Introduction You see high school GPA calculators for students all over the Internet, but the problem with them is that they assume that A's and A-'s are the same (or the other way around, which is not customizable), your GPA is on a 4 point scale (which it might not be, so you need to convert it), you are only calculating it for 1 year, etc.

In general, having to input all of your grades into an online calculator is far too slow and clunky.

In this guide, we are going to show you a quick and easy way to calculate your unweighted and weighted high school GPA that you can perform in your head

- so that you never have to rely on a lengthy google search and maneuver again.

How To Calculate your High School GPA, Step-by-Step What is this "GPA" you speak of?

Think of GPA as the average of all of your grades, hence the name "Grade Point Average".

Most high schools perform GPA on a

4. 0 scale, meaning that an unweighted class, which is a class that is not AP (or a specific honors class or special class like Spanish 4 that awards weightage), is worth a maximum of 4 points for an A, while a weighted class is worth a maximum of 5 points for an A.

If you are still confused, then here is how the typical letter grade to GPA conversion system would work: A+:

4. 0 (some schools may award

4. 3) A:

4. 0 A-:

3. 7 B+:

3. 3 B:

3. 0 B-:

2. 7 C+:

2. 3 C:

2. 0 C-:

1. 7 D+:

1. 3 D:

1. 0 F:

0. 0 However, the part that tricks many students is this: When they calculate GPA, they look at how their own high school weighs things rather than how the college that they are applying to does it.

This means that some students may end up with absurdly high GPAs simply based on what they school tells them like a 1

6. 4 or an 8

4.

7. That is why you MUST look at the collegiate requirements of the specific universities that you have prospects of attending, even at the ripe age of 14 years old (when you enter Freshman year of high school), because based on how they calculate GPA, you must adjust accordingly with your grade and figure out how much each of your classes would be worth out of 4 as per their scale.

Now, onto the juicy stuff.

If you know how much all of your classes are worth on the appropriate scale, how do I actually figure out what the average of all of them would be, which is the number that actually matter.

Well, let's first take a look at unweighted GPA.

Calculating Unweighted GPA Fear not, for the process is quite simple for this one!

All you have to do is add up the value that your classes correspond with, bringing all of the weighted classes down by 1, and then divide this sum by the number of classes that you are taking.

For example, let's say these are your classes and grades respectively: English (A):

4. 0 Math (B+):

3. 3 History (C+):

2. 3 Science (A-):

3. 7 Your unweighted GPA would simply be (

4. 0+

3. 3+

2. 3+

3. 7)/4 =

3.

3. But wait!

You said that I could do this in my head -> This is way too difficult to calculate up in my brain.

You can!

All you need to do is employ a few critical mental math addition and division tricks and you should be all set to go.

For example, in this problem, it would be easier to line up the

3. 3 and

3. 7 together, as the 3 and the 7 in the tenths place line up to form a perfect 0, which people find easier to visualize.

Next, we can add up the

4. 0 and

2. 3 separately, which also becomes easy because the 0 and the 3 clearly form a

3. This means that we have

6. 3+

7. 0, which once again is easy to add in your head to form 1

3.

3. Now for the slightly tricky part -> Dividing 1

3. 3 by 4 in your head.

However, we can see that 1

3. 3 is very close to 12, which divides perfectly and cleanly by 4 to get

3. This means that all we have left to do is divide the

1. 3, which once again is very close to

1. 2 which we know could divide by 4 to get

0.

3. And we're done!

You can do this one more time if you want with the

0. 1, but for most purposes, 1 truncated decimal place for the GPA is all that we care about!

Calculating Weighted GPA Now that you have your unweighted GPA, it is time to take into consideration the weighted GPA!

All you have to do for this is the exact same process as you did with the weighted GPA, but this time, if any of the classes are worth 5 points instead of 4, then you factor that in as well and DO NOT subtract by

1. If we take our previous example for instance, and pretend as though Math and Science are weighted classes (because we all know that you are a STEM kid, so there's no point in hiding it), then we see: English (A):

4. 0 Math (B+):

4. 3 History (C+):

2. 3 Science (A-):

4. 7 Your weighted GPA would subsequently be (

4. 0+

4. 3+

2. 3+

4. 7)/4 =

3.

8. Not bad!

Note: When colleges ask for your GPA, they may ask for weighted, unweighted, or both, as well as for 9-12, 10-12, or both.

Make sure to check all of the requirements before hand to ensure that you calculate the GPA(s) that you send them in an accurate fashion!

Conclusion: Using your GPA And there you have it!

Next time your parents asks you what you GPA is while dangling your transcript above your face, feel free to brandish your mental math skills and calculate it right in front of them, weighted and unweighted!

Just make sure that if you make a mistake along the way, you round up

- that way you may just save yourself from a scolding.

Struggling to Raise your Calculated High School GPA?

Join the Rishab Jain Discord Community using the link below in order to join a community of motivated and like-minded STEM individuals that will keep you on track towards raising those grades. https://discord. gg/Wvk57ubdnb.