Calculate your GPA for a single term. This free semester GPA calculator weights this semester’s courses by credits, and rolls your prior cumulative GPA forward into a new overall GPA.
Enter this term’s courses for your semester GPA. Add your prior cumulative GPA and credits to see your new overall cumulative GPA after this semester.
Semester GPA uses only this term’s courses. Your cumulative GPA combines all terms: prior grade points plus this semester’s, divided by all credits combined.
What This Semester GPA Calculator Does
Add each course you’re taking this term along with its letter grade and credit hours, and the calculator works out your semester GPA weighted by credits. Optionally add your prior cumulative GPA and credits to see your new overall GPA after this term is added in.
How Semester GPA Is Calculated
Semester GPA = Total Grade Points / Total Credits, where each course contributes grade points equal to its letter grade’s point value multiplied by its credit hours.
For example, an A- (3.7) in a 4-credit course, a B+ (3.3) in a 3-credit course, and an A (4.0) in another 3-credit course gives 36.7 grade points across 10 credits, for a semester GPA of 3.67.
Why Credits Matter More Than the Number of Courses
A 4-credit course pulls your GPA more than a 1-credit course, even with the same letter grade, because GPA is weighted by credit hours rather than simply averaged across courses. A strong grade in a heavier course has more impact than the same grade in a lighter one.
Rolling This Term Into Your Cumulative GPA
Your cumulative GPA combines every term you’ve completed, not just the current one. Adding your prior GPA and prior credits lets the calculator combine your prior grade points with this term’s, then divide by your combined total credits.
A prior cumulative GPA of 3.20 across 30 credits, combined with this semester’s 3.67 GPA across 10 credits, produces a new cumulative GPA of 3.32 across 40 total credits — noticeably closer to the prior GPA than the new semester’s, since the prior credits carry more weight in the combined total.
Why One Strong or Weak Semester Rarely Moves the Needle Much
As your total credit count grows across your studies, each additional semester represents a smaller share of your overall cumulative GPA. This is why a single unusually strong or weak term tends to shift a cumulative GPA less than students often expect, especially later in a degree.
How to Use the Semester GPA Calculator
- Add each course with its letter grade and credit hours.
- Enter your prior cumulative GPA and credits (optional) to see your new overall GPA.
- Review your semester GPA alongside the combined cumulative result.
Working out a single course’s grade instead? See our Grade Calculator.
Checking Your Inputs in the Semester GPA Calculator
A semester GPA calculator is simple arithmetic, so most surprises come from what goes in. Check each line against your transcript.
- Credits: enter the credit hours listed for each course, not the number of class meetings.
- Pass/fail and withdrawn courses carry no grade points at many schools, so leave them out of the semester GPA calculator unless your registrar counts them.
- Retakes: some schools replace the earlier grade, others average both attempts. That policy changes your cumulative figure.
- Plus and minus grades: check your school’s scale, since an A- may be 3.7 or 3.67 depending on the institution.
For the cumulative roll-forward, use the total credits already completed, not the number of semesters. A student with 90 credits behind them will see a much smaller shift from one term than a first-year student, which is why the semester GPA calculator asks for both numbers.
Treat the semester GPA calculator result as an estimate; your official transcript is the record that counts for scholarships and academic standing. The grading in the United States article on Wikipedia explains the 4.0 scale a semester GPA calculator uses.