UW–Madison GPA Calculator

UW–Madison GPA rules at a glance

A generic 4.0 calculator gets several things wrong for UW–Madison students. The university skips plus and minus grades, adds two half-step grades, and keeps every attempt at a course in your average. The calculator above and this page both follow what UW–Madison publishes through the Office of the Registrar and the Guide.

How to use the UW–Madison GPA calculator

1. Pick your school or college. It decides which Dean’s List and probation rules the results use. L&S students also pick a class standing, because L&S asks more of juniors and seniors: freshman means under 24 credits, sophomore 24 to 53, junior 54 to 85 and senior 86 or more.
2. Enter this semester’s courses. Add the credits and pick the grade, AB and BC included. Marks such as S, CR, I or T are in the same list. They stay out of the GPA, and the results name them.
3. Mark any retake. Choose Retake for a course you’ve taken before. Nothing gets replaced, because UW–Madison counts every attempt, but the table flags the row so you can see what happened to your average.
4. Add your record so far. Enter your current cumulative GPA and the Cum GPA Credits from the Undergraduate Career Totals section of your unofficial transcript. DARS lists the same two numbers under Quality of Work in the Degree. Use the full three-decimal figure, such as 3.120.
5. Set your standing and a goal. Pick the standing you began the term with, or Good or new if you have no academic action on your record. The target GPA and next semester’s credits are optional: without a target, the plan line asks for one instead.

UW–Madison runs two GPA calculators of its own. The L&S Academic Deans’ Services calculator projects your academic status from your current standing, GPA and GPA credits. Academic Advising’s calculator works out a new cumulative GPA and the grades you’d need to raise it. This one works through your courses row by row, then checks the Dean’s List line for your school or college and your academic standing, all on one screen.

UW–Madison grading scale: A, AB, B, BC and no plus or minus

UW–Madison reports semester grades as letters only, and plus and minus signs are not used. The two intermediate grades, AB and BC, sit halfway between A and B and between B and C. The Faculty Senate added them to the A–F system in its grading legislation, Faculty Legislation II-103, which is why the UW–Madison GPA scale has steps at 3.5 and 2.5.

The highest possible GPA is 4.000, with an A in every course, and the lowest is 0.000. UW–Madison uses what the Registrar calls a 4.000 grading system. The Law School grades on its own scale, so this calculator isn’t built for law courses.

Is a 93% an A? There is no campus-wide percentage scale

UW–Madison doesn’t publish a percentage-to-letter conversion. Each course sets its own cutoffs, and the Registrar says the syllabus has to explain how graded work turns into a final grade. One course can call 93% an A while another treats it as an AB, so check the syllabus. After the grade posts, find its points in the table above.

How UW–Madison calculates your GPA (formula and a worked example)

Your GPA, or grade point average, is the grade points you’ve earned divided by the credits you took for an A–F grade. Multiply each course’s credits by its grade’s points, add the results, then divide by your total graded credits. Every semester gets a term GPA, and your cumulative GPA runs over all your UW–Madison graded credits.

GPA = total grade points ÷ total A–F credits

The calculator opens with this semester:

48.5 ÷ 15 = 3.2333…, a 3.233 term GPA. The S in the pass/fail elective earns its 2 credits, but it stays out of both the grade points and the credits the GPA divides by.

The student came into the semester with a 3.120 on 45 GPA credits, which is 140.4 grade points. Adding this term gives 188.9 ÷ 60 = 3.148 cumulative. General Chemistry II is a retake of an F, and that F stays in the 45 credits.

If UW–Madison replaced failed grades the way some schools do, the F’s 4 credits would drop out and the result would be 188.9 ÷ 56 = 3.373. The gap of more than two tenths is why a retake at UW–Madison helps less than students often expect.

Grades that don’t count in your GPA

Some transcript marks carry no grade points, so their credits stay out of the calculation. Some are temporary and turn into a grade that does count later.

An Incomplete doesn’t stay out of your GPA forever. For Incompletes given from Fall 2025 on, the missing work has to be finished and graded by the Friday of the eighth week of the next fall or spring term. If it isn’t, the I lapses to an F, which counts as 0.0 in your GPA, or to an N in a credit/no-credit course.

Transfer, AP and exam credit

Your UW–Madison GPA uses only credits earned or attempted at UW–Madison. Courses from another college and credit by exam, including AP and IB credit, show on your transcript with a T. They can count toward your degree requirements, but they carry no grade points, so they leave your GPA exactly where it was.

Does retaking a class replace the grade at UW–Madison?

No. UW–Madison keeps every A–F attempt at a course in your GPA, with the course’s credits counted only once toward your degree. Faculty Legislation II-103 says undergraduates may repeat any course once without the dean’s permission, and the Registrar’s grading page gives the same GPA rule. Repeating a course adds a new grade to your average. It doesn’t erase the old one, and a failed grade stays on your transcript and in your GPA.

Here’s what that does to one 3-credit course taken twice. An F the first time and an A the second put 12 grade points over 6 credits, so the two attempts together average 2.000. At a school that replaces the grade, the same student would carry a 4.000 for that course.

A course you’ve already passed can also be retaken on a refresher basis. You don’t earn its degree credit a second time, but the new grade still goes into your term and cumulative GPAs. If you plan to retake something, talk to your advisor or dean’s office first, because some programs set extra conditions.

Engineering’s point-credit ratio and Core GPA

The College of Engineering tracks a second figure, the point-credit ratio, alongside your GPA. Your GPA counts every attempt like everyone else’s, but the point-credit ratio uses only the final attempt of a repeated course.

For progression into an engineering major, the Core and Overall GPAs use the more recent grade of one repeated core course, and only one. A D or F in any Core GPA course also has to be repeated for a C or better before guaranteed progression. The calculator shows your GPA, which is the number on your transcript.

What GPA do you need for the Dean’s List at UW–Madison?

It depends on your school or college. Every UW–Madison Dean’s List needs at least 12 graded degree credits in a fall or spring semester, and each school or college sets its own GPA line and name for the honor. Pass/fail and credit/no credit courses don’t count toward the 12.

Class standing comes from credits earned: under 24 is a freshman, 24 to 53 a sophomore, 54 to 85 a junior and 86 or more a senior. A first-year student who arrives with enough AP credit to count as a junior already needs the 3.850. L&S also never rounds a GPA up for the list, so a sophomore with a 3.599 misses it.

So is a 3.4 or a 3.2 enough? Not for any Dean’s List at UW–Madison, since the lowest line is 3.500. A Nursing student with a 3.4 on 12 or more credits does get the school’s congratulatory statement.

The School of Pharmacy isn’t in the table. Its term honors are called Honor Roll and High Honor Roll, and they follow the school’s own criteria, which the calculator doesn’t check.

The Registrar publishes the Spring list on June 1 and the Fall list on January 1, after grade changes and Incompletes have settled. The notation appears on your unofficial transcript and under View Grades in MyUW Student Center.

What GPA puts you on academic probation at UW–Madison?

Under 2.000 in most schools and colleges, judged on both your term GPA and your cumulative GPA. Education and Nursing set the line at 2.500. Each school or college runs its own ladder of actions, and the calculator above applies the one for the school you pick.

A 2.6, then, isn’t probation anywhere: it clears the 2.000 line in most schools and the 2.500 line in Education and Nursing.

In L&S you return to good standing once your term and cumulative GPAs are both 2.000 or higher and no Incomplete is left on your record, and you need a cumulative 2.000 to graduate. If L&S suspends you, coming back takes two applications: readmission to the College of Letters & Science first and, once that’s approved, reentry to UW–Madison through the Office of Admissions.

Education doesn’t set standing after summer coursework, so read the calculator’s standing line as a fall or spring result. Nursing also puts a student on probation for a D, F or NC in any nursing course or a nursing GPA under 2.5, which the calculator can’t see from a course list.

The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and the School of Pharmacy publish their own standing rules through their offices, so for those two the calculator shows your GPAs without a verdict.

Graduating with Distinction at UW–Madison

UW–Madison’s graduation honors are Distinction and, in some schools, Highest Distinction. There’s no fixed GPA. Your cumulative GPA has to place you in the top 20% of your school or college’s graduating class, and you need at least 60 credits earned at UW–Madison. The Registrar posts “Graduated with Distinction” to your record about 45 days after the semester ends.

The top 5% earn “Graduated with Highest Distinction” in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the School of Human Ecology and the School of Pharmacy, according to the Registrar. The College of Engineering’s own regulations use the same two levels: Highest Distinction for the top 5% and Distinction for the next 15%.

None of these are Latin honors. Undergraduates don’t get cum laude or summa cum laude, so a 3.9 has no summa line to clear; at UW–Madison only the Law School awards Latin honors, on its own 4.3 scale.

Before commencement, students expected to graduate in the top 20% with 60 residence credits completed or in progress are invited to wear the honors stole. That list is preliminary, though. The Distinction notation itself is worked out after final grades. Because it rests on class rank, the calculator can’t tell you whether you’ll get it; a higher cumulative GPA is the only lever you have.

How to raise your UW–Madison GPA

Each semester is a smaller share of your total credits than the one before, so the earlier you act, the more a strong semester moves your average. Say your GPA is 2.800 and you want a 3.000 after a 15-credit semester. With 60 credits behind you, you’d need a 3.800 semester. With 90 credits behind you, even straight A’s would leave you short, because you’d need a 4.2.

The plan line in the calculator does this sum for you. Enter the cumulative GPA you want and next semester’s credits, and it shows the semester GPA you’d need, or tells you the target is out of reach in one term. Because retakes add grades rather than replacing them, a retaken F raises your GPA only as much as any new course with the same grade would.

Major GPA, L&S, Engineering and Business GPAs

Your cumulative GPA isn’t the only average that matters. Some DARS reports show a major GPA, and the Registrar suggests working it out with your advisor or with a GPA calculator, using only your major courses. Here, enter just those courses and leave the record fields blank: the term GPA is then your major GPA.

Engineering admits students to a major through the Core and Overall GPAs described above. The School of Business asks students it has admitted to keep a 2.00 cumulative and a 2.00 semester GPA. Graduate students follow the Graduate School’s own grading policies, so this calculator is meant for undergraduate letter grades.

How this UW–Madison GPA calculator works

This UW–Madison GPA calculator is built only on what UW–Madison publishes. The grade scale and the excluded marks come from the Office of the Registrar and the Guide, and the repeat rule from Faculty Legislation II-103 and the Registrar. The Dean’s List and standing rules come from each school or college’s policies in the Guide.

The calculator keeps every attempt, shows GPAs to three decimals without rounding up, and checks the Dean’s List line for seven schools and colleges and the standing rules for six of them.

There are limits. The calculator can’t see your transcript, so it trusts the record you type in. It doesn’t know which of your courses are nursing courses, it can’t rank you against your graduating class for Distinction, and it has no verdict on standing for CALS or Pharmacy.

Everything runs in your browser and nothing you enter is stored. Calculate Your Grade isn’t connected with UW–Madison; for anything official, go by your transcript, DARS and your dean’s office.

Sources

• Office of the Registrar: Student Grading and GPA, Valid Grades, Dean’s List, the Degree Honors article and the 2025 Incomplete policy
• UW–Madison Policy Library: Faculty Legislation II-103: Grading System and Faculty Legislation II-104: Honors Designations at Commencement
• Guide: Undergraduate Guide (grades, class standing, academic probation), and the policies and honors of Letters & Science, Engineering, Business, Agricultural and Life Sciences, Education, Nursing and Human Ecology
• L&S Undergraduate Academic Deans’ Services: Probation

Built and maintained by Mahmudul, the creator of Calculate Your Grade. UW–Madison rules checked against the Office of the Registrar, Faculty Legislation II-103 and the Guide’s school and college policies in October 2026.

Related calculators

• Also looking at Purdue? Purdue grades with plus and minus steps: between an A and a B sit an A- (3.7) and a B+ (3.3), where UW–Madison has one AB at 3.5. The grade calculator Purdue students can use runs on that scale, and it counts only the latest grade of a retake.
• Torn between Madison and Urbana-Champaign? UIUC uses plus and minus grades in place of AB and BC, so a B+ there is worth 3.33. The GPA calculator UIUC students use cuts every GPA at two decimals. Unlike UW–Madison, UIUC lets you ask for a retake to replace a grade of C- or lower, in up to 4 courses and 10 hours.

Frequently asked questions