Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Inner Workings Of A GPA Calculator Explained

By Nicholas Henderson


Maybe you have gotten your grades already but your final grade report has not come back yet, so you still do not know what your GPA is going to be after this semester. Instead of waiting, you can use a GPA calculator to find out right now. If you already know your grades and how many credit hours you took, some websites on the Internet can automatically make the calculations to figure out your grade point average.

It is also possible to calculate GPA on your own, without a calculator. Once you have learned how such websites work their magic, you will find out that the math is actually very simple. Of course, it is still quite a lot faster and simpler to use a calculator than to do it yourself.

The majority of these calculators will ask you for two things. You will have to fill in how many credit hours you got for each class. You will also have to fill in the letter grades for these classes. A semester's final grade point average is able to be calculated from these few numbers alone.

Some calculators can go a step further and tell you your cumulative GPA. This will require that you know your cumulative GPA up until this point. Factoring in your current semester's GPA, they can give you a cumulative.

A single semester's grade point average is figured by dividing the overall number of grade points by the overall number of credit hours attempted. Grade points are figured out from letter grades. The majority of college classes can be taken for a particular number of credit hours.

Grade points are very straightforward. An A is four grade points, a B is three, a C is two, a D is one, and an F is zero. Grades in between, like an A minus, count for half a grade point, like three and a half. Withdrawals and incomplete classes do not factor in.

After you punch in your numbers, the calculator on the website does the rest of the work. It will add up your columns to figure a total for credit hours and grade points both. The calculator will then divide the grade points by credit hours. The number that results now will be your grade point average for the semester. Some calculators even go a bit further. They can let a student know what his or her cumulative GPA will be after this semester is factored in.

Some GPA calculators are capable of determining what grades are needed to maintain a certain GPA. These can work in a number of ways. One way is to use estimated grades, or what you think you might get in a class. Doing this, it is possible to predict what your GPA will be long before you get your final grades.

A GPA calculator is a helpful tool for anyone who goes to school. If you have a goal with regard to GPA, then these GPA calculators can help you meet it and motivate you to work hard. Once you know how they work, you could even calculate your own GPA.




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