Semester Grade Calculator
Enter your two quarter grades and your final exam, with the weights your school uses, to get your semester grade.
Final not entered yet, so this is your standing on quarters alone. Fill it in after exam week for the full semester grade.
How the semester grade works
A semester grade is a weighted average of the grading periods plus the final: semester = Q1 x w1 + Q2 x w2 + Final x w3, with the weights adding up to 100%. Schools publish these weights in the syllabus or student handbook. The classic split is 40/40/20, which makes each quarter twice as important as the final.
The useful trick: fill in only your quarters before exam week. The calculator renormalizes the weights and shows your standing going in, and from there it's obvious whether the final is a chance to climb or a lead to protect. To get the exact score you need on that final, the final grade calculator answers it directly.
A worked example
Say you got a 91 in Q1, an 86 in Q2, and your school weights 40/40/20. Going into the final you sit at 88.5%. A 90 on the final lands the semester at 88.8% (B+), while a 75 drops it to 85.8% (B). That 15-point swing on the final only moved the semester grade 3 points, which is the whole point of quarter-heavy weighting: consistent quarters are worth more than one big exam day.
Frequently asked questions
- How is a semester grade usually calculated?
- Most US high schools average the two quarter (or two nine-weeks) grades and a final exam by fixed weights. The most common split is 40% + 40% + 20%, which is this calculator's default, but 45/45/10 and 50/50 with no final are common too. Use whatever your syllabus says.
- What if my class has no final exam?
- Leave the final blank or set its weight to 0. The calculator renormalizes, so with equal quarter weights your semester grade is just the average of the two quarters.
- Can a final exam change my letter grade?
- At 20% it moves the semester grade by up to one letter step in most realistic cases. If you're within about 2 points of a boundary, the final decides which side you land on; the result here shows exactly how close you are.
- Do semesters use points or percentages?
- This tool works in percentages. If your teacher grades in points, divide earned by possible points per quarter first, or use the weighted grade calculator with raw weights.