I graduated form community college and on my transcript it says my overall gpa was 2.572. I went to an online gpa calculator to try to figure out what grades I’d need cumulatively to graduate four year university with as close to a 3.8 as possible, but when I put in my grades from my CC transcript, it says my overall gpa was 2.26? Why is their a discrepancy? Will grad admissions commities calculate gpa on their own, or will they go by whats on the transcripts?
Can someone please answer? I have posted a couple questions on here, and they never get responses.
I guess it depends on how the online calculator works and how accurate you were in entering the grades and credit hours per course. Some calculators have different GPAs for plusses and minuses, but many actual college GPAs only have A=4, B=3, C=2, etc. Remember also that any transfer credits are not included in your GPA on your transcript. And some transcripts may show an actual letter grade even for a pass fail course or one that does not count in your GPA. Also, if you had to retake any classes, what is your college’s policy on that? Some still count both grades in the GPA calculation, some do not.
You could do a quick calculation of your own.
2.572 = CC 2 years
Add 4.0 for your last 2 years
Divide total by 2 to get your average.
That assumes about the same number of credit hours for each two year period but it will be close.
Did you have some classes that were worth more (or less) units than others, and did you specify that correctly in the online GPA calculator? Does your school weigh grades differently than the online calculator did (for example, giving an A+ a 4.3 or perhaps the only calculator doesn’t weight +'s/-'s while your school does)? Those were the immediate thoughts that came to mind (besides the obvious–making mistakes when inputting your grades into the online GPA calculator).
It’s really hard to tell you why there’s a difference without knowing how your school calculates GPA and how the online calculator calculates GPA (and if you’re putting in your grades correctly).
Different colleges or professional schools may calculate grades differently.
For example, some may count +/-, others may not. Those who count +/- may use different values. For example, medical and law schools use different GPA calculations for admission. For medical school, +/- counts as +0.3/-0.3, and A+ is 4.0 (i.e. no bonus for the +). For law school, +/- counts as +0.33/-0.33, and A+ is 4.33. Your college may have yet another different way of calculating.