AMCAS GPA Calculator - Grade Conversion Guide

The AMCAS GPA calculator converts the letter grades on your transcript into AMCAS quality points and projects the three GPAs that the American Medical College Application Service reports: overall, BCPM (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Math), and AO (all other coursework).

• • See your recalculated average: Preview the GPA AMCAS reports before you submit the primary application, rather than trusting the number your registrar prints.
• • Separate science from all-other: View the BCPM and AO lines that medical school admissions committees read individually, not just the combined total.

When you apply to medical school through AMCAS, the service recalculates your GPA using its own 4.0 scale rather than accepting the GPA printed by your undergraduate school. A+ and A both become 4.0, and every graded course is weighted by the credit hours it carried.

This tool lets you see that recalculated number before you submit. Enter up to six courses with their grades, credit hours, and whether they fall in the BCPM science bucket or the AO all-other bucket, and the calculator returns all three figures side by side.

Medical school admissions committees look at more than a single overall average, which is why the science and all-other splits matter as much as the headline number. A strong BCPM can reassure a reader even when the overall sits lower, and the reverse is also true.

Because AMCAS standardizes every school's transcript onto one scale, the figure you see here is the same one the service would produce from the rows you entered, regardless of how generous or strict your home institution's own grade policy happens to be.

If you want to see how your school reports the average before AMCAS recalculates it, the college GPA calculator shows the institutional side.

The AMCAS GPA calculator multiplies each course's quality point by its credit hours, sums those products, and divides by the total credit hours. The same math runs separately on the BCPM and AO subsets.

• Grade: A+ and A = 4.0, A- = 3.7, B+ = 3.3, B = 3.0, B- = 2.7, C+ = 2.3, C = 2.0, C- = 1.7, D+ = 1.3, D = 1.0, D- = 0.7, F = 0.0.
• Credit hours: The weight AMCAS applies to each course; a 4-credit class counts twice as much toward the average as a 2-credit class.
• Course type: BCPM (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math) versus AO (all other), used to split the science and all-other subtotals.

Because AMCAS weighs every course by credit hours, a 4-credit class moves your GPA roughly twice as far as a 2-credit class. Retaken courses count both times, so a repeat only partially offsets the original grade.

According to AAMC AMCAS Instruction Manual, AMCAS converts each letter grade to a quality point on its 4.0 scale and computes GPA as total grade points divided by total credit hours

Where AMCAS applies a fixed quality-point scale, a weighted grade calculator shows how schools that weight plus and minus grades differently can report a very different number.

A few rules drive almost every surprise premeds get from their AMCAS GPA, and they all come from the fixed quality-point scale the service applies to every transcript.

Entering those four rows into the calculator reproduces the three numbers exactly, which is useful when you are weighing an extra science course against an extra humanity. The grade scale above is the same one AMCAS applies to every institution's transcript, so the output is comparable across schools.

For projecting a single upcoming term before it joins the AMCAS record, the semester GPA calculator isolates one semester at a time.

Enter up to six courses to project your AMCAS GPAs before you submit the application.

1. 1 List your courses: Pull the graded courses from your transcript, focusing on the terms you most want to understand.
2. 2 Enter grade and credits: Pick the letter grade and type the credit hours for each course.
3. 3 Tag BCPM or AO: Mark biology, chemistry, physics, and math courses as BCPM; everything else is AO.
4. 4 Read the three GPAs: The overall figure combines every course; the science and all-other splits show where your strengths sit.

Leave the credit field at 0 for any course you do not want to include yet, and add the most important classes first since the form holds six rows.

To track how each term rolls into your running total, the cumulative GPA calculator builds the all-semester figure that AMCAS ultimately reads.

A generic GPA tool cannot show the AMCAS number because most schools weight plus and minus grades, and many drop a retaken course. The AMCAS GPA calculator exists for that gap: it applies the service's exact scale rather than your registrar's.

• • Matches the AMCAS scale: Uses the single 4.0 scale with no A+ bonus and keeps both repeat attempts, mirroring how the service actually recalculates.
• • Separates the BCPM line: Reports the science GPA that committees weigh most, instead of burying it inside one combined average.

AMCAS uses a single 4.0 scale with no A+ bonus and it keeps both attempts of a repeated class. Those two rules alone can leave your AMCAS GPA a tenth of a point below the GPA your registrar prints.

Seeing the science BCPM line separately also matters: admissions committees weigh BCPM heavily, so a strong BCPM with a softer AO can look different from the same overall average earned the other way around.

Three things change the number more than people expect, and the AMCAS GPA calculator surfaces each one the moment you adjust a row: credit-hour weighting, the BCPM versus AO split, and repeated coursework.

• • The calculator estimates the AMCAS result from the rows you enter; it does not read your official transcript, so the projection covers only the courses you list.
• • AMCAS applies additional transcript rules, such as how study-abroad and postbac work is folded in, that this simplified six-row tool cannot reproduce in full.

A concrete example shows how the math lands: repeating a 4-credit BCPM course that earned a B (3.0) as an A (4.0) adds 4.0 quality points across those 4 credits, but the original B still counts, so the science line rises by less than a full grade point rather than resetting to 4.0.

That arithmetic is why applicants weigh a retake against adding a new high-credit science course. Both lift the BCPM average, but a new class contributes only its own grade, while a retake also drags in the prior attempt.

Because AMCAS reports BCPM and AO separately, the same overall GPA can signal different preparation depending on where the credits sit, which is why the split matters as much as the headline number when you plan a term.

According to AAMC - How Your AMCAS GPA Is Calculated, BCPM and AO GPAs are reported separately from the overall AMCAS GPA, and repeated coursework is included in both attempts

Because the AMCAS output is a 4.0 number, the GPA to percentage converter helps translate it into the percentage bands some postbac programs ask for.