How to Calculate GPA With Plus and Minus Grades

To calculate GPA with plus and minus grades, convert each letter grade to its grade point, multiply by the course's credit hours, add those products, and divide by total credit hours. On the standard 4.0 scale, A is 4.0, A-minus is 3.7, B-plus is 3.3, each step 0.3. Check your own transcript instantly with our free GPA calculator.

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The Plus/Minus Scale, in One Table

The standard plus/minus scale on a 4.0 system runs 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, and F = 0.0, with some schools omitting D- or using slightly different values for it. Memorise the pattern rather than the whole table: a plus adds 0.3 to the base letter, a minus subtracts 0.3, and the base letters sit at A 4.0, B 3.0, C 2.0, D 1.0, F 0.0. That pattern is why B+ is 3.3 and not 3.5, and why A- is 3.7 and not 3.9: the step is a third of a point, rounded to one decimal, so each grade sits exactly 0.3 from its neighbours. If your school publishes its own scale, use that scale instead of this one, because the school's scale is what the registrar uses, and a 0.3 difference on one course can move a semester GPA by a hundredth or more.

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The Formula, Step by Step

The formula is GPA = (sum of grade points x credit hours) / total credit hours, and it works the same whether a course is a plus, a minus, or a straight letter. Take each course, convert its grade to grade points using the table above, multiply by its credit hours to get quality points, add all the quality points together, and divide by the total credit hours attempted. A 3-credit A- contributes 3.7 x 3 = 11.1 quality points, while a 3-credit B+ contributes 3.3 x 3 = 9.9, so the difference between those two grades in one 3-credit course is 1.2 quality points. Our guide to calculating GPA walks the same formula for straight-letter grades, and the only change plus/minus grading makes is the conversion table, not the arithmetic. Never average the grade points without weighting by credits, because a 1-credit lab and a 4-credit lecture do not deserve equal votes in your GPA.

A Worked Example, With Credits

Suppose a semester has four courses: English, 3 credits, A- (3.7); Biology, 4 credits, B+ (3.3); History, 3 credits, B (3.0); and Mathematics, 3 credits, A (4.0). The quality points are English 3.7 x 3 = 11.1, Biology 3.3 x 4 = 13.2, History 3.0 x 3 = 9.0, and Mathematics 4.0 x 3 = 12.0, for a total of 45.3 quality points over 13 credit hours. Divide 45.3 by 13 and the semester GPA is 3.48, which rounds to 3.48, not 3.5, because rounding happens once at the end, never course by course. Notice how Biology, the 4-credit course, pulls harder than the 3-credit courses: its B+ contributes more quality points than History's B despite the lower grade, which is exactly why credit weighting matters. Run the same numbers through our free GPA calculator to check your hand math, and if the two answers differ, the conversion table is the first place to look, because a school that grades A- as 3.67 will produce a slightly different total.

The A+ Dispute: 4.0 or 4.3?

A+ is the one grade where schools genuinely disagree, and the disagreement matters because it is the only grade that can push a GPA above 4.0 on an unweighted scale. Most schools cap A+ at 4.0, treating it as an A with praise attached, so an A+ and an A contribute identically to the GPA. Some schools, and some graduate programs, award 4.3 for an A+, which lets a transcript with several A+ grades climb to 4.1 or 4.2, and a few cap the reported GPA at 4.0 even when the underlying points exceed it. Before you celebrate or worry about an A+, check your school's catalogue or your registrar's grade-point table, because assuming 4.3 when your school uses 4.0 overstates your GPA, and assuming 4.0 when your school uses 4.3 understates it. For college applications, report the GPA exactly as your transcript states it and let the receiving school recalculate, because admissions offices apply their own scales anyway and a self-recalculated figure that does not match the transcript creates confusion rather than advantage.

What If Your School Does Not Use Plus/Minus?

Some schools, and many high schools, use straight letters only, so a B+ on a transfer transcript becomes a B, or the sending school's plus/minus values are carried over exactly, depending on the receiving school's policy. If you are converting a plus/minus transcript to a straight-letter system for an application, do not simply drop the signs and average, because that erases real differences: an A- student and a B+ student are not the same student, and a straight-letter conversion should preserve the quality points where the application allows it. Our guide to GPA with weighted classes covers the related problem of honours and AP bonuses, which stack on top of plus/minus values in a different way. The practical rule is to keep two numbers: the GPA on your own school's scale, which is the official one, and a recalculated GPA on the target school's scale, clearly labelled as a recalculation, so nobody mistakes one for the other.

Plus/Minus in Weighted and Honours Courses

In a weighted system, a plus/minus grade and a course bonus combine, and the order of operations matters. The usual method is to convert the letter grade to its plus/minus point value first, then add the bonus, so a B+ in an honours course worth a 0.5 bonus becomes 3.3 + 0.5 = 3.8, and an A- in an AP course worth a 1.0 bonus becomes 3.7 + 1.0 = 4.7. Some schools instead apply the bonus to the base letter and then adjust for plus/minus, which can produce a slightly different result, and a few cap weighted grades at 5.0 regardless of the arithmetic. The difference is small on one course and noticeable across a transcript, so check your school's weighted-grade policy before you publish a weighted GPA anywhere. If your school does not weight at all, ignore this section entirely: adding a bonus your school does not award is the fastest way to make a transcript look inflated.

Rounding, Repeats, and the Traps

Three traps catch almost everyone. First, rounding: round only the final GPA, to two decimals, because rounding each course's quality points first introduces errors that compound across a semester. Second, repeated courses: some schools replace the old grade, some average the two attempts, and some count both, and a repeated course can move a GPA by more than a full plus/minus step, so check the repeat policy before you calculate. Our guide to GPA with repeated classes covers that policy in detail. Third, pass/fail and audit courses: they usually carry credit hours but no grade points, so they belong in neither the numerator nor the denominator, and including them as zeros is the single most common GPA calculation error. Withdrawals are similar: a W usually does not count, while a WF, withdrawal failing, sometimes does, so the letter on the transcript matters more than the fact of withdrawal.

Checking Your Number, and What It Means

Once you have a hand-calculated GPA, check it against our free GPA calculator and against your transcript's reported figure, and investigate any gap larger than 0.02, because that gap almost always means a conversion value, a credit-hour count, or a repeated course was handled differently. A GPA is a summary, not a verdict: a 3.48 built on hard courses and a 3.48 built on easy ones are not the same achievement, and admissions officers, employers, and scholarship committees know it, which is why they read the transcript behind the number. Use your GPA to spot trends, such as a semester that dipped because of one course, rather than to rank yourself against classmates whose schools use different scales. And if you are planning study time to lift the next semester, convert your weekly study minutes into hours with our free minutes to hours converter and check assignment lengths with our free word counter, because the GPA math is easy and the study plan is the hard part.