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How to calculate a grade point average
Your freshman calls you in a panic over those dreaded upcoming midterms. Here’s your chance to come across as the guidance guru you are.
Say, for example, your student is worried that a poor test grade will mean a D in General Psychology. It’s your job to play counselor and show that getting a D in psych isn’t the end of the world, but it’s not going to help his or her GPA, either.
This is a good time to break out your “time to hit the books” speech, but if you want to see how a bad grade or two will really affect a semester GPA, here’s how to figure college grades. It’s more complicated than brewing a cup of coffee, but easier than calculating your taxes!
Warning: some math is involved
First, list your student’s courses, letter grades, grade-point value (A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0), and number of credit hours. For each course, multiply the grade points by credit hours to get a total. Divide this total by the total number of credit hours for all courses.
In this example, the students received one each from the grade gamut: A through F. The total of these grade points by credit hours is 30. Divide 30 by the total number of credit hours (15 in our example), and you see the semester GPA is 2.0.
| Class | Grade | Grade points | Sem. hours | Total |
| Expository Writing | A | = 4 gr. pts. | x 3 sem. hrs. | = 12 gr. pts. |
| College Algebra | B | = 3 gr. pts. | x 3 sem. hrs. | = 9 gr. pts. |
| American History | C | = 2 gr. pts. | x 3 sem. hrs. | = 6 gr. pts. |
| General Psychology | D | = 1 gr. pts. | x 3 sem. hrs. | = 3 gr. pts. |
| Intro to Sociology | F | = 0 gr. pts. | x 3 sem. hrs. | = 0 gr. pts. |
Total: 15 semester hours, 30 grade points
30.0 ÷ 15.0 = 2.0 GPA
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