How to Calculate a Weighted Grade Point Average
Your grade point average, (GPA) represents your academic achievement across all of your classes. Some high schools use a weighted GPA, which means that more points are awarded for more difficult classes, such as advanced placement (AP) or honors classes rather than an unweighted GPA, which gives equal value to all classes taken. To calculate your weighted GPA, you need to know how your school weights the classes, what grades you've earned, what level of classes you've taken and how many credit hours each class is worth.
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Instructions
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Contact your counseling office to determined the weighting scale that your school uses for different classes. For example, some schools may give an extra 0.5 points for grades earned in honors classes and an extra points for AP classes while others may give you an extra point for honors and two extra points for AP classes.
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Convert your letter grades in each class to their numerical value. For this example, regulars As will be worth four points, honors As five points and AP As six points. Therefore, if you received an honors A, AP B, and AP A and a regular B, you would convert those to 5, 5, 6 and 3, respectively.
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Multiply the number of points each grade is worth by the number of credits earned for each class. If all of your classes are one credit each, you can skip this step. For example, if the first two classes were one credit, you would still get 5 and 5 but if the second two classes were each two credits, you would multiply 6 and 3 by 2 to get 12 and 6.
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Add the value of each of your classes based on the number of credits they are worth. Continuing the example, you would add, 5 plus 5 plus 12 plus 6 to get 28.
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Divide the total number of points by the number of credit hours you are taking to calculate your weighted GPA. Finishing this example, you would divide 28 by 6 to find your weighted GPA equals 4.67.
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References
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