If OP ever decides to apply to law school, the difference between a 3.60 undergrad GPA & a 3.57 GPA can have significance measured in ten of thousands of dollars.
Also, some law firms request more than just law school transcripts during the hiring process. Those that do tend to be very picky about grades and class rank.
And I do understand that law school is not currently in OP’s future plan thoughts. Other scholarships & programs may have GPA cut-offs and I doubt any such cut-off would occur at 3.57–more likely at 3.60 or some other round number.
P.S. Additionally, the LSDAS recalculates one’s undergraduate GPA for all law schools.
Furthermore, some federal government jobs have a class rank cut-off. The difference may well have an effect on whether or not OP makes the required cut-off of, for example, top 20%.
Finally, OP seems to want to take the other course in order to raise his GPA.
You misunderstand. The OP currently has a 3.57 cGPA with 35 graded courses but still has an additional 5 more courses left to take in order to graduate. Supposing the OP gets A’s on all those 5 courses their cGPA would move to a 3.62. What the OP wanted to know however is IF they took a 6th course and also scored an A how would that impact their cGPA and would it be worth it to take the 6th course. The answer is that a 6th course would move their cGPA from a 3.62 to a 3.63. Not really worth it especially if taking an extra course impacts their ability to do well on the other 5.
Thank you for your responses. I must have phrased my question wrong, but I meant what would my GPA be if I only took 4 classes (12 units) instead of 5 (15 units). From what I gather, this means that my GPA will be around 3.61 which is not significantly different from 3.62 from an extra class.
Lastly, I believe that 3.61 GPA versus 3.62 GPA will not make that much of a difference when applying to grad schools such as NYU or any of the UC’s as they are likely to just see it as a 3.6 no matter what. Am I correct in making this assumption?
Unless your possible GPAs are bracketing a cut-off GPA for employers or graduate/professional programs, it is unlikely that such a small difference in GPA will matter. A cut-off GPA, if used (and it is not used everywhere), is rather unlikely to go to the hundredths place (e.g. 3.62 or some such) rather than the tenths place (e.g. 3.6 or some such) or ones (e.g. 3).
Grad school is my goal. Most of the grad schools I am applying to have a requirement of a 3.0 GPA.
I need to know for sure though that I will have a 3.61 GPA when graduating this semester having taken 4 classes (12 units) and getting A’s in all of them lol. It is important to me.
I think that I understand OP’s question as he clarified it in a post below.
OP: So long as your undergraduate GPA will be above 3.60, it does not matter if it is a 3.61, 3.62, or 3.63 other than for law school medians. Since you have no plans to apply to law school, then a 3.60 or above is fine.
“ I am a super senior who has a 3.57 GPA in my last semester as an undergrad. I have a majority of A’s on my transcript, except for the beginning of my college career (when I took classes of things I didn’t like lol). I want to know how much my GPA will raise after taking 15 units (5 classes) this semester, assuming I will continue to get straight A’s this semester.”
This is her last semester. Super senior just means that this is after a fourth year of college. She needs four classes to graduate but wondered if taking a fifth to raise her GPA was worthwhile.