Study Suite

Weighted vs. unweighted GPA — what's the difference?

An unweighted GPA treats every class the same: it's a straight 0.0–4.0 average of your letter grades, so an A in gym counts just as much as an A in AP Physics. It answers "how well did you do grade-wise?" but ignores how hard your schedule was.

A weighted GPA rewards tougher courses by adding bonus points — typically +0.5 for Honors and +1.0 for AP/IB — which lets the scale climb above 4.0 (often to 5.0). Two students with the same grades can end up with very different weighted GPAs depending on course rigor, which is why colleges that consider course difficulty often look at the weighted number. Use unweighted for a clean comparison and weighted when a transcript gives credit for pushing yourself.

Which style should I use?

APA — Psychology, education, the social sciences, and nursing. APA emphasizes the author and the date a source was published, which suits fields where recency matters and sources are tracked through research chains.

MLA — Literature, languages, and the humanities. MLA foregrounds the author and page number, matching the close-reading and textual analysis common in humanities writing.

Chicago — History, the arts, and published books. Chicago offers notes-and-bibliography or author-date formats; the notes style is favored in history and publishing where sources are cited in detail.

When in doubt, ask your instructor which style your assignment requires — most schools and journals enforce one specific format.