In the default Calculator mode, the tool creates lists of your courses and grades from the enrolment data in your York student record for each academic session. It automatically calculates GPAs for individual sessions and your entire course history. Academic sessions appear in reverse chronological order, so your most recent session appear first. The calculator is also customizable: you can add courses and sessions, and experiment with different letter grade values to see what your GPA could be in different scenarios.

Sessional GPA summary box

Under each academic session container, there is a summary box showing the sessional weighted grade point value total, the sessional course credit total, and the sessional GPA resulting from the division of those two totals.

Cumulative GPA summary box

At the bottom of the Calculator screen, there is a summary box showing your overall weighted grade point value total and your overall course credit total, summed across all academic sessions, and the cumulative GPA resulting from the division of those two totals.

Adding an academic session

To add an academic session to the calculator, click the ADD SESSION button, then choose from the drop-down list the academic session you want to add. A new session container will appear.

You can only add the same session to the calculator once: it will disappear from the ADD SESSION drop-down list if its container already appears in your calculator.

Removing an academic session

To add an academic session to the calculator, click the REMOVE SESSION button in the session container. A dialog box will appear to ask whether you want to proceed: click REMOVE to delete the session; click CANCEL to keep the session. 

Adding a course to an academic session

To add a course to an academic session container, click the ADD COURSE button in that container. A new course row will appear. Choose the correct values for the course in the Faculty, Subject, Course #, and Credits.

Note: Some courses have different versions with different credit weights. For example, GL/BIOL 4000 3.00 and GL/BIOL 4000 6.00 are both biology honours thesis courses at Glendon that vary in their credit value but share the same course number, Faculty and course subject.

If the tool automatically chooses the wrong course credit value for you based on your Faculty / Subject / Course # input, you can edit the value by clicking it and typing in the correct value.

Removing a course from an academic session

To remove a course from an academic session container, click the red X (Remove Course) button in the course row. The row will be deleted and your GPA calculations will automatically update.

Changing the details of a course within an academic session

Instead of deleting a course row, you can choose to edit its details.

The Faculty, Subject, Course #, Credits, and Grade column values within a course row are all editable, as indicated by the pencil icon next to the column header.

Some scenarios where you might find this editing ability useful:

• you accidentally used incorrect input, such as the wrong course subject or course number
• you want to see how different letter grades for a course in progress would affect your GPA
• the calculator's course search returned the wrong course details, such as the incorrect credit value where more than one credit value is possible for the same course number (see the Note under Adding a course to an academic session)

Excluding a course from GPA calculations

You may want to see what your GPA could look like without a course or set of courses without actually deleting the course from the calculator.

You can click the Exclude slider toggle in the row for a course to exclude that course from your GPA calculations. The row will turn gray with slanted stripes to indicate its exclusion. Your GPA calculations will also automatically update.

Click the Exclude slider toggle again to re-include the course in GPA calculations.

Some scenarios where you might find the Exclude option useful:

• you want to see whether it makes sense to drop a course before the deadline given its potential impact on your GPA
• you want to see how exercising the Course Relief Policy option would affect your GPA
• you want to calculate your GPA for a specific course subject or course level, such as only for your major subject courses or only for 4000-level courses

In Target GPA mode, you will input your course credits already completed, your current GPA based on those courses, and your expected course credit load for the academic session.

You will also identify a target GPA that you want to have at the end of the academic session. The target GPA can be higher, lower, or the same as your current GPA.

After you input this data and click the CALCULATE button, the tool tells you whether it is possible to get to your target GPA based on your input.

When it is possible to achieve the target GPA based on your input data, the output box will be shaded in green. It will tell you how many weighted grade points you would need to earn in the session, and the minimum course letter grades you would need to earn to do so.

When it is impossible to achieve the target GPA based on your input data, then the output box will be shaded in red. In that case, you can increase your expected course credit load and/or decrease your target GPA value to see what is achievable.

If you change any input value after a calculation, then you must again click the CALCULATE button to see an updated result.

If you do not complete all four input fields, or if any of the input is formatted incorrectly, then the tool will show error message prompting you to correct the input.

You can also calculate a GPA yourself as follows: 

1. Find the letter grades earned for a set of courses. 
2. Convert each earned letter grade to its associated grade point value (GPV). Conversion tables are shown below under the heading Letter Grade Point Values. 
3. Multiply each course’s GPV by its credit value to calculate its weighted GPV. 
4. Add up all the weighted GPVs for the set of courses. 
5. Divide the sum of weighted GPVs by the sum of credit weights for the set of courses. The result is the GPA for the set of courses.