Grades and GPA

A grade point average looks like a single number, but it is built from choices: which scale turns a percentage into points, how courses are weighted by credits, which attempts count and which marks are left out. Two students with the same marks can report different GPAs because their schools use different scales, and a conversion done in the wrong order can be off by a quarter of a point.

The guide in this topic sets out three published Canadian scales side by side, converts a ten-course transcript each way, and shows the shortcuts that mislead, such as averaging percentages before converting. The calculators below do the arithmetic for your own courses once you know the points your school assigns, and the final grade tool works backward from the mark you want in a course.

Use the topic in this order. First find the scale printed by the school that issued each mark, because a letter grade or a percentage means nothing on its own until it is tied to a scale. Second, convert every course separately, since averaging marks first and converting afterwards moves the result across band boundaries. Third, weight by units or credits. Last, round once, at the end, and write down the scale, the unit basis and the courses included so that anyone reading the number can reproduce it.

Scales come from the registrar pages of the universities named in each guide, dated where they are used. Programs that ask you to convert your GPA have their own rules, so the guides point you to the receiving program's table before any number is final.

For study planning, attendance and test-score tools, see the students hub, which collects those calculators for school and university.

All guides are educational estimates, not personal advice. How figures are checked and dated is explained in the methodology, and the full list of guides is on the guides and hubs page.