How Are Letters and Percents Converted Into a GPA Scale?

Different schools use different systems to convert your grades into your GPA. Sometimes they take the difficulty level of your classes into account, and sometimes all classes are treated the same.   Sure, they're both pumpkins—but a weighted comparison would be helpful.  

Unweighted GPA Conversion

Most schools use an unweighted GPA. This means that all your final grades get equal treatment, so grades earned in honors, AP, and/or IB courses get the same numerical value as grades earned in standard courses. In other words, if Matan gets an A in AP Calculus and Camille gets an A in standard-level chemistry, the school will convert both these As into a 4.0. Here is the typical conversion scale for an unweighted GPA:

Letter Grade	Percentage	GPA
A+	97-100	4.0
A	93-96	4.0
A-	90-92	3.7
B+	87-89	3.3
B	83-86	3.0
B-	80-82	2.7
C+	77-79	2.3
C	73-76	2.0
C-	70-72	1.7
D+	67-69	1.3
D	65-66	1.0
F	Below 65	0.0

   

Weighted GPA Conversion

Some schools calculate a weighted GPA, which does take into account how challenging each course is. So, final class grades in honors-level courses have .5 added to them, whereas final grades in AP and IB courses have 1 added to them. For this reason, weighted GPA scales usually range from 0.0 to 5.0 (though you might also see up to 6.0). In our example above, since Matan's A came from an AP class, it would convert to 5.0. Meanwhile, Camille's A, which came from a standard-level class, would become 4.0. The typical weighted GPA conversion scale looks like this:        

2 Step-by-Step Unweighted GPA Conversion Examples

Let's work through a couple of examples to see how grade conversion works for a transcript that uses letter grades and one that uses percent grades. Note that in both examples below, we will not be factoring how many credits a class is worth into our GPA conversions; therefore, feel free to ignore the credits/units columns in the images of the transcripts.  

#1: How to Convert Letter Grades Into a GPA

First, let's check out a transcript in which final grades are given as letters by taking a look at the high school career of renowned secret operative John Doe: Here's how its conversion works. Using the unweighted conversion table from before, we can see that, year by year, the grades John earned are as follows: