Printable GPA planner worksheet

Plan the grades you are aiming for this term on paper, work out the GPA they would give you, and check the result in the calculator.

How to make your sheet

1. Set the number of course rows and rename columns if your school says units or hours.
2. Choose paper size and orientation.
3. Press Print or save as PDF.
4. Fill in credits and target grades, multiply, and divide total quality points by total credits.

What the columns mean

A GPA is a credit-weighted average. Each course has a number of credits (or units, or hours) and a grade. The grade becomes grade points on a 4.0 scale, usually A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, D = 1 and F = 0, with plus and minus steps such as A− = 3.7 and B+ = 3.3 at many schools. Multiply credits by grade points and you get quality points. Add the quality points for all courses, divide by the total credits, and that is the term GPA. The worksheet has a column for each step so that nothing happens in your head.

A worked example

Four courses: Biology, 4 credits, target A (4.0), 16 quality points; Calculus, 4 credits, target B (3.0), 12; English, 3 credits, target A− (3.7), 11.1; History, 3 credits, target B+ (3.3), 9.9. Total credits 14, total quality points 49.0, so the planned term GPA is 49.0 ÷ 14 = 3.50. Notice that the 4-credit courses move the result more than the 3-credit ones: raising Calculus from B to B+ adds 1.2 quality points, while the same step in History adds only 0.9.

Planning, not predicting

Write target grades in pencil at the start of term. After the first round of tests, cross out any target that now looks unrealistic and write the grade you are actually on track for. The worksheet then tells you which course is the best place to spend extra effort: usually the one with the most credits where you are close to the next grade boundary. A planner like this is honest only if you use your school's own scale, so look up whether your school counts A+ as 4.0 or 4.3 and whether it uses minus grades at all.

Cumulative GPA

To see how this term changes your overall GPA, add one row for your past record: put your total earned credits so far in Credits and your current cumulative GPA in Grade points. The total row then gives your new cumulative GPA, because it is the same credit-weighted average with your history as one big course. The GPA calculator does this automatically and can also tell you what GPA you need on the remaining credits to reach a target; the guide on cumulative GPA after this semester walks through it.

Weighted high school GPA

Many high schools add a bonus for Honors and AP or IB courses, often half a point for Honors and a full point for AP. If yours does, rename the Grade points column to Weighted points and add the bonus before you multiply. The weighted high school GPA calculator lets you set those bonuses to match your school's policy.

Courses that do not count

Leave out any course your school does not include in the GPA. Pass/fail or credit/no-credit courses usually add credits to your transcript but no grade points, so including them would drag the average down for no reason. Withdrawals (W) and incompletes are normally left out too, while a repeated course may replace the earlier grade or be averaged with it, depending on the school. Check the registrar's page for your school's exact rules before you trust the total.

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