Education Calculators

Which grade calculator you want

Four tools here answer four different questions and are easy to mix up. Use the grade calculator when you have scores and weights and want the current mark. Use the final grade calculator for the reverse question, the score you still need on the final to reach a target. The college GPA calculator turns letter grades into a grade point average for one term, and the cumulative GPA calculator folds that term into the GPA you already have. Picking the wrong one of those four is the most common wasted trip on this section.

Grade Calculator

for the current mark from scores and category weights.

Final Grade Calculator – What You Need to Pass

for the reverse question, what the final needs to be.

Percentage Calculator – 3 Ways to Calculate %

for the plain percentage question, with the three forms set out side by side.

Average Calculator

for mean, median, mode and range together, since the word average covers all four.

Standard Deviation Calculator – Variance & SD

for spread rather than centre, with the sample and population formulas kept apart.

Where these calculations go wrong

Weights that do not add to 100

A weighted grade is only meaningful if the weights describe the whole course. If your categories add up to 90, the result is a grade out of 90 rather than the mark you will receive, and the arithmetic cannot tell that has happened.

Treating a GPA as an average of averages

A cumulative GPA is credit-weighted, so it is not the mean of your term GPAs. A five-credit term and a twelve-credit term do not count equally, which is why the cumulative tool asks for credits rather than just the previous number.

Questions about education

Which calculator do I use for the grade I need on the final?

The final grade calculator. It takes your current mark, the weight of the final, and the overall grade you are aiming at, then solves for the score you would need. If the answer comes back above 100 it means the target is out of reach with that weighting, which the page says rather than hiding.

Why do the statistics tools ask whether my data is a sample or a population?

Because the divisor changes. A population variance divides by n and a sample variance divides by n minus 1, so the two answers differ, and the gap matters most on small data sets. The tools ask rather than guessing, and say which one they used.

Related sections

• Everyday Life for date and age arithmetic, which turns up in coursework more often than you would expect.
• Money for the interest and payment maths that shares its formulas with the finance side of a business course.