How to Calculate Your GPA With Excel
So you’ve got your grades, and now you’re wondering what your GPA is going to be like. Or maybe you want to figure out what grades you need to achieve your target GPA. Well, you won’t need a pen for that—Excel has all the answers.
Since GPA takes in the credits each grade is worth, you can’t calculate it by calculating the average of your grades. The process is slightly different, but still a breeze to calculate with Excel.
What Is a GPA? How Do You Calculate It?
GPA, or Grade Point Average, is a measure of your average performance in a particular academic term, usually expressed as a number on a 4.0 scale. GPA is a form ofweighted average, where the weight of each item is its credits.
Each course is worth a specific number of credits, and a course’s credit value equals its grade point multiplied by its credits. Once you have the credit values for each course, you need to add them up and then divide the sum by the total number of credits to get your GPA.
This pathway is simple enough to follow and calculate your GPA, but there’s another matter to take care of. Grades are usually given in letters from A to F, whereas GPA is a number. Therefore, you need to convert the letter grades into grade points first. it’s possible to ask your school staff about this, but generally, an A is worth four grade points.
From there, a point is deducted for each letter until F equals zero grade points. The good news is that you’re able to rely on Excel to automatically calculate the grade points and GPA. Once you create the formula and save the spreadsheet, all you’ll need to do is input your grades. No need to bother yourself with mundane calculations when Excel is around.
How to Calculate GPA in Excel With SUMPRODUCT and VLOOKUP
Now that you have a clear understanding of the calculation, it’s possible to use Excel to automate it. SUMPRODUCT and VLOOKUP are two functions that we’ll be using to calculate GPA.
SUMPRODUCT is an Excel function that multiplies an array by another array, then sums the results. This function will be useful for calculating the total credit value.
VLOOKUP is an Excel functionthat acts like a phonebook. You can feed VLOOKUP a value and a table where you’ve defined equivalents for that value, and VLOOKUP will output the initial value’s equivalent. You can use this function to convert grade letters into grade points.
As an example to work on, we have the letter grades of a student in different courses, their credits, and also a table that shows the grade point equivalent of the letters. The goal is to calculate the student’s GPA. First, you need to convert the grade letters into grade points:
This formula calls onVLOOKUP, to find the equivalent of cellB2from the tableF2toG6. It also specifies that the equivalent values are located in column2of the table. The dollar signs ($) in the table’s address ensure thatthe reference is absoluteso that it doesn’t change when you use the fill handle.
Now that you have the grade points for each course, it’s time to make the final move and calculate the GPA.
This formula calls onSUMPRODUCTto sum the products ofC2toC7(grade points) multiplied byD2toD7(credits) and then divides that by theSUMofD2toD7(total credits). The result will be the student’s GPA.
Just like that, you’ve got an Excel spreadsheet that automatically calculates your GPA. Now that you know how to automate the calculation, you can go beyond anduse Excel’s Goal Seekto see what grades you need to reach your GPA target.
GPA Calculations Just Got Easier
Calculating your GPA can get confusing, especially if you’ve got lots of grades to keep track of. Being smart isn’t about calculating your GPA on paper yourself, it’s about using Excel to do it for you.
Once you know how to calculate your GPA, it’s possible to use two Excel functions to convert your grades into grade points, and then calculate your GPA with a single formula. Calculating your GPA just got way easier!
Excel’s What-If Analysis Scenario Manager helps you compare multiple data sets and decide based on data analysis.
Taming data is easier than it looks.
My iPhone does it all, but I still need my dumb phone.
Who asked for these upgrades?
Tor spoiled me forever.
The best features aren’t the ones being advertised.
