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Colleges use GPAs for a variety of things, such as determining academic standings, and so it’s important to know how to calculate your GPA as necessary. Calculating your GPA in college is a little bit different from calculating a high school GPA, so it’s important to know the differences.

The pluses and minuses matter in a college GPA.

In high school, you could normally round off your grades to the letter — an A- counted as much as an A. But in college, you have to factor those in.

A “+” adds 0.3 to the number for that grade, and a “-” subtracts 0.3 from that number. So if you have a B-, the B counts for 3, but you subtract 0.3 for having the minus and you count the grade for 2.7. Likewise, a B+ is considered as the original 3 plus 0.3 for the plus, counting for 3.3 in all. The only exception is an A+, which counts the same as an A: 4 points.

Here’s what each grade is worth:

• A+: 4.0
• 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
• D-: 0.7
• F: 0

Just like in high school, you line up each grade you got and find out how many points it’s worth.

The number of credits matter too!

Because some classes in college are worth different amounts of credits, you’ll need to take that into account. Maybe you took a lab that was worth 1 credit — you wouldn’t count an A in there the same as an A in a class worth 5 credits.

What you do is you multiply the number of points you got from each grade (ie, 4 points for an A) and multiply by how many credits the class was worth. So if you got an A in a 4 credit class, you would get 16 points for that class, and if you got a C in a 2 credit class, you would get 4 points for that class.

Then, you add up all the points for all of your classes, and divide them by the combined number of credits to find your GPA.

An example of a college GPA calculation:

Suppose my grades for a semester looked like this:

1. Math (4 credits): B+
2. English (4 credits): C-
3. History (4 credits): A-
4. Chemistry (4 credits): A
5. Chemistry lab (1 credit): B-
6. Elective (2 credits): B

I would calculate my GPA as follows:

• Math: a B+ is 3.3 points, times 4 is 13.2.
• English: a C- is 1.7 points, times 4 is 6.8. I’m at 20.0 now.
• History: an A- is 3.7 points, times 4 is 14.8. I’m up to a 34.8.
• Chemistry: an A is worth 4 points, times 4 is 16.0. I’m at 50.8.
• Chemistry lab: My B- is worth 2.7, times 1 is still 2.7. I’m at 53.5.
• Elective: My B is worth 3, times 2 is 6. My combined total is 59.5.

If I add up the total number of credits, I get 19. If I divide 59.5 by 19, I get 3.13, which is my GPA.

Is there an easier way?

Well, thankfully, the Internet provides good solutions: this GPA calculator works excellently. Just input your grades and the number of credits and it’ll do the math for you.

There are no “extra” points in college.

In high school, an honors or AP class could give you an extra point and help boost your GPA significantly. In college, that doesn’t happen. This should give you some perspective on just how good a high GPA like a 3.95 really is — it means the person earned nearly all A’s, with only a few A-’s or B+’s.