US Grading Scale — Letters, Percentages and GPA
The standard letter scale with GPA points, where schools differ from it, and how percent becomes GPA.
The standard US scale
This table is the live one used by every calculator on this site — thresholds, GPA points and all. It follows the College Board's published conversion table down to D+; the D and D− bands follow the common university convention with the F line at 60 (the College Board table itself stops at D = 65–66 and has no D− — schools genuinely differ there, and we say so rather than blur it).
| Letter | Percent | GPA (4.0) |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | 97–100 | 4.0 |
| A | 93–96 | 4.0 |
| A- | 90–92 | 3.7 |
| B+ | 87–89 | 3.3 |
| B | 83–86 | 3.0 |
| B- | 80–82 | 2.7 |
| C+ | 77–79 | 2.3 |
| C | 73–76 | 2.0 |
| C- | 70–72 | 1.7 |
| D+ | 67–69 | 1.3 |
| D | 63–66 | 1.0 |
| D- | 60–62 | 0.7 |
| F | Below 60 | 0.0 |
Source: College Board, “How to Convert Your GPA to a 4.0 Scale” (bigfuture.collegeboard.org).
Where schools differ
- Flat 10-point scales: A 90–100, B 80–89, C 70–79, D 60–69 — no plus/minus at all. Common in K-12 and some universities.
- No A+ or no D−: many colleges cap at A = 4.0 and end the D range at D. Some award A+ a 4.3 — the College Board table does not.
- The F line: usually 60, sometimes 65 (New York's Regents passing score, and the College Board table). Below the line, plus and minus stop mattering.
- Rounding: whether an 89.5 posts as an A− is instructor policy. Nothing in the scale decides it.
How percent becomes GPA
GPA is not computed from your percentages directly. Each course's percent becomes a letter on the scale above, the letter becomes grade points, and the points are averaged weighted by credit hours:
Two students with identical percentages can hold different GPAs if their schools band letters differently — which is why the table above is editable data on this site, not a hard-coded rule.