Cumulative GPA Calculator

Combine your prior cumulative GPA and credit hours with new terms to see your updated overall GPA — plus a what-if for an upcoming term.

Term GPA Credits

Enter each term's own GPA and credit hours — from a transcript, a school portal, or a prior calculation. Transfer credits are usually excluded from GPA; check your registrar's policy.

Cumulative GPA —

Add at least one term with a GPA and credit hours to see your cumulative GPA.

Total credits —

Quality points —

Terms counted —

Cumulative GPA = Σ(term GPA × term credits) ÷ Σ term credits

How much each term contributes to your cumulative GPA, based on its credit-hour share of the total.

Term	GPA	Credits	Quality points	% of credits

See how one more term — in progress or planned — would move your cumulative GPA, without changing the terms above.

Projected term GPA Your expected or in-progress GPA for the upcoming term.

Projected term credits

Current cumulative GPA —

With projected term —

Add at least one term above, then enter a projected GPA and credits to compare.

4 min read 3 steps 6 terms 3 examples 6 FAQs Cumulative GPA = Σ(term GPA × term credits) ÷ Σ term credits

Your cumulative GPA is the single number that summarizes your academic performance across every term you've completed.

📋

Walk-through

How to Use This Calculator

3 steps

Enter each term you already have

Add a row for every term you want to include — your Fall 2025 GPA and credit hours, your Spring 2026 GPA and credit hours, and so on. You can pull these straight from a transcript or your school's student portal. Two starter rows are pre-filled so you can see a result immediately; edit or delete them.

Read your cumulative GPA

The result card shows your credit-weighted cumulative GPA the moment you have at least one term with a GPA and a positive number of credits. The Term-by-Term tab breaks down exactly how much each term contributed, by its share of total credits.

Try a projected term

Switch to the Add a Projected Term tab to see how an upcoming or in-progress term would move your cumulative GPA, without changing any of the terms you already entered. This is useful for planning how many credits at what GPA you'd need to hit a target.

⚡

Reference

Formula & Methodology

2 formulas

Cumulative GPA

Cumulative GPA = Σ(term GPA × term credits) ÷ Σ term credits

Cumulative GPA is a credit-weighted average, not a simple average of each term's GPA. Multiply each term's GPA by its credit hours to get that term's quality points, add up the quality points across all terms, then divide by the total credit hours. A term with more credits pulls the cumulative average toward its own GPA more strongly than a lighter term does.

Projected term what-if

New cumulative GPA = (existing quality points + projected GPA × projected credits) ÷ (existing credits + projected credits)

To see how one more term would move your GPA, add its quality points (projected GPA × projected credits) to the sum you already have, add its credits to your total credits, and divide again. The calculator's Add a Projected Term tab does this automatically and shows the delta from your current cumulative GPA.

📖

Glossary

Key Terms Explained

6 terms

Cumulative GPA The credit-weighted average GPA across every term counted toward your degree so far, as opposed to a single term's GPA.

Term GPA The GPA earned in a single semester, quarter, or trimester — computed from just that term's courses, not combined with any other term.

Credit-weighted average An average where each term's GPA counts in proportion to its credit hours, rather than every term counting equally. A 4-credit term moves the average more than a 1-credit term.

Transfer credits Credit hours accepted from another institution. Many schools count transfer credits toward your total credit hours but exclude the associated grades from your cumulative GPA calculation — check your registrar's policy before including them here.

Term contribution The share of your total credit hours that a given term represents, shown as a percentage in the Term-by-Term tab. It reflects how much weight that term carries in your cumulative GPA.

Projected GPA A hypothetical GPA for a term you haven't finished yet (or haven't started), used to see how it would change your cumulative GPA if it came in at that level.

👥

Scenarios

Real-World Examples

3 worked examples

🎓

Four semesters combined

Sophomore checking their overall GPA

Term 1 GPA / Credits 3.2 / 15 Term 2 GPA / Credits 3.5 / 16 Term 3 GPA / Credits 3.6 / 15 Term 4 GPA / Credits 3.8 / 14

Total quality points come to 3.2×15 + 3.5×16 + 3.6×15 + 3.8×14 = 213.2 across 60 credits, for a cumulative GPA of about 3.55. Term 4's higher GPA pulls the average up the most per credit, but Term 2's larger credit load gives it the biggest overall influence on the total.

📈

Adding a projected 5th term

Planning ahead for next semester

Existing cumulative GPA / Credits 3.55 / 60 Projected term GPA / Credits 4.0 / 15

Adding a projected 4.0 term with 15 credits to an existing 3.55 GPA over 60 credits gives (3.55×60 + 4.0×15) ÷ 75 = 273 ÷ 75 ≈ 3.64 — a jump of about +0.09. A single strong term moves the cumulative average more when your existing credit base is smaller.

🔁

Transfer-credit exclusion

Student with community-college transfer credits

Transfer credits 30 (pass/fail, no GPA) Home-institution terms GPA-bearing

Most schools count transfer credits toward your total credit hours needed to graduate but exclude them from your GPA calculation entirely — the grades simply aren't averaged in. Only enter terms where your home institution assigned a GPA-bearing grade; leave pass/fail transfer credit out of this calculator.

📄

Deep Dive

Understanding the Cumulative GPA Calculator

3 chapters · 4 min read

Your cumulative GPA is the single number that summarizes your academic performance across every term you've completed. Because it's a credit-weighted average rather than a simple average of term GPAs, combining several terms by hand is easy to get wrong — this calculator does the weighting for you and shows exactly how each term contributes.

How the Cumulative GPA Calculator works

For each term you enter, the calculator multiplies that term's GPA by its credit hours to get "quality points." It then sums the quality points across every term and divides by the total credit hours. This is the same credit-weighted formula colleges use internally, so the result should match your official transcript's cumulative GPA as long as the term-by-term inputs match what's on file. If your school uses a different scale (e.g. a 4.3 or 4.5 weighted scale), enter GPAs on that same scale consistently across all terms — the math works the same way regardless of scale.

Inputs and what they mean

Each term row needs a GPA (the grade-point average earned that term, on your school's normal scale) and credit hours (the number of credit hours attempted or completed that term — check whether your school uses attempted or earned credits for GPA purposes). The optional term name is just a label to help you keep track of which row is which; it isn't used in the calculation. The projected-term inputs on the third tab work the same way but as a separate what-if — they add a hypothetical extra term on top of your existing cumulative GPA without altering the terms you've already entered.

Limits and edge cases

This calculator assumes every entered term's grades count toward your GPA — it does not model transfer-credit exclusions, grade-replacement/retake policies (where a repeated course drops the original grade from the GPA calculation), or pass/fail courses, since these policies vary significantly by institution. If your school uses grade replacement or has unusual transfer-credit rules, check with your registrar and adjust which terms or courses you include accordingly. A term with zero or blank credit hours is treated as not yet entered and is skipped from the calculation rather than counted as a zero.

❓

Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

6 questions

What formula does the Cumulative GPA Calculator use?+

It's a credit-weighted average: cumulative GPA = the sum of (each term's GPA × that term's credit hours), divided by the sum of all credit hours. This matches how most U.S. colleges compute cumulative GPA on an official transcript.

How is this different from a semester GPA calculator?+

A semester GPA calculator computes the GPA for a single term from its individual course grades and credit hours. This cumulative GPA calculator instead takes GPAs you already know for multiple terms (each one possibly computed with a semester GPA calculator) and combines them into one overall average across your whole academic history.

Do transfer credits count toward my cumulative GPA?+

It depends on your school's policy. Many institutions count transfer credit hours toward your total credits needed to graduate but do not include the associated grades in your cumulative GPA — the transfer grades simply aren't part of the average. Check with your registrar, and if transfer credits are GPA-excluded at your school, leave them out of this calculator.

What if I retook a course — does the old grade still count?+

Some schools use grade replacement (or grade forgiveness), where retaking a course removes the original attempt from your GPA calculation entirely, while others average both attempts together. This calculator works at the term level and doesn't model course-level grade replacement — if your school uses grade replacement, use the term GPA your school's own transcript or portal already reports after that adjustment is applied.

How many terms can I add?+

You can add up to 12 term rows, which covers a full bachelor's degree (8 semesters) plus room for summer terms or an extra year. Add a row for every term with a GPA-bearing grade; leave out any term you want excluded from the average.

Can I share or save my results?+

Yes — the Share button encodes your current terms and projected-term inputs into the page URL, so copying and sending that link reproduces your exact scenario for anyone who opens it. Your entries are also saved to your browser's local storage automatically, so they're still there next time you visit.

Download a one-page PDF of your numbers instantly. Add your email to also get our occasional calculator tips — no spam, unsubscribe anytime. Privacy.