I want to have a discussion with my son, but before I entertain that battle I wanted input on how gpa is calculated. Son has only 3 courses left to meet his grad requirements and 120 credits. One of his course was a “D” but it was in a business class and he is no longer in that major. There is no way he will retake it for a higher grade as he hated it. If he re-takes a course the grade of the second time is the one that counts. He had to do it for his Lit class mainly due to laziness the first time around.
Does anybody know whether ALL the courses you take before you graduate count in your gpa, or are “extra” ones over 120 credits tossed out? His school has a tool called a GRAD report and since he is registered for extra classes right now it is listing 2 classes under the “courses not used” heading. He wasn’t sure what his work schedule would be so he registered for extra classes so he would have a seat. He will be dropping two that he doesn’t need before the bill is due. It is hard to tell a lot because the report includes what you’ve taken and what you are registered for to help you figure out what you still need to take (yes, you should still see the advisor)
I want to suggest that he take an extra course of his choosing, in his major or whatever, IF AND ONLY IF, it would mean the new course could replace the bad grade. He won’t like the idea because he is not a fan of doing extra work, but I think it would help his GPA and there is a course he might enjoy in addition the to 3 he has left. You may say, because you have motivated kids who would do so, that I should have him call the registrar and ask. NOT going to happen. He will just say not to worry about it. I shouldn’t worry about it…but I hate seeing that on there. This is a kid with a “B” average, not even a B+. His gpa could use some sprucing up…So, does anybody know whether gpa is calculated on 120 credits, or if you take 126 is it calculated using all 126, assuming you only needed 120 to graduate?
This depends on the university. You might post the question in the forum for the university your son is attending, or see if there is an online catalog or academic program information brochure that explains the policy.
At my university, all courses taken before graduation count toward the GPA. It has been similar for all of the universities that family members have attended. However, none of them have “courses not used,” as far as I know. So your son’s school could be different.
Also, the policy on repeat grades differs from school to school. Some schools use total replacement (as your son’s apparently does), while others average the grades for the course that was repeated.
There is no “one way” that all universities operate, so don’t be surprised if you get multiple different answers on this one. By far the best thing to do is contact the registrar at his school and ask them!
Still, in my experience, unless you are enrolled in an integrated masters program or make some other special arrangement, at the time you graduate all credits earned are used to calculate GPA. It is done for simplicity - they don’t want to mess with algorithms (or worse, student requests!!) trying to calculate the best (or whatever) GPA. Including everything is simple, and fair.
Of course, one or two courses cannot mathematically have much impact - six passing credits can only influence the GPA of 120 credits within a 0.1 range. That is, if you have a 2.0 GPA then 6 more credits with A’s will only get you a 2.10, and if you have a 3.0 GPA then 6 credits can only move you between 2.95 (with C’s) and 3.05 (with A’s).
This is all variable depending on the college. But in general, things to consider
- Gpa is calculated by all grades and divided by number of units taken. People go over the minimum number of units to graduate all the time
- To replace the D grade: if kid takes the exact same course, some colleges only count the higher grade towards the gpa, effectively wiping out the D grade in gpa, but the D grade still shows on transcript. Some colleges remove the D from the transcript. Some colleges include both grades in gpa.
- Coursework: if the D was in a gen ed class, will need to take another qualifying gen ed class to meet the requirements. If was taken for a major class, he will need another class to meet the requirements. If it’s neither, but merely an elective, then is not required to retake class for class requirements.
- If he takes another class (not exact same class) to replace the D, then both grades will be on the transcript and gpa. Basically, the bad grade is not replaced.
- Worth the effort? Retaking a class that has a D to change to a B will result in maybe a .05 - .10 change in cumulative GPA. If the D gets completely removed from the transcript, then it would be worth the retake but if it still shows up bit excluded from the cum GPA it might not be worth retaking.
It should be all classes for your cumulative GPA, but you might also have a major GPA which only counts the classes for the major.
Btw, your son’s university website will have this info so you could look it up yourself.
Consider how significant the change in GPA might be. If it’s only a few hundredths of a point, this might be much ado about nothing.
All of the eight schools where my family members attended used all courses completed to calculate GPA. My guess is that the “courses not used” category is referring to courses that were not designating as fulfilling a specific distribution/major requirement. As previous posters have noted, the impact of one or two more classes on a GPA at this point will be very small.
At this point I would recommend that instead of taking extra classes he use that time to find a job for when he graduates.