Midterm Grade Calculator
This midterm grade calculator works out the score you need on the midterm when the final exam is still ahead of you as well. If every graded piece of work is already in and only one exam is left, the calculator for what you need on the final answers that in fewer steps.
List the work that already has a grade. The midterm and the final each get their own row underneath, where you enter only what they count for.
Category by category
| Category | Score | Counts for | Contributes |
|---|
Runs in your browser. Nothing is sent or stored. Your syllabus sets the weights and your instructor sets the rounding, so check both before anything important depends on the answer.
Free to use, no sign up, and every calculation happens in your browser.
How to use this midterm grade calculator
The tool opens on What I need on the midterm, because that is the question most people arrive with. Three things go in and the answer comes out.
- List the work that already has a grade. That is what your current grade is built from. One row each, with your score and the percentage it counts for. Homework, quizzes, labs, participation, whatever your course actually uses. If nothing has been graded yet, that is fine, leave the rows empty and the answer still works.
- Give the midterm and the final their weights. They each have their own row underneath, and in this mode you enter only what they count for. The midterm score is deliberately blank, because that is the number being solved for.
- Pick an assumption about the final, then set your target. The default assumes you score the same on both, which needs no guessing. Switch it to a specific score if you have one in mind.
Underneath you get the score you need, the letter it lands you on, and the best and worst grades still open to you. Open Category by category to see what each row contributes.
If both exams are still ahead and you would rather see where two scores land you, switch to Where I’ll land. Nothing is saved and nothing is sent anywhere.
A midterm is not a final
This is the whole reason the answer is harder than it looks, and why most calculators get the question wrong.
A final is the last thing that happens. When you ask what you need on a final, everything else is already graded, so there is exactly one unknown and exactly one answer. That is a clean problem.
A midterm sits in the middle. When you ask what you need on the midterm, the final is also still ahead, and often some coursework with it. There are two unknowns, and two unknowns do not have one answer. What you need on the midterm depends entirely on how the final goes.
The arithmetic is fine. That is simply the shape of the situation, and a calculator that hides it is telling you something it cannot know. This page handles it by making the assumption explicit and letting you change it. The default is the most useful one for planning: assume you perform about the same on both exams. If you have a better idea, say so, and the answer moves.
The formula, with the final still ahead
A weighted course grade is a weighted average. Each category contributes in proportion to its weight, and the two exams are just categories that do not have scores yet.
Call your target T, the work already graded E, which is the sum of score times weight, the weight of that graded work W, the midterm weight m and the final weight f. The total weight is W + m + f. Then the midterm score you need, if you assume the same score on both exams, is:
Both exam weights sit in the denominator, because under that assumption both are carrying the same score. If instead you name a final score F, the midterm alone has to make up the difference:
The second formula is the one that shifts. F sits inside it, so every change to your expected final changes what the midterm has to be.
A worked example, category by category
Take a syllabus that reads homework 20%, quizzes 15%, midterm 30%, final 35%. You are carrying 92 in homework and 84 in quizzes, and your target grade for the course is 88.
Multiply each graded score by its weight:
- Homework: 92 × 20 = 1,840
- Quizzes: 84 × 15 = 1,260
Those add to 3,100, across just 35% of the course. Divide one by the other and your current grade is 88.57% on the work that has been graded. Notice how little that number is really telling you: it covers barely a third of the course.
Now solve for the midterm, assuming you score the same on the final. The weights total 100 and the target is 88:
You need 87.69% on the midterm, and about the same on the final, to finish on 88. Aim at 90 for the course and it becomes 90.77% on both. Settle for 85 and it drops to 83.08%; settle for 80 and it drops again to 75.38%.
Going the other way, if you expect a 90 on the midterm and an 85 on the final, the course lands on 87.75%.
How much your assumed final changes the answer
Keep the same numbers and the same target of 88, and change only what you expect on the final.
| If the final comes in at | You need this on the midterm |
|---|---|
| 100% | 73.33% |
| 95% | 79.17% |
| 90% | 85.00% |
| 85% | 90.83% |
| 80% | 96.67% |
| 70% | 108.33%, which is impossible |
The same course, the same target, the same graded work, and the midterm requirement swings from a comfortable 73% to arithmetically out of reach. That spread is the single most useful thing to understand at this point in a semester, and it is why one number quoted without an assumption is close to meaningless.
It runs the other way too. A 95 on the midterm leaves you needing 81.43% on the final for an 88. An 85 needs 90.00%. A 75 needs 98.57%, which is a very thin margin to leave yourself.
A strong midterm buys you room on the final. A weak one spends that room in advance.
What is still ahead of you, and what that means
Two numbers are worth knowing before you decide how worried to be.
On the same syllabus, acing both exams puts the course at 96.00%. Skipping both leaves it at 31.00%. Those are the maximum and minimum course grades still attainable, and everything you can finish on lives between them. The gap between them is 65 points, because 65% of the course has not been graded yet.
That is the honest picture at midterm: almost nothing is settled. The 88.57% current grade looks reassuring and is built on 35% of the work. A student in this position who is panicking has more room than they think, and a student who is coasting has more exposure than they think. Set a low enough target and the tool will tell you it is already locked in, which means even a zero on both exams cannot cost you it. Both are reading a number that does not yet mean much.
The tool prints both limits under every answer for exactly that reason. As the semester goes on and more work is graded, they close in on each other, and the number in the middle starts to deserve your attention.
One caution about the letter grade beside the number. It uses the common whole-letter grading scale, where 90 and above is an A, 80 is a B, and so on down. Some schools do not use that. A seven point scale starts a C at 77 rather than 70, and some departments award no A plus at all, so treat the letter as a guide and the percentage as the real answer. Your student handbook sets the cutoffs that actually apply to you.
Finding your weights on the syllabus
The weights are the part people get wrong, and they are written down somewhere specific, whether that is a high school course outline or a college syllabus.
Look under a heading like Grading, Assessment or Evaluation, where you should find a short list of categories with a percentage against each. In Canvas the weights live under Assignments, in the group headers rather than on individual items. Blackboard, Moodle, D2L, Banner and PowerSchool all do something equivalent. A category average shown beside each group of work means weighting is switched on, while a single running total means the class is graded on points instead.
Use the category averages your gradebook already shows rather than averaging the individual assignments yourself. The system may drop a lowest score or handle a missing item in a way you would not reproduce by hand.
When the weights do not add up to 100
This is not necessarily a mistake on your part. A syllabus may leave out a component that has not started, or round each figure to a whole number. The tool divides by the total of the weights you actually entered rather than by 100, and it says on screen when it is doing that. It is still worth a second look, because a total under 100 sometimes means a category is genuinely missing from your list. And if your class has no percentages at all, just a running total of points possible, the weights here can take the point values instead, since the formula divides by the total either way. If the number you want is a GPA on a 4.0 scale rather than a course percentage, that is a different calculation, and this page deliberately does not print one.
When the midterm is not a simple category
Some courses do not give the midterm a clean percentage of its own. Each of these shapes can still be entered once you know what to convert it into.
- You have two midterms. Give the first one its own row in the graded list once you have the score, and leave the second as the midterm row. If both are still ahead, put them in as one combined row carrying their total weight and read the answer as what you need to average across the pair.
- The lowest midterm is dropped. Enter the category twice over, once with the low score counted and once without, and compare the two answers. The difference is what the policy is really worth to you.
- The final replaces a midterm if it is higher. Work out both versions. Enter it once with the midterm counted normally, then again with the midterm weight moved onto the final. Your actual grade will be whichever of the two comes out better.
- The final is cumulative. That changes how you should study, not how the weights work. A cumulative final still counts for whatever percentage the syllabus gives it.
- The midterm counts as two test grades. Convert it into a share of the course. If tests are 50% of the grade, there are three regular tests, and the midterm counts as two of them, the midterm is two slots out of five: 50 × 2 ÷ 5 = 20%. The three regular tests then form one category worth 30%.
The principle behind all five is the same. The tool only cares about the share of the course each row represents, so any policy that can be expressed as a share can be entered.
A midterm grade can also mean a progress report
There are two different things called a midterm grade, and it is worth knowing which one you are holding.
One is the exam this page is built around, a graded component that counts toward the course grade. The other is an advisory progress report that many colleges issue partway through a term, and at a number of institutions it does not count toward anything at all.
The published policies differ, so check your own registrar rather than assuming. Some real examples:
- Temple University states that midterm progress ratings are not recorded on the student’s transcript.
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison issues temporary midterm grades to first year students that are not recorded on the transcript and are visible to the student for only about ten days.
- The University of Southern Indiana treats midterm grades of A through DP as informational, and reports them after the sixth week. A D, F or NP triggers a letter encouraging the student to speak to the instructor about dropping the course, seeking tutoring, or other options.
If what arrived is a progress report, it is feedback from your teacher or professor rather than a grade, and its real value is the timing. It usually lands while there is still a drop deadline ahead of you and most of the course still ungraded, which, as the numbers above show, is when your grade is at its most moveable.
Related calculators
This page exists for one shape of question: the midterm ahead of you, with the final ahead of that. If your course is split into terms that each get their own grade, and you want to know how they combine with an exam into one result, the semester exam grade calculator is built for that shape instead. If instead your course reports a grade every quarter, that is a different shape again, and a year built from quarter grades is its own calculation.
Results are estimates based on the weights and scores you enter. Your syllabus sets the weights and your instructor sets the rounding, so confirm anything that matters against the official gradebook.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate my midterm grade?
Multiply each graded category score by the percentage it counts for, add those products together, then divide by the total of the weights. With homework 92 at 20% and quizzes 84 at 15%, that is 1,840 plus 1,260, which is 3,100 across 35% of the course, or 88.57% on the work graded so far. To find what the midterm itself has to be, subtract that running total from your target multiplied by the full weight, then divide by the weight of the exams still to come.
What do I need on the midterm to get an A?
On the example above, with a 30% midterm and a 35% final still ahead, a 90 for the course needs 90.77% on the midterm if you score about the same on the final. The honest answer is that it depends on the final as much as the midterm, which is why the tool asks you to state an assumption rather than quietly picking one for you. The same arithmetic answers the other end of the scale. Set the target to whatever counts as a passing grade in your course, whether that is 60, 70 or something else, and the required midterm score drops sharply.
My final is still ahead. How can the calculator know what I need on the midterm?
It cannot know, and it does not pretend to. With two exams still to come there are two unknowns, so there is one answer per assumption about the final. The default assumes you score the same on both, which is the most useful starting point for planning. Change the assumed final and the midterm requirement moves with it, sometimes dramatically: on the worked example it swings from 73.33% to impossible depending on whether the final comes in at 100 or 70.
What if I have two midterms?
If one is already graded, put it in the list of graded work with its own weight and leave the second as the midterm row. If both are still ahead, enter them as a single row carrying their combined weight, and read the result as the average you need across the pair.
Does my midterm grade count toward my final grade?
A midterm exam does, for whatever percentage your syllabus gives it. A midterm progress report often does not. Those are two different things that share a name, and which one you have depends on your institution. Temple University, for example, states that midterm progress ratings are not recorded on the transcript. Check your own registrar rather than assuming either way.
Is a midterm grade the same as a progress report?
Not usually. A progress report is an advisory snapshot issued partway through a term, often as an early warning. The University of Southern Indiana treats midterm grades of A through DP as informational and reports them after the sixth week, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison issues temporary ones to first year students that stay visible for about ten days and never reach the transcript. Policies vary, so your registrar is the authority for your own course.
What if my weights do not add up to 100%?
The calculation still works. Instead of dividing by 100, divide by whatever your weights actually total, and this page does that automatically and tells you when it has. A total under 100 often means a category is missing from your list, so it is worth checking the syllabus again before relying on the number.
Why does my gradebook show a different number?
Usually a policy rather than an error. Rounding rules differ, extra credit may be applied inside a category before it is weighted, a lowest score may be dropped, a curved test may be recorded at its curved value, and late work may be entered at a reduced score. Use the category averages your gradebook prints rather than averaging the individual assignments yourself, and the two figures normally line up.