GPA 4.5 Converter

Convert a 4.5 or 4.3 scale GPA to the US 4.0 scale, three methods at once. Convert a grade point average earned on a 4.5 or 4.3 scale into the US 4.0 scale. Three common conversion methods run at once so you can see how far apart they land. Free, no sign up, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Try one:

Which of the three numbers to use

Short version: if your destination published a conversion rule, use that one and ignore the rest. If nothing was published, report the linear figure and name the source scale next to it. The spread shown with your results says how much the choice of method is worth.

Why the three numbers disagree, and which one to use

There is no single arithmetic that turns a 4.5 scale average into a 4.0 scale average. A 4.5 scale gives A+ its own grade point above A, and the US 4.0 scale does not. Any conversion has to decide what to do with that extra step, and the three common answers give three different results.

  • Linear. Divide by the source maximum and multiply by 4.0. Simple and reversible, and the one most application forms mean when they ask you to state a converted GPA yourself. It quietly assumes a 4.5 scale A+ is worth the same as a 4.0 scale A, which stretches the top of the range and can flatter or punish depending on where your average sits.
  • Grade band. Find which letter band your average falls into on the source scale, then report that letter's value on the 4.0 scale. This keeps letters aligned, which is how a human reader thinks about a transcript. It is a step function, so two averages inside the same band come out identical, and an average just under a cutoff drops a full step.
  • Via percentage. Turn the average into a percentage of the source maximum, then apply the US percentage to letter cutoffs (93 and up is an A, 90 to 92 is an A minus, and so on). This is the closest match to how a US registrar reads a percentage transcript, and it is usually the strictest of the three, because 4.0 out of 4.5 is only 88.9 percent.

How to choose

If the place you are submitting to specified a method, use that one and ignore the other two. Graduate schools, scholarship offices and credential evaluators frequently publish a rule, and their rule beats any calculator. If nothing was specified, state the linear figure and say plainly which scale it came from, for example "3.66 on a 4.0 scale, converted from 4.12 on a 4.5 scale". Naming the source scale matters more than the conversion itself, because it lets the reader redo the math their own way. Never report a converted number as if it were the number your university issued.

The gap between the highest and lowest of the three, shown above your results, is the honest measure of how much the choice of method is worth. When the gap is wide, expect a reader to arrive at a different figure than you did.

Optional: work out the average from your courses

Enter each course with its credit hours and the grade point it earned on the source scale. The credit weighted average is computed here and can be pushed into the converter above. Rows live in this page and in the address bar only.

Course Credits Grade points

Grade band table

This is the table the grade band method reads. It ships with the general letter correspondence described in the readme and holds no university's or evaluator's private table. If your destination published its own numbers, type them in here and the middle card updates.

Letter Lowest source value in this band Value on the 4.0 scale

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