Percentage to GPA: Conversion Chart
The full conversion chart
| Percentage | Letter grade | GPA |
|---|---|---|
| 93–100 | A | 4.0 |
| 90–92 | A− | 3.7 |
| 87–89 | B+ | 3.3 |
| 83–86 | B | 3.0 |
| 80–82 | B− | 2.7 |
| 77–79 | C+ | 2.3 |
| 73–76 | C | 2.0 |
| 70–72 | C− | 1.7 |
| 67–69 | D+ | 1.3 |
| 63–66 | D | 1.0 |
| 60–62 | D− | 0.7 |
| Below 60 | F | 0.0 |
A 97–100 (A+) also converts to 4.0 at most schools — only a minority award 4.3 for it. To turn several courses into one GPA, convert each course's grade, multiply by that course's credits, add everything up, and divide by total credits. A 93% in a 4-credit course moves your GPA more than a 93% in a 1-credit lab.
The caveat: schools convert letters, not percentages
This chart describes the typical percentage-to-letter mapping, but your GPA is computed from the letters your instructors actually assigned. That distinction has teeth in three situations. Curved courses: an 85% raw score in a brutally curved physics class might be recorded as an A — which is a 4.0, not the 3.0 the chart suggests. Different school scales: at an A=94+ school, your 93 was recorded as an A− and converts to 3.7 no matter what this chart says. International transcripts: an 85 from a Canadian or Indian institution absolutely should not be run through this US chart — credential evaluators use system-specific tables.
So use the chart in the direction it works: percentage → probable letter → GPA, as an estimate. For the official number, start from the letter on your transcript.
Estimating your GPA from percentage averages
If your school reports only percentages (common in high schools and outside the US), estimate per course, not from your overall average. Converting a single overall average of 88% to "3.3" hides the spread: a student with 95/95/81/81 (4.0+4.0+2.7+2.7 = 3.35) and a student with four 88s (3.3 across the board) have the same average percentage but land differently once real courses and credit weights apply. Convert each course, then weight by credits — that's the calculation admissions offices actually run.
Try it yourself: GPA Calculator
Enter your letter grades and credits — get your exact GPA without doing any table lookups.
Frequently asked questions
What GPA is an 85%?
On this chart, 85% falls in the B band (83–86), so about 3.0. But if that 85 earned an A in a curved or hard-scaled course, it's a 4.0 — the letter on the transcript wins. In Canada, an 85 is commonly an A worth 4.0, a full grade point higher than the US reading.
What percentage average equals a 4.0 GPA?
Every course needs to individually reach the A cutoff — 93+ at most schools, 90+ at straight-letter schools, 94+ at some. A 93 average made of 96s and 90s isn't a 4.0, because the 90s convert to 3.7. GPA is per-course, then averaged.
Is a 3.5 GPA the same as 90%?
Roughly, but not exactly — a 3.5 sits between B+ (87–89) and A− (90–92), so it corresponds to a high-80s-to-90 average. Reverse conversions are approximations; two students with 3.5 GPAs can have meaningfully different percentage histories.