Last Updated: July 17, 2026
Unweighted GPA is the purest version of the number: every class scored on the same 4.0 scale, no bonus for Honors or AP, no scale quirks — just your letter grades averaged. It's also the version most admissions offices reach for first, precisely because it means the same thing at every school. Enter your grades below to get yours.
Unweighted GPA and test scores speak the same language.
Both are standardized numbers colleges compare across every applicant. Make your SAT or ACT score match your GPA with free adaptive practice at Test Ninjas.
| Letter grade | Grade points |
|---|---|
| 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 | 0.0 |
Each step of a letter (A to A−, A− to B+) moves the value by 0.3 or 0.4, and full letters sit on the whole numbers. Your unweighted GPA is the plain average of these values across every graded class — if your school grades in percentages, translate them first with the percentage to GPA calculator.
Weighted GPAs are local currency — a 4.4 on one district's 5.0 scale and a 5.2 on another's 6.0 scale can describe identical transcripts. Unweighted GPA is the exchange rate: by putting every applicant on the same 4.0 ceiling, it lets an admissions reader compare achievement apples-to-apples across tens of thousands of schools. That doesn't mean rigor is ignored; it's simply evaluated as its own dimension, using your course list and the school profile that shows what was offered. In other words, colleges separate the two questions your GPA tries to answer at once — how well, and how hard — and the unweighted number handles the first.
There is no formula that turns a weighted GPA into an unweighted one. Subtracting some fixed amount doesn't work because the gap depends on how many advanced classes you took and what you earned in them — two students with the same 4.3 weighted can have unweighted GPAs of 3.6 and 3.9. The only correct method is to recompute from the transcript: list every graded class, write down its letter grade, map each to the 4.0 chart above while ignoring course type completely, and average. That's exactly what the calculator on this page does, so the fastest conversion is to enter your grades up top. If you want both numbers from one set of inputs, the weighted GPA calculator reports the weighted and unweighted results side by side.
Rather than mapping schools to numbers, it's more useful to read the bands the way an admissions office does — as signals, each with its own playbook:
| Unweighted GPA | What it signals |
|---|---|
| 3.9 – 4.0 | Top-tier competitive: keeps every option open, including the most selective schools |
| 3.7 – 3.9 | Strong: squarely in range for selective universities and honors programs |
| 3.3 – 3.7 | Solid: competitive at most four-year colleges and many flagships |
| 3.0 – 3.3 | Workable: a wide range of colleges admit here, especially with an upward trend |
| Below 3.0 | Recoverable: strengthen with rising grades, test scores, and a compelling story |
If your GPA sits below where you want it, the compensating levers are real: an upward grade trend, a test score above a college's middle 50%, and rigor in your remaining semesters all shift the read. Model the combined effect with the admissions chances calculator.
The GPA is averaged. The test score is up next.
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