Which GPA do colleges actually see?
Unweighted vs weighted and why the same transcript reads differently on every application.
Your report card
Turn grades into a number you can act on
Add your courses, choose weighting, watch your semester GPA land — then fold in past terms and reverse-engineer what you need for a target.
| Course | Credits | Grade | Weighting | Points |
|---|
No courses yet — tap "Add a course" to begin.
Unweighted GPA
—
out of 4.0
Weighted GPA
—
out of 5.0
Total credits
—
this term
Carry over past terms
Add your previous cumulative GPA and credits to blend this semester in.
New cumulative GPA
—
add courses to see it
Reverse-engineer a target
Set the cumulative GPA you're chasing — we'll compute the semester average you need.
Needed this semester
—
set prior GPA + a target
Uses a standard 4.0 unweighted scale. Honors and AP/IB add +0.5 and +1.0 points respectively. Check your school's exact policy — weighted caps and values vary.
The scale
Letters to points
A / A–4.0 / 3.7
B+ / B / B–3.3 / 3.0 / 2.7
C+ / C / C–2.3 / 2.0 / 1.7
D+ / D / D–1.3 / 1.0 / 0.7
F0.0
GPA questions
What's the difference between weighted and unweighted GPA?
Unweighted grades every A as a 4.0 and ignores course difficulty, so the maximum is 4.0. Weighted GPA adds bonus points for harder courses — typically +0.5 for honors and +1.0 for AP or IB — so it can climb above 4.0.
Why do two schools give me different GPAs?
Because the scale is custom. Some use plus-and-minus, some don't; some cap weighted GPA at 5.0, others don't count D's. Colleges recalculate on their own scale, so your transcript GPA and your application GPA can differ.
Do colleges care about weighted GPA?
Yes, but context matters. Colleges recalculate using their own formula, then compare you against students from your school and your courseload. A weighted GPA shows you challenged yourself with honors and AP coursework.