Calculating Your SOPHAS GPAs

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Overview

During verification, SOPHAS uses the information you entered in the Transcript Entry section to calculate several GPAs, including GPAs for each institution you attended. To calculate these GPAs, each A-F or 0-100 grade you entered in the Grade field is first converted to a SOPHAS numeric grade value, then multiplied by the attempted credits. The resulting product is Quality Points.

Your total Quality Points are then divided by your Attempted Credits to determine your GPA.

Non-graded credits are not included in your GPAs. Non-graded credits are earned credits for which you did not receive actual letter grades (e.g., advanced placement credits, "pass" or "satisfactory" credits, college board AP exams, courses taken as pass/fail, etc.). Note: a grade of WF (i.e., equivalent of a withdrawn with penalty, withdrawn failing, etc.) is factored into GPA calculations as an F.

SOPHAS calculates all GPAs in semester hours. Courses that were completed in quarter hours are converted to semester hours. The conversion ratio is 1.0 quarter hour = 0.667 semester hours.

Use the GPA Calculator to see how SOPHAS will calculate your GPA.

Example:

Course	Transcript Grade	Converted Numeric Grade Value	Attempted Credits	Calculation	Quality Points
MATH 1100	A	4	4	4 x 4	16
ENGL 1310	B	3	3	3 x 3	9
GEOL 1610	C	2	4	2 x 4	8
PHED 1000	D	1	3	1 x 3	3
PSCI 1040	F	0	3	0 x 3	0
Total			17		36
GPA Calculation: 36 (Quality Points) / 17 (Attempted Credits) = 2.12 (GPA)

SOPHAS GPA Types

Year-Level GPAs

Using Quality Points, SOPHAS calculates a GPA for several academic years.

Freshman and Sophomore academic years are combined to create a Lower Division (Fr/So) Undergraduate GPA.
Junior and Senior academic years are combined to create an Upper Division (Jr/Sr) Undergraduate GPA.
GPAs from your Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior academic years are subsequently:
- Combined with any post-baccalaureate coursework to create a cumulative undergraduate GPA, and
- Combined with any post-baccalaureate coursework plus any graduate coursework to create an overall GPA.

Year-Level GPA Example:

Year	Credits	Quality Points	GPA
Lower Division (Fr/So) Undergraduate	114	285.6	2.51
Upper Division (Jr/Sr) Undergraduate	126	392.4	3.11
Total	240	678.0	2.83
Post-Baccalaureate	28	112.0	4.00
Cumulative Undergraduate	268	790.0	2.95
Graduate	66	245.4	3.72
Overall	334	1035.4	3.10

Course Subject Category GPAs

Course Subject Category GPAs are based on your overall GPA in each course subject category, regardless of academic year. During verification, SOPHAS ensures course subjects are placed in the correct categories so that GPAs reflect the appropriate coursework.

To view which course subject GPAs are calculated by SOPHAS, refer to SOPHAS Course Subjects.

Course Subject Category GPA Example:

Course Subject Category	Graded Credits	Quality Points	GPA
Biology/Chemistry/Physics	84.0	270.0	3.21
English	6.0	15.0	2.50
Mathematics	6.0	18.0	3.00
Other Science	34.0	90.1	2.65