Convert CGPA to Percentage: A Comprehensive Guide for Students

What is CGPA

CGPA stands for Cumulative Grade Point Average. It is the average of all the grade points a student has earned across all his/her subjects. It’s different from GPA (Grade-point GPA) which is calculated for a particular subject or more usually, a particular semester while CGPA measures the student’s performance across all semesters. While GPA is a commonly used term when discussing one’s academic record in college discussions, a student must have a strong GPA across all semesters and therefore a high CGPA to get into top universities. Colleges like consistency, sometimes even more than they like brilliance. Some look at both GPA and CGPA as a result. So, here’s a guide to everything you need to know about the CGPA, including how to convert it to a percentage.

More differences between GPA and CGPA

Often, US universities generally focus on the 4-point GPA system more. As a result, international schools that train their students for universities abroad also subscribe to the GPA system. However, Indian universities and schools, as well as some in Europe, often use the 10-point CGPA system and are more concerned with a student’s performance over the extended period of time that CGPA takes into account. The common conversion from 10-point CGPA to 4-point GPA and what that means in letter grades is shown below:

With the conversion in mind, it’s also important to note that CGPA’s main purpose is to determine the efforts of the students and give an extra nudge of encouragement to those who need to improve their ranking.

How to calculate CGPA

There are a couple of different ways to calculate CGPA, depending on the system your particular institution has. If you  already have the 4-point GPA for each semester, then you have to use them to calculate the weighted average GPA across semesters and then divide that by the total number of credit hours.

Generally, the most populist way to calculate CGPA (the 10-point system), we assign grade points to each grade a student received based on percentages. The following table shows the basic conversion for each subject letter grade and numerical score to grade points:

Adding the grade points for each subject and then dividing by the total number of subjects gives the overall CGPA of a student. For example if a student’s transcript looked like this:

In this case, we can add the grade points for each subject: 9+6+7+5+8 = 35 and then divide that by the total number of subjects: 5. 35/5 gives a CGPA of 7.

Also read: The anxiety surrounding choices in high school and how to escape it

How to Convert CGPA to percentage

To convert your CGPA to percentage, you simply have to multiply your CGPA score by 9.5. For instance, if my CGPA was 8, then the percentage I achieved would be 76%.

Conversion of IB points to GPA

If you go to an international school with an IB curriculum, some of these grading scales would be unfamiliar to you. However, GPA and CGPA can be useful for you too when you are applying to universities as some schools may require it. US universities typically look at your IB predicted grades on the 1-7 scale and you can convert that to unweighted GPA points as shown below:

7 = A+  = 4.3 GPA points

6 = A = 4 GPA points

5 = B = 3 GPA points

4 = C = 2 GPA points

3 = D = 1 GPA points

For each semester GPA, you can add the GPA points for each course that semester and divide it by the total number of courses that semester. For CGPA, you can add the semester GPAs and divide that by the total number of semesters. For the IBDP program, you can also calculate weighted GPA which takes into account additional points based on student achievement and any further education in rigorous coursework.

Advantages and Disadvantages of CGPA

Using the CGPA system can have multiple advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. There is less stress about getting a percentage higher or lower on an exam as due to the conversion ranges of the numerical score to grade points, the student’s performance is more holistically calculated through CGPA
2. It’s a good measure as it helps the student assess which subjects they have low grade points on and need to work on
3. Gives the student a clear understanding of their overall academic performance on average through which they reflect on their trajectory and see how to improve for university.
4. It helps universities see if the student has been able to maintain a consistently high academic record

Disadvantages:

1. Due to the big ranges of the conversion from numerical scores to grade points, the CGPA system eliminates the sense of competition which may be the motivation for many students to excel
2. Due to large ranges in the conversion and the reductive way of calculation, results are not extremely accurate or a precise reflection of the student’s performance lal the time.
3. The decreased competition may also reduce a student’s performance as they take this grading system for granted.

Depending on your institution and the conversion you use, you may have to assess if calculating CGPA is best for your performance and application (unless it’s anyways calculated by the administration). It also depends on where you are applying and whether they use the CGPA system or not. It always helps to think about your CGPA to some level so that you maintain a strong academic record across all semesters all the same. Best of luck!