How to Calculate Your Final Grade

Always useful to know where you stand in a course. Sometimes teachers make mistakes, more often you will want to know what is needed on the final, given your midterm and quiz scores. We provide both a method and a final grade calculator to help you.

To get started

You will need a complete list of your grades in each weighted category of the class in order to accurately compute your final grade.

These categories most commonly are homework, tests, and quizzes. Sometimes teachers use special projects or class participation in addition.

Grade Calculator

We provide a free grade calculator to help calculate your final grade. While the article explains how to calculate yourself, our calculator will help you determine percentage or letter based final grades.

Please contact us with requests to improve!

3 steps to calculate your final grade

Computing your final grade consists of finding your average in each category, then multiplying it by the percentage of the class it's worth and adding all the adjusted categories together.

Find - Finding your average in each category
Multiply - Multiply by the percentage worth in your the class. Usually found on a syllabus.
Add - all the adjusted categories together

1. Find the average of each category by adding all the grades in one category together, then dividing them by the number of grades there are.

For example:

if you got a 95, 100, 90, and 85 on your homework, your homework grade would be 91.25 (95+100+90+85 = 365) (365/4 = 91.25). Repeat this for each category.

2. Multiply your average in a category by the percentage the category is worth.

Using the above example

if homework counts for 20 percent of your grade, then 91.25 x .20 = 18.25. Repeat this for each category.

3. Add together all the categories after multiplying them by what percent of the class they're worth.

Using the example,

If your adjusted number for three categories was 18.25, 22, and 40, then your final grade would be 80.25.

5 Tips for College Success

1. Read and understand your syllabus. If your course requires recitation, attend those because they are more often the course graders too. One person I know got an A in statistics because she was the only one in a class of 100 to attend - the rest did not attend because of the instructors thick accent.

2. If attendance counts, attend. I worked several jobs in college to make ends meet and sometimes had to miss class. If you have the luxury to attend class, do so.

3. Important paper? Get started early and ask for feedback. In graduate schools I watch many friends grade final papers, those cherry-picked points smashed together to make a page count are obvious. When the grader is opinionated, and they always are, they implicitly grade to some course curve. The secret of college grading is the final course grades need to meet an expected grade distribution. The instructor will get called to task if everyone gets a C, even if everyone deserves one.

4. Reserve time each week and holistically review. The course syllabus is your guide. In my time, I only met one person who could pull an all-nighter before the final exam and get an A. The people who consistently scored well, repeatedly reviewed the material. One person I knew would re-read six to seven times. Another friend articulated a more reasonable approach, ask why we are learning about the syllabus items. If you review and ask yourself each week, your next lecture will be more interesting and you will feel more comfortable at the final exam.

5. Your goal in college is to learn what you want to do. That does not happen solely in a classroom. Explore and enjoy the activities and opportunities your school affords. Complete the circle of who you aspire to become.