How to Use Excel to Find Percentiles

Excel can compute percentiles from a range of cells.

Excel isn't just for entering information into spreadsheets -- it can be used to calculate a number of different mathematical formulas and functions, including finding percentiles. The Excel function used to calculate percentages is the percentile function, which has the formula "=percentile(RANGE,K)" where RANGE is a range of cells in the Excel spreadsheet and K is a percentile between 0 and 1. For example, the percentile function "=percentile(B1:B5,.25)" calculates the 25th percentile for the values in cells B1 to B5.

Instructions

1. Click on a blank cell in the worksheet with your pre-filled in values (the values for which you would like to find a percentile).

2. Type "=percentile(."

3. Type a range of cells. For example, if the numbers that you want to find a percentile for are located in cells A1 to A10, type "A1:A10."

4. Type a comma followed by the percentile you want to find. This must be in decimal form. For example, instead of typing "90%," type ".9."

5. Type a closing parenthesis ")" and then press the "Enter" key.

References

• PERCENTILE function