick Internet search for “average GPA for X admission” and replace X with the school you want to go to.
The Ivy League*
| School Name | Average GPA for admission |
| Brown University | 4.01 |
| Columbia University | 4.13 |
| Cornell University* | 4.01 |
| Dartmouth College | 4.10 |
| Harvard University | 4.04 |
| Princeton University | 3.9 |
| University of Pennsylvania | 3.9 |
| Yale University | 4.19 |
*Most of these schools, although they do not report a minimum, will not look at your application unless you have at least a 3.0 GPA
You’ll also notice that most of the average GPA for Ivy League admission are over 4.0. This is because some students apply with GPAs on the 5.0 scale, while others apply with GPAs on the 4.0 scale, so it messes with the averages. Either way, to be a competitive candidate, you need to have straight A’s.
Not interested in the Ivy League? These alternatives are worth a look:
Top Public Universities
| School Name | Average GPA for admission |
| College of William and Mary | 4.12 |
| Georgia Tech | 3.95 |
| UC Berkeley | 3.86 |
| UCLA | 4.39 |
| UC San Diego | 4.13 |
| University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign | 3.73 |
| University of Michigan | 3.82 |
| UNC Chapel Hill | 3.72 |
| University of Virginia | 4.23 |
| University of Wisconsin | 3.8 |
If you have a GPA of 2.0 or lower, it is unlikely that you will be accepted into most large colleges and universities. However, many community colleges have no GPA entrance requirements, and only require that you possess a high school diploma or GED.
How do I find out my GPA?
A great place to start is simply by checking your report card. As we mentioned, many schools update students’ official GPAs each time a report card is released.
Check out this quick example below:
As you can see, the student has multiple GPAs listed on the bottom. While your school’s format may be slightly different, you can see that as this is a second semester report card, the first semester GPA, the third and fourth quarter GPAs and the final GPA are listed. The school also included the scale on the report card so there is no room for confusion regarding the translation of letter grades to number grades.
If your school does not list your GPA or their grading scale on your report card, try looking around in your school’s online portal for the information. Often, schools will not print all the information they have because they assume parents and students are checking online as well.
If you are still unable to locate your GPA and your school’s grading scale, it is time to set up a meeting with your school’s guidance counselor. The earlier you start a relationship with them, the better! They are going to be a source of great support all throughout your time in high school. While they will have the information at hand in their office, they will also be able to point you towards other resources for obtaining the information on your own in the future.
A quick review
GPA Stands for Grade Point Average and is the number that represents your academic achievement in high school.
- GPAs that don’t account for how hard your classes were are called unweightedand are reported on a 4.0 scale.
- GPAs that monitor how difficult coursework is are called weighted and are reported on a 5.0 scale.
- A good GPA for college is one that places you in the top 25% of applicants for your favorite school.
So there you have it. You can now consider yourself a GPA professional. Now it’s time to calculate your GPA, study hard to improve it, and get into the college of your dreams.
Get to work!
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