Understanding Your GPA

Your college GPA (Grade Point Average) measures the quality of work you’ve done during your college career. This number will appear on your official college transcript and helps both graduate schools and employers determine your level of performance relative to other students. Understanding how your performance in class impacts your GPA is crucial.

Grades without Impact 

Do not include these when calculating your GPA.

  • Transfer Credits: ONLY courses completed at John Jay College impact your GPA. If you decide to transfer to another college, start graduate school, or seek employment, you will need to provide all of your transcripts. The institution/organization considering you will consider your work at each school separately. When calculating your GPA, do not include grades from transfer credits.
  • Official Withdrawal: If you officially withdraw from a class, it is not factored into your GPA. When calculating your GPA, do not include grades of a W, WN, or WD.
  • Incomplete: If a professor gives you a grade of INC, this means that he or she is waiting for you to reach out regarding make up work. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you contact the professor as soon as possible. After the third week of the subsequent semester, the INC, if not resolved, will become FIN, which is the same as F.  When calculating your GPA, do not include grades of INC.
  • F Grade Policy Courses: You are eligible to replace up to 16 credits worth of failed courses over the course of your CUNY career. If you earn an F, FIN, or WU in a John Jay course, then repeat it at John Jay and earn a C or better, the F, FIN, or WU will no longer calculate into your GPA. This will be marked on your unofficial transcript with a pound sign (before 2014) or a note that says “Repeated: Exclude credit and GPA.” When calculating your GPA, do not include grades that have been excluded due to F grade policy.

Grades with Impact

For all other grades, tally up how many credits you have of each grade. For example, if you earn an A in a three-credit class, mark off three credits of A on your tally sheet. Most classes at John Jay are three credits each, but not all; be careful to correctly tally each class for the appropriate number of credits. For grades of F, FIN and WU, tally the number of credits you would have earned had you passed the class. Remember, do not tally excluded credits.

Enter your totals into an online GPA calculator. The GPA should be identical to that on your unofficial transcript.

GPA Potential 

Once you’ve calculated your current GPA and verified that your calculations match your unofficial transcript, you can add expected grades for current/future classes to see your GPA potential.

If you are repeating a failed course as part of your current or future plans, remember that if you expect to earn a C or better, you also need to remove the failed course from your GPA. This will account for the anticipated exclusion of the old grade per F Grade policy.