UTK GPA Calculator

How UTK calculates your GPA

Your UTK GPA is the quality points (what most schools call grade points) you earned at UT Knoxville divided by the hours you attempted there for a letter grade. As a formula: for each course, multiply its credit hours by the quality points its grade carries, add those products up, then divide the total by the credit hours of every course that got a letter grade. Hours with an I, N, NC, NR, P, S or W stay out of both totals, and so do grades transferred from another school.

UTK finishes the GPA calculation by rounding the result to two decimal places. That’s the opposite of schools like UGA and UH, which cut the extra digits off, so at UTK a 3.4960 shows up on MyUTK as a 3.50, not a 3.49.

A worked example: how 3.5357 becomes a 3.54

The calculator above opens with a typical first-year spring semester. Here’s the arithmetic it runs:

49.5 ÷ 14 = 3.5357, which rounds to a 3.54 term GPA. The student came in with a 2.80 on 30 GPA hours, and that record includes a D in General Chemistry I from the fall. Because the B+ is a grade replacement, the D’s 4.0 quality points and 4 hours come out of the record first. That leaves (84 − 4 + 49.5) ÷ (30 − 4 + 14) = 129.5 ÷ 40 = 3.2375, a 3.24 cumulative. Without the replacement, both grades would count and the cumulative would be 3.03.

Using the UTK GPA calculator

1. Enter this term’s courses. Course names are optional. Pick each grade from the list; marks that don’t count in the GPA, like S, NC or W, are listed separately.
2. Mark any repeat. If a course replaces an earlier grade, pick that grade in the Repeat column. Add how many replacements and hours you’ve already used so the calculator applies UTK’s limits.
3. Add your record so far. Your current UTK GPA and GPA hours from MyUTK give your new cumulative GPA, your standing and your Latin honors range. Total quality points, if you have them, give the exact figure.
4. Set the rest. Choose your standing at the start of the term and your catalog year; the lists open on good standing and the 2022–23 or later catalog. Everything else here is optional. Without the hours you’ve passed, there’s no class standing line. HOPE falls back to this term alone if you skip your HOPE GPA and attempted hours, and a blank target GPA leaves the planning line asking for one.

Grades that don’t count in your UTK GPA

Some marks on your record carry no quality points, so their hours stay out of the GPA. Several still matter for the Tennessee HOPE scholarship, because HOPE counts every course you were enrolled in on the census date as attempted hours.

First Year Composition grades

First Year Composition courses use a shorter scale: A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, I, NC and W. There’s no C-, D or F on that scale; the only grade below a C is NC, which carries no quality points and no credit.

The UTK GPA scale

The UTK grading scale for undergraduates is a 4.0 scale with twelve letter grades. Plus and minus steps run all the way down to a D-, but there’s no A+, so an A is the top grade at 4.0. The 2026–2027 Undergraduate Catalog lists each grade with a performance level and the quality points it earns for every credit hour:

Notice where “Unsatisfactory” starts. A C- still passes the course and adds 1.7 quality points per hour, but UTK labels everything from C- down as unsatisfactory, and those are the grades you’re allowed to replace.

Graduate courses use a shorter scale with no C-, D+ or D-. The calculator follows the undergraduate scale.

Older transcripts can follow an older scale. UT’s transcript key lists the undergraduate chart used before fall 2006: A 4.0, B+ 3.5, B 3.0, C+ 2.5, C 2.0, D 1.0 and F 0, with no minus grades. Volopedia, the UT Libraries history of the university, dates the Faculty Senate’s switch to A-, B- and C- grades, with the B+ moving to 3.3, to fall 2008. If your record goes back that far, the transcript key shows which scale each term used.

What percentage is an A at UTK?

UTK doesn’t set one. The catalog assigns quality points to letters and stops there, so the percentage cut-offs come from each course syllabus. A 90 could be an A in one class and an A- in another, and a 70 could be a C or a C-. After the grade is posted, only the letter matters, and the table above gives its quality points.

Retaking a course: UTK’s grade replacement rules

Most retakes at UTK don’t erase anything. Under the general repeat policy, every grade you earn in a repeated course counts in your GPA. The exception is grade replacement, which lets you swap out a few low grades:

The general repeat policy sets the outer limits. You can take a course three times at most, and a C-, D+, D, D-, F, I, NC, NF or other N-prefix grade counts as one of those attempts. You can’t repeat a course once you’ve earned a C or better in it, and a repeated course counts only once toward the hours you need to graduate. Your college or program can set stricter rules, and those override the general policy.

The calculator applies the limits in order, starting from the replacements you’ve already used. A repeat that would push you past three grades or 13 hours is marked as one where both grades count, which is what your record will show.

Dean’s List: three levels each semester

UTK announces its Dean’s List every term at three levels, set by your semester GPA:

To be eligible you need at least 12 hours that term, counting any graduate coursework but not courses taken S/NC. So a semester of 9 letter-graded hours and a 3-hour S/NC elective doesn’t qualify, however high the GPA. The example semester above, 3.54 on 14 letter-graded hours, makes the cum laude level.

Latin honors by catalog year

Graduation honors at UTK use your cumulative GPA, graduate coursework included, at the end of your graduation semester. The lines depend on the catalog you graduate under, and they moved up for students on the 2022–2023 catalog:

Pick your catalog year in the calculator and it checks your cumulative GPA against the right set. One thing to know before graduation day: the honors printed in the Commencement program are unofficial. They’re based on your GPA at the end of the term before you graduate, so the honor on your diploma and final transcript can differ.

Academic standing at UTK: probation and dismissal

UTK reviews every record at the end of each term. You’re in good academic standing when both your term and cumulative GPAs are 2.0 or higher. Over two consecutive terms, a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher with at least one of those term GPAs at 2.0 or higher also counts.

Probation comes with directive advising and Academic Success Center programming each term, and you have to meet an advisor before you register, summer included. Students who start at UTK in a summer term can’t be dismissed until at least the following spring.

A first dismissal means sitting out a full fall or spring semester and applying for readmission. A second means at least a calendar year away and 12 credits at a 2.5 GPA or better at another accredited college before you can come back, plus a meeting with the Undergraduate Council Appeals Committee. After a third dismissal you can’t return.

There’s a way to keep going after a first dismissal. Dismissal Reinstatement lets you continue without a break if you have a cumulative GPA of at least 1.50, 15 or fewer deficiency points, no earlier dismissal and no earlier reinstatement. You then need a 2.00 term GPA. Meet it and you continue on probation, or in good standing if your cumulative GPA has reached 2.00; miss it and you’re dismissed, with no second chance at reinstatement.

The catalog doesn’t define deficiency points on that page, so the calculator shows something you can act on instead: the quality points you’re short of a 2.00 cumulative GPA.

If an early stretch at UTK went badly and you’ve been away a while, Academic Second Opportunity may help. You need at least three full calendar years away, an unsatisfactory earlier record (normally below a C average) and 15 or more graded hours at a 2.5 GPA since you came back. Then you can petition to have the old grades left out of your GPA and standing. They stay on your record, and courses passed with a C or better still count toward your degree.

To graduate, your cumulative GPA has to be 2.0 or higher, and the catalog adds requirements for some programs.

Your HOPE GPA is not your UTK GPA

If you’re a Tennessee resident on the HOPE scholarship, the GPA that keeps it isn’t the one on your UTK transcript. Your HOPE GPA covers every course you’ve taken since high school at any college, summer terms included, and it handles repeats differently:

• Only one repeated course in your whole college career can drop the lower grade from your HOPE GPA. UTK’s other two grade replacements still count both grades for HOPE.
• N-prefix grades from ABC/N courses count in your HOPE GPA even though they’re out of your UTK GPA.
• W, S/NC and Incomplete hours carry no grade, but under the Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation’s rules they count as attempted hours, which move you toward the next benchmark.

HOPE checks your cumulative HOPE GPA each time your attempted hours reach a multiple of 24:

That last line is easy to misread. The 3.0 semester GPA has to come in the semester in which you reach the benchmark, not the one before it. TSAC’s rules let you earn it on a full-time or part-time load, but if you keep HOPE that way, your eligibility is checked semester by semester and you have to stay full-time.

If you lose HOPE on GPA, you can regain it one time, by meeting the requirements at a later benchmark and filing One Stop’s HOPE and Institutional Scholarship Appeal form. HOPE also has a time limit: it ends five years after you first enrolled at any college.

The calculator’s HOPE line takes your HOPE GPA and attempted hours so far, adds this term and tells you the benchmark it reaches or the next one coming. In the example above, a 2.90 HOPE GPA on 30 attempted hours becomes a 3.31 on 44 hours if the General Chemistry I retake is your one HOPE repeat, against the 2.75 needed at 48 hours.

It treats all your earlier attempted hours as graded ones, so any W or S/NC hours in your past make the result an estimate; One Stop has your official figure.

UT Core GPA for admission

If you’re applying to UTK from high school, Admissions doesn’t use the GPA on your transcript. It calculates a UT Core GPA from your grades in 16 core courses:

• 4 English
• 4 math, such as algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus or statistics
• 3 science, such as biology, chemistry or physics
• 1 American history
• 1 more history or geography course: European history, world history or world geography
• 2 years of one foreign language (American Sign Language counts)
• 1 visual or performing arts

UT starts from your unweighted grades on a 4-point scale and adds its own weight: 0.5 quality points for an honors course and 1.0 for Advanced Placement, Cambridge AS and A Level, International Baccalaureate and dual enrollment. If your high school doesn’t weight courses, UT doesn’t either.

You don’t need all 16 courses to apply, though Admissions strongly encourages them. Enter your core grades by letter and the calculator adds UT’s weights for you.

A worked example

The Core GPA calculator opens with 32 core grades: 22 A, 8 B and 2 C, with 6 honors grades and 6 AP, IB or dual enrollment grades among them. The letters give 88 + 24 + 4 = 116 points, the honors grades add 3 and the AP, IB and dual enrollment grades 6, for 125. 125 ÷ 32 = 3.91, against a 3.63 without the weight.

GPAs of admitted students

UT doesn’t set a minimum GPA, but its Fall 2026 Release Summary shows where admitted students landed. The middle half of the 27,864 first-year students admitted for fall 2026 had a UT Core weighted GPA between 4.08 and 4.50. By residency, the range was 4.07 to 4.50 in state, 4.11 to 4.50 out of state and 3.81 to 4.33 for international students.

A quarter of admitted students were below 4.08, so a lower Core GPA doesn’t rule you out. Applicants who don’t qualify for guaranteed admission get a holistic review that also looks at senior-year course difficulty, the rigor of the whole high school curriculum, ACT or SAT scores, activities and recommendations.

Guaranteed admission

Guaranteed admission is open to U.S. citizens living in Tennessee who finish high school in the state, at a public, private, charter or home school. You have to apply early action, with the application in by November 1 and your materials by November 15, and meet both of these:

• a 24 or higher ACT composite (SAT 1160 or higher) with at least a 19 on both the ACT math and English sections (SAT 510 math and 500 reading and writing), and
• a UT Core GPA of 4.0 or higher, or a place in the top 10% of your graduating class.

The UT Core GPA for guaranteed admission uses your grades through the end of junior year, your 6th semester. UT superscores the ACT and SAT, taking your best section scores across sittings, but doesn’t mix ACT and SAT sections.

Admission to your chosen major isn’t guaranteed, and applicants who miss the criteria or the early action deadline are reviewed holistically. In fall 2026, 6,265 Tennessee students met the criteria, and the middle half of them had UT Core GPAs of 4.25 to 4.56.

In-State Volunteer Scholarship

Admitted in-state first-year students with a UT Core GPA of 3.8 or higher who apply by January 5 are considered automatically. One Stop lists these 2026–2027 amounts:

The award is good for four years, can’t be combined with the Orange & White Scholarship, and only counts test scores received by May 15 from tests taken through December 2026. To keep it, you need a 3.0 cumulative GPA, federal Satisfactory Academic Progress and full-time enrollment every semester. Pick your test band in the calculator and it names the tier your GPA and scores reach.

What GPA do you need next term?

Enter the cumulative GPA you want and the hours you’ll take, and the calculator works out the lowest term GPA that gets you there after UTK’s rounding. In the example, raising a 3.24 cumulative on 40 hours to a 3.30 takes at least a 3.45 next term on 15 hours. If even straight A’s can’t reach your target, it says so and shows the highest cumulative GPA within reach.

The same math shows why early grades weigh so much. On 40 hours, a 15-hour term moves the cumulative a long way. On 100 hours, the same term barely nudges it, so a GPA problem is far easier to fix in your first two years than your last two.

How this UTK GPA calculator works

This UTK GPA calculator uses the grade values and rules that the University of Tennessee, Knoxville publishes in its 2026–2027 Undergraduate Catalog and on One Stop. They cover the excluded marks, rounding to two decimals, grade replacement and its limits, the Dean’s List levels, Latin honors by catalog year, academic standing and classification by hours passed.

The HOPE check follows One Stop’s benchmarks and the Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation’s rules on attempted hours and repeats, and the UT Core GPA follows UTK Admissions’ method.

There are limits. The calculator never sees course numbers, so checking that a replacement is in a 100- to 400-level course is up to you, and it has no way to know whether your college sets stricter repeat rules. It compares your GPA rounded to two decimals, the figure MyUTK shows, with the honor lines.

The HOPE line starts from the HOPE GPA and attempted hours you type in and treats every one of those hours as graded, so read it as an estimate. Class standing uses the bands for every program except Architecture, which counts 32, 64 and 96 hours.

Everything runs in your browser and the page stores nothing you enter. Calculate Your Grade isn’t connected with the University of Tennessee, so MyUTK, your college and One Stop have the final word.

Sources

• UTK 2026–2027 Undergraduate Catalog: Academic Policies and Procedures (grades, GPA, repeats and grade replacement, Dean’s List, classification, academic standing, Latin honors)
• One Stop Student Services: Transcripts & Academic History (the transcript key), HOPE Lottery Scholarship, In-State Volunteer Scholarship and Satisfactory Academic Progress; also One Stop’s Grades, GPA & Levels of Distinction page (rounding, honors by catalog year)
• UTK Admissions: Guaranteed Admission, the Fall 2026 Release Summary (admitted students’ UT Core GPAs) and the First-Year Student FAQs on the UT Core GPA
• Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation: Rules, Chapter 1640-01-19, Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship Program (attempted hours, repeats)
• UT Libraries: Volopedia, Grades and Grade Point Average

Built and maintained by Mahmudul, the creator of Calculate Your Grade. UTK rules checked against UTK’s 2026–2027 Undergraduate Catalog, One Stop Student Services, UTK Admissions and TSAC’s lottery scholarship rules in October 2026.

Related calculators

• Comparing SEC schools? The GPA UGA calculator follows UGA’s rules, which cut every GPA at two decimals instead of rounding it and replace no grades at all.
• Still in high school? The grade calculator high school GPA page gives you the weighted and unweighted GPA as your high school figures it, which isn’t the UT Core GPA above.
• Looking at the ACC as well? The Clemson University GPA calculator works on an A to F scale with no plus or minus and cuts every GPA at two decimals, where UTK rounds. In place of grade replacement, Clemson offers Academic Forgiveness for up to two D or F courses.

Frequently asked questions