GPA Calculator

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on July 05, 2011

GPA Calculator from Vertex42 is a free Excel template that is configured for calculating grade point averages based on the common four-point grading scale corresponding to letter grades A, B, C, and D, with percentages for plus and minus grades. Since it's an Excel template, it can be customized for individual needs and copied as many times as you need. It requires Microsoft Excel or an Excel-compatible spreadsheet tool.

GPA Calculator downloads as a zipped file. We extracted it, opened it in Excel, and clicked Enable Editing to turn off the protected view. The spreadsheet lists course, grade, credits, and points for seven semesters, though of course we could add more if we wanted or just start again with a new spreadsheet when we'd filled one up. A GPA Table listed letter grades, including plus and minus grades, and corresponding points. The simple instructions are displayed right on the spreadsheet: 1) Update the GPA Table with your school's grading scale; and 2) Enter the course, grade, and credit hours for each course. A third line advises copying the formula for points when adding rows. As with other Vertex42 templates, GPA Calculator included sample entries to help new users get up to speed. We simply deleted the examples and saved the blank template under a new name and directory. We then added our own data, which GPA Calculator automatically calculated. We saved our finished spreadsheet under a different name, which let us reuse our custom template as often as we needed. Since it's an Excel spreadsheet, it behaves normally in Excel, including printing and exporting.

Free Excel templates let you take an existing, familiar tool--Microsoft Excel--and add versatile capabilities that turn it into new and useful tools; like GPA Calculator, for example. GPA Calculator is great for teachers, students, administrators, and parents.