Student Trove
GPA Calculator
Enter your subjects, marks, and credit hours to calculate your weighted GPA.
Your Subjects
Your GPA
How the GPA calculation works
Every version of a GPA is the same operation: weight each subject by its credits, add those up, and divide by the total credits. What changes between scales is only what you weight — the raw percentage, or a grade point derived from it.
GPA = Σ(value × credits) ÷ Σ(credits)
Credits are what stop a two-credit elective from counting as much as a sixteen-credit core module. Without them you get a plain average, which flatters anyone who did well in small modules and badly in large ones.
The three scales in this calculator
- Percentage average — weights your actual marks. This is the number South African institutions use and report, and the one to quote unless you have been asked for something else.
- 4.0 scale — converts each mark to a US-style grade point first, then weights it. An approximation, for applications abroad.
- 10-point scale — divides each percentage by ten. Used in India and parts of Europe, and a straight linear rescaling rather than a banded conversion.
A worked example
Sipho finished a semester with four modules and wants his percentage average.
| Module | Mark | Credits | Mark × credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial Accounting | 68% | 16 | 1088 |
| Business Statistics | 54% | 12 | 648 |
| Economics | 71% | 12 | 852 |
| Business Ethics | 82% | 8 | 656 |
Working it through
His unweighted average would have been 68.75%. The difference comes from Business Ethics: his best mark by a distance, but on the smallest module, so it counts least. That gap is exactly why credit weighting is not optional.
Converting between grading systems
South Africa does not use grade points, so any conversion to a 4.0 GPA is an approximation rather than a translation. This calculator uses the following bands.
| Percentage | Grade point | US letter equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| 90–100% | 4.0 | A |
| 80–89% | 3.7 | A− |
| 75–79% | 3.3 | B+ |
| 70–74% | 3.0 | B |
| 65–69% | 2.7 | B− |
| 60–64% | 2.3 | C+ |
| 55–59% | 2.0 | C |
| 50–54% | 1.7 | C− |
| 45–49% | 1.3 | D+ |
| 40–44% | 1.0 | D |
| Below 40% | 0.0 | F |
The mapping is deliberately conservative in the middle, because South African marking is harsher there than American marking — a 65% is a respectable result in Johannesburg and a mediocre one in Boston.
| South African average | UK classification |
|---|---|
| 75%+ | First Class Honours |
| 70–74% | High Upper Second |
| 60–69% | Upper Second (2:1) |
| 50–59% | Lower Second (2:2) |
| 45–49% | Third Class |
Treat all of this as orientation, not authority. If you are applying to a specific institution, its own country-specific entry table is the only conversion that counts, and credential evaluators such as SAQA and WES apply their own methodology again.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert a South African percentage to a 4.0 GPA?
There is no official conversion, because South African universities do not use grade points — they report percentages and a degree classification. Any percentage-to-4.0 mapping is an approximation, and this calculator uses a common one where 90% and above maps to 4.0, 75% to 3.3, 65% to 2.7, 50% to 1.7 and below 40% to 0.0. Use it for a rough self-assessment, but if you are applying abroad, expect the receiving institution or a credential evaluator such as WES or SAQA to run their own conversion, and expect it to differ.
What is the difference between GPA and a weighted average?
A weighted average keeps your actual marks and weights them by credits, so a 68% stays a 68%. A GPA first converts each mark to a point on a fixed scale and then averages the points, which means marks inside the same band become identical — on a 4.0 scale a 76% and an 79% both become 3.3. The conversion throws away detail, so for tracking your own progress during a degree the percentage average is the more useful number.
What are credit hours and where do I find mine?
Credits express how much of your year a module represents, so that a full-year module counts more than a short elective. South African universities usually publish them in the faculty handbook or yearbook, often as NQF credits where a typical semester module is 8, 12 or 16 credits and a full-year module is double. If you genuinely cannot find them, entering the same credit value for every module gives you a plain unweighted average, which is better than nothing.
How does a South African average map to a UK degree classification?
As a rough guide, 75% and above corresponds to a First, 70–74% to a high Upper Second, 60–69% to an Upper Second (2:1), 50–59% to a Lower Second (2:2) and 45–49% to a Third. South African marking is generally more generous at the top than UK marking, where a 75% is exceptional, so a South African 75% is usually treated as a solid First rather than an outstanding one. Individual UK universities publish their own country-specific entry tables and those override any general guide.
Should I include failed modules in my GPA?
Include them if you want a figure that matches what an institution would calculate, because a failed module normally counts as its credits at zero grade points and drags the average down hard. If you later repeat and pass the module, institutions differ on whether the original attempt is replaced or both are counted, so check the rules that apply to you before deciding which version of the number to rely on.
Can I calculate a cumulative GPA across several years?
Yes. Enter every module from every year as its own row with its own credits, and the weighted result is your cumulative figure. Do not average your yearly GPAs together unless each year carried exactly the same number of credits — averaging averages gives the wrong answer whenever the credit loads differ, which they usually do in a final year.
Tracking your average as you go
A GPA calculated at the end of a semester tells you what happened. The more useful version is the one that updates during the semester, while there is still something you can do about it.
Study Planner keeps your subjects, credits and weighted assessments together and recalculates your average in several grading systems as marks arrive — so the figure is current without you rebuilding it each time.