Add each assignment or exam with your score and how much it’s worth, and you’ll see your grade right now. Leave the score empty for work you haven’t done yet, and the page shows what you’d need on it to land the grade you want.
Enter your scores and weights
Leave the score empty for anything you haven’t done yet.
Fill this in to see what you need on the work still to come.
Everything is worked out in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Your grade
Your grade shows up here once you add an item with a score and a weight.
What to enter
- Item name
- Optional. It just helps you tell the rows apart, like Quiz 1 or Midterm.
- Your score and "Out of"
- Type the points you got and the points possible, like 18 out of 20. If you only have a percentage, put it in the score box and leave "Out of" empty.
- Weight
- How much the item counts toward your whole course grade, as a percentage. It’s in your syllabus. For a group like homework, enter the group’s weight once and add the scores together first.
- A score left empty
- A row with a weight and no score is work you haven’t done yet. It isn’t counted in your current grade, and it becomes the work you can still plan for.
- The grade you want
- Optional. If you fill it in, the page shows the average you need on everything still to come.
A worked example
Here is a made-up intro psychology class. Three items are graded and the final exam is still to come.
| Item | Score | Percent | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quizzes | 41 / 50 | 82.0% | 15% |
| Lab reports | 88 / 100 | 88.0% | 25% |
| Midterm | 74 / 100 | 74.0% | 30% |
| Final exam | not graded yet | n/a | 30% |
Each percentage times its weight, divided by 100, gives 12.3, 22.0, 22.2 points. Together that is 56.5 points out of the 70% of the course that has been graded. Divide 56.5 by 0.70 and your grade so far is 80.71%.
Those 56.5 points are what this student has already locked in. A perfect final would add the other 30, so the best they can finish on is 86.5% and the lowest is 56.5%.
To finish on 80%, the final has to supply 23.5 points. Divided by its 30% weight, that is 78.33%, which the page rounds up to 78.4%. To finish on 85% they would need 95.0% on the final, so a goal five points higher takes about 16.7 more points on the exam.
| If they score on the final | They finish on |
|---|---|
| 100% | 86.5% |
| 90% | 83.5% |
| 80% | 80.5% |
| 70% | 77.5% |
| 60% | 74.5% |
| 50% | 71.5% |
How your grade is calculated
- Turn each score into a percentage: score divided by points possible, times 100.
- Multiply each percentage by its weight.
- Add those up, then divide by the total weight of the items that have been graded. That’s your grade so far.
- To plan ahead, multiply your grade so far by the share of the course that’s been graded. That’s what you’ve already locked in. Whatever is left to reach your target has to come from the work still to come.
Grade so far = sum of (weight × percent) ÷ sum of the weights graded so far
Why you can’t just average your scores
Say homework is worth 10% of the course and the final is worth 90%. You score 90% on homework and 60% on the final. The plain average of those two scores is 75.0%. The weighted grade is 63.00%, because the final counts nine times as much.
Assumptions to keep in mind
- Your grade so far only covers what has been graded. A big final still to come can change it a lot.
- Weights are used as entered. If they don’t add up to 100%, the page warns you and uses them as shares of whatever total you gave it.
- It doesn’t drop your lowest score, apply a curve or count attendance. If your syllabus does, leave out the dropped score or adjust before you enter it.
- The letter shown uses the common 90, 80, 70, 60 cut-offs. Your syllabus sets the real ones, and some schools use plus and minus grades too.
- Extra credit works if it lifts a score above the points possible, like 22 out of 20.
Mistakes that throw your grade off
Averaging your scores instead of weighting them
A plain average treats a quiz and a final as equal. With the example above it gives 75.0% when the real grade is 63.00%. Always weight by what each item is worth.
Entering a weight as a share of its category
If homework is 20% of the course and one assignment is a quarter of homework, that assignment is 5% of the course, not 25%. Enter its weight as a share of the whole course.
Typing a 0 for work you haven’t done yet
A 0 says you were graded and got nothing. Leave the score empty for work still to come, so it counts as the part of the course that can still change.
Forgetting a dropped score
If your syllabus drops your lowest quiz, this page can’t see that. Leave that quiz out before you add the rest, or your grade will look lower than it is.
Entering points-based grading as percentages
If your class just totals points, work out each item’s share of the total points and use that as its weight. A 50 point quiz in a 500 point class is 10%.
Questions students ask
How do I calculate my grade when assignments are worth different amounts?
Multiply each score, as a percentage, by its weight, add those up, and divide by the total weight you’ve been graded on so far. Enter the scores and weights above and the page does it for you and shows the working.
What do I put for work I haven’t done yet?
Leave the score empty and enter the weight. That work isn’t in your grade yet, and the page uses it to show your best and worst possible finish and the average you’d need to hit a target. The final grade calculator goes deeper on one last exam.
What if my weights don’t add up to 100%?
Then something is missing or mistyped, or your syllabus has an item you haven’t listed. The page warns you and works with the weights you gave it as shares of that total, but check your syllabus, because the real answer depends on the missing weight.
How do I enter a category with lots of small scores, like ten quizzes?
Add up the points you earned and the points possible across all the quizzes, enter those as one row, and give that row the weight for the whole quiz category. If your syllabus drops the lowest quiz, leave it out of both totals.
My class just adds up points. How do I use this?
Work out each item’s share of the total points for the course and use that as its weight. Or use the points option on the final grade calculator, which takes points earned, points possible so far and the final’s points.
