GPA, or Grade Point Average, is integral to your college application process. It provides a clear picture of where you stand, and most colleges consider GPA essential in your application. Most students overthink their GPA in high school.
However, different schools calculate GPAs differently, which can lead to drastically varying results based on calculations. Some schools use weighted GPAs, while others use unweighted GPAs.
What is a Cumulative GPA?
GPA is a single unit expression of a student’s academic strength. The admission committee looks at your GPA and concludes your academic potential. There are different GPAs: semester, cumulative, weighted, and unweighted.
Semester GPA is an average of grades received in a particular semester. And cumulative GPA is an average of all the grades in all your courses throughout the session. The standard scale of GPA is 0-4.0, with a 0 equal to an F and a 4.0 equal to an A.
What is an Unweighted GPA?
An unweighted GPA is calculated on a standard scale of 0 to 4.0, irrespective of the difficulty level of your course. You may be a lower-level class student or an honors course student. It does not matter. This means a 4.0 GPA is the highest you can get in university.
An unweighted GPA is relatively easier to calculate than a weighted GPA. The difference is that an unweighted GPA doesn’t weigh in your class levels, while a weighted GPA does.
For instance, you take five classes and have As in three and Bs in two. The As will be considered 4.0s, and the Bs will be considered 3.0s. To get an unweighted GPA, you will add 4.0 + 4.0 + 4.0 + 3.0 + 3.0, divide the total by five, and get an unweighted GPA of 3.6. A 3.6 GPA is fairly close to 4 and is considered a good GPA. In fact, a 3.5 GPA is normally considered above average in high school. You can check out our article on how GPA works in high school to learn more.
Here is an easy-to-understand grade and percentage to GPA conversion chart.
| Grade | Percentage | GPA |
| A+ | 97-100 | 4.0 |
| A | 93-96 | 4.0 |
| A- | 90-92 | 3.7 |
| B+ | 87-89 | 3.3 |
| B | 83-86 | 3.0 |
| B- | 80-82 | 2.7 |
| C+ | 77-79 | 2.3 |
| C | 73-76 | 2.0 |
| C- | 70-72 | 1.7 |
| D+ | 67-69 | 1.3 |
| D | 65-66 | 1.0 |
| F | Below 65 | 0.0 |
The admission faculty understands that some schools do not consider the difficulty level of a class while calculating GPA. Here it is all your skills and the ability to take up the challenge and prove your potential.
What is a Weighted GPA?
Weighted GPA measures the difficulty level instead of providing all students with the same grade to GPA conversion. High schools often use weighted GPAs to represent students’ academic accomplishments better. A weighted GPA is usually measured on a scale of 0 to 5.0.
However, some scales go higher. In weighted GPA, an A in an advanced class may translate into a 5.0 weighted GPA; however, an A in a regular-level class will translate into a 4.0 weighted GPA.
Your weighted GPA is calculated considering class level as well. This means adding 0.5 to the calculation of an unweighted GPA for an honors class and 1.0 for advanced classes. Implying:
- An A in a regular-level class will be a 4.0.
- An A in an honors class will be a 4.5.
- Bs in an advanced class will be 4.0.
- B in the honors class will be a 3.5.
Bottom Line
Firstly, getting a 4.0 weighted GPA does not mean you can get through any university. A weighted GPA close to 5.0 is generally considered a gold standard for prestigious institutions. However, consider that colleges and admission faculty look deeper than raw academic values, irrespective of the weighted or unweighted GPA system. So your GPA is pretty much a part of the larger picture.
