Grade Point Average commonly known as GPA, is a grade conversion system very popularly used. Most of the high school grading systems are done in either grades or percentages. But in many cases to apply for colleges and other institutes it is very important to feed in proper numbers. Hence to come up with exact numbers from those grades and percents, you will need to use the GPA method. Down below, you will learn the method with its variations.
Types of GPA:
There are two types of GPAs – unweighted and weighted GPAs. The difference between them is in the former, the difficulty level is not counted, and as for the latter, it considers the difficulty level (mid-level and high level) of the classes.
Calculating the GPA:
Now the question arises as to how should your GPA be calculated. Since there are two types of GPAs, hence there are two methods. And http://easygpacalculator.com will help you determine the correct GPA following both the methods.
► Unweighted GPA:
In the case of Unweighted GPA, you will have a usually followed table of denominations as mentioned in the above section, i.e. the scale is usually from 0.0-0.4. Let’s begin step by step for the same credit value.
- Firstly, you will need to assign a proper decimal number (i.e. the GPA) catering to either your alphabetic or percentile grades.
- Next, you need to calculate the number of classes that have been conducted on the whole.
- Thirdly, add up all the GPAs beside each grade and then divide it by the number of classes taken up. The result is the GPA of a single year.
- For calculating the cumulative GPA of an entire high school, then you will have to add the sums of GPAs of all the years and divide it by the sum of the classes done of all the years.
Now if you have a credit system of grading with different values, then the process differs a bit. Adhering to your grading chart, you will first need to note down the decimal in relation with your grade thus you get the GPA. Then multiply the particular GPA of each class with the number of credits it was allotted. The result of which is the Quality Points. Lastly, to get the GPA, the sum of quality points need to be divided by the sum of the credits assigned.
► Weighted GPA:
A weighted GPA, unlike unweighted GPA, has a bit of higher scale range, i.e. from 0.0-0.5 in some cases 0.0-0.6. This is mainly used for honours and AP courses with an equal number of classes each year.
- Firstly, get hold of the unweighted GPA decimals for each of your grade or percentile.
- Secondly, add a 0.5 to each of your mid-level class (i.e. honours classes) unweighted GPA and 1.0 to the high level (i.e. AP classes) unweighted GPA.
- Thirdly, take an average of your weighted GPAs. The result will be your weighted GPA for a single year.
- Now for a cumulative weighted GPA, you’ll have to take up the same process for all the years and in the end, take an average out of the GPA averages calculated previously for every single year.
If the number of classes differs for each year, then you’ll have first to find the average of your GPA and then multiply with the number of conducted classes. Then add 0.5 to each mid-level class and 1.0 to each high-level class. Once you divide that sum by the number of classes taken, you get your weighted GPA.
Conclusion:
Learning the GPA process is very necessary since it helps in comparison, and also the GPA results become very handy while tackling a lot of report cards. You will need to go about a bit carefully for accuracy.
