Most US colleges grade on a letter scale from A to F, convert each letter to grade points on a 4.0 scale, and average those points across your courses to get a GPA.
The exact cutoffs, whether plus and minus grades are used, and how pass/fail courses are handled all vary by school, so your syllabus and your school's catalog are the final word.
Here's how the US college grading system works at most schools, starting with the college grading scale itself, with the actual university policies linked as they come up. If you'd rather just run your own numbers, the grade calculator on the homepage grades a single test and the GPA calculator turns course grades into a GPA.
The college grading scale most schools use
A typical US college grading scale runs from A (excellent) to F (fail), with plus and minus steps in between. Each letter maps to a percentage range.
The cutoffs below are the ones published by Columbia University's School of Professional Studies and the University of the Incarnate Word.
| Grade range | Percentage |
|---|---|
| A range (A, A-) | 90 to 100 |
| B range (B+, B, B-) | 80 to 89 |
| C range (C+, C, C-) | 70 to 79 |
| D range (D+, D, D-) | 60 to 69 |
| F | Below 60 |
Score and letter grade from the number wrong.
Within each range the plus and minus steps sit three or four points apart, so an A starts at 93 and an A- at 90.
Some schools use A+ as well.
These cutoffs are common but they aren't universal. A school might set an A at 94, or use a straight scale with no plus or minus at all. Your syllabus wins.
Each letter also carries grade points on the 4.0 scale, which is what your GPA is built from. The GPA scale page has the letter grade to GPA and percentage to GPA charts.
If yours is different, the college grading scale on the grade calculator lets you switch between the US, UK and India scales and edit the cutoffs, and the GPA calculator shows the same US ranges next to their grade points.
How are college grades calculated?
Your grade in a single course is a weighted average of everything the instructor grades: homework, quizzes, papers, midterms, the final. Each category has a weight, and the weights are set out in the syllabus.
That isn't just convention. Georgia Tech's grading policy requires the grading system and the weighting of each type of assessment to be communicated in the syllabus and aligned with the course objectives.
A simple example. Homework is 20% of the grade, quizzes 20%, the midterm 25% and the final 35%. You have 92 on homework, 85 on quizzes, 78 on the midterm and 88 on the final.
- 92 × 0.20 = 18.4
- 85 × 0.20 = 17.0
- 78 × 0.25 = 19.5
- 88 × 0.35 = 30.8
Add them up: 85.7%, a B on the scale above.
If you'd rather not do that by hand, the weighted grade calculator takes each category with its weight, accepts grades as a percentage or as points like 45/50, and shows the breakdown. Leave the weights blank and it gives you a plain average instead.
And if the final hasn't happened yet, the final grade calculator works the other way around: tell it the grade you want and it tells you the score you need on the final.
How GPA is calculated
GPA (grade point average) combines your course grades across a semester or your whole degree. It isn't a simple average of letters.
Each course's grade points are multiplied by its credit hours, the results are added up, and the total is divided by total credit hours. The University of Maryland's registrar sets it out in exactly those four steps, and it's the same method everywhere. So a 4-credit A counts for more than a 2-credit B, and pass/fail courses are usually left out, which is why they change your credits earned but not your GPA.
The GPA scale page has the letter grade to GPA and percentage to GPA charts, a worked example, and how different schools round the result. The GPA calculator does the sums, and if you open "Include previous terms" it gives you your cumulative GPA as well.
The plus and minus grading scale
Many colleges use a plus/minus grading scale, and it matters for your GPA. On a plus and minus scale a B+ is worth 3.3 grade points and a B- is worth 2.7, a full 0.6 apart, while a straight scale gives every B 3.0.
George Washington University's published scale runs A 4.00, A- 3.70, B+ 3.30, B 3.00, B- 2.70, and so on down to D- 0.70.
Not every school does this. Georgia Tech's undergraduate grading system uses only A, B, C, D and F, worth 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0 quality points. There's no A- or B+ on the transcript. So the same 88% might be a B+ (3.3) at one school and a B (3.0) at another.
If you're comparing your GPA with a friend's at a different college, that's usually why the numbers don't line up.
The exact decimals vary too. Some schools score a B+ as 3.3 and a B- as 2.7, others use 3.33 and 2.67, and a few give an A+ 4.33. The GPA scale page lays those conventions out side by side.
Pass/fail grading and other non-letter grades
Most schools let you take some courses pass/fail, sometimes called pass/no pass, pass/no credit, or satisfactory/unsatisfactory. The idea is the same: you get credit for passing, but no letter grade and no effect on your GPA.
The rules around pass/fail grading vary, and they're worth reading before you choose it.
- What counts as a pass. At UNC Chapel Hill, a PS (pass) in a pass/fail course is equivalent to a D or higher. Other schools set the bar at C or higher. Check your catalog.
- Whether a fail hurts your GPA. At UNC, a Pass isn't calculated in the GPA but a No Credit (NC) is, and it carries zero quality points. So pass/fail can protect a mediocre grade but not always a failing one.
- Choosing it. At the University of Oregon, courses have grading modes, and where the option exists you can switch a course to pass/no pass yourself before the deadline.
- Which grades stay out of the GPA. Rowan University lists Incomplete, No Credit, Pass, Withdraw, Audit, Satisfactory and Unsatisfactory as grades that aren't calculated in the GPA.
Other marks you'll see on a transcript: W (withdrew), I (incomplete, which usually converts to an F if it isn't finished by a deadline), and AU (audit, no credit).
What counts as a passing grade
A D- is usually the lowest passing grade for the course itself, and it earns credit. But "passing" and "counts toward your major" are different things: many majors require a C or better in required courses, and most colleges expect a 2.0 average to stay in good standing.
What that means in practice, for college and for high school, is on the passing grade page. If you're heading into a final needing to clear a particular bar, the final grade calculator tells you the score that gets you there.
Why the cutoffs vary between schools
There's no national college grading system in the US. Each institution sets its own scale, and within a school individual instructors set the weights for their courses. That's why you'll see:
- 93 as the cutoff for an A at one school and 94 or 90 at another
- plus and minus grading at one school and straight letters at another
- a pass at D or higher in one pass/fail policy and C or higher in another
- GPAs truncated to two or three decimal places
None of these differences change how the math works. They only change the numbers you plug in.
That's why the grade, weighted and final grade calculators all let you switch between the US, UK and India scales and edit the cutoffs, and the GPA calculator lets you set how an A+ and an A- count.
How to check your own school's grading scale
- Read the syllabus. It should state the weight of each assessment and the grade cutoffs. If it doesn't, ask the instructor in the first week.
- Find your registrar's grading policy. Search "[your school] registrar grading system." It lists the letter grades, the grade points for each, and which grades count in the GPA. The Maryland, Oregon and UNC pages linked above are good examples of what to look for.
- Check your major's requirements. The department or catalog page will say whether a C or better is required in core courses.
- Put your numbers into the GPA calculator or the weighted grade calculator. Change the scale if yours is different and the results update.