How to Calculate Your GPA

Grade point average or in short, GPA, plays a pivotal role in the life of a student as throughout his or her college years and later in his or her career; a person’s smartness as well as intelligence is judged by the GPA that one is holding. GPA is used as a metric by employers and others to assess and compare students for various job oppurtunities that an organization may have.

What is a GPA, anyway? It’s an average grade earned by a student, figured out by dividing the grade points earned by the number of credits attempted. While a CGPA may refer to the cumulative GPA in all semesters, a simple GPA means GPA during one single semester.

The concept of grading a student was initially developed by a tutor named William Farish and was then implemented by the University of Cambridge in 1792. Various business schools have their devised ways of assessing a student. However discussed, following is the GPA calculation on a 4-point average.

A student may earn grades A, B, C, D or F during the course of his or her study. There are various points assigned to those grades. Grades used in the calculation are weighted as follows: A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0.

Total all the units of “A” level work and multiply this number by 4. Total all the units of “B” work and multiply it by 3 and so on. Add the results and divide by the total number of units or the courses that you have taken in a semester. The answer you receive is then rounded to one decimal place. This shall give you the exact GPA you have obtained during a semester.

For example: If a student has 2 A’s (8), 3 B’s (9) and 2 C’s (4), then his or her GPA would be 21 divided by 7–i.e. 3–with 21 being the sum of all weights and 7 being the total number of courses taken within a semester.

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