An A- in college is worth 3.7 grade points on the standard 4.0 scale. It typically corresponds to a numerical score between 90% and 92.9% in a course, and it sits just below a straight A (4.0) and above a B+ (3.3).
How the 4.0 Scale Works
Most colleges in the United States use a 4.0 grading scale that assigns a numeric value to each letter grade. Your GPA is the weighted average of those values across all your courses, with each course’s grade weighted by its credit hours. Here’s where an A- falls relative to nearby grades:
- A: 4.0
- A-: 3.7
- B+: 3.3
- B: 3.0
That 0.3-point gap between an A and an A- might seem small, but it adds up. If you take five three-credit courses in a semester and earn an A- in all of them, your semester GPA is 3.7. Replace just one of those A- grades with a straight A and your GPA rises to 3.76. Over four years of coursework, those fractions compound into meaningful differences on your transcript.
How an A- Affects Your Cumulative GPA
Your cumulative GPA is calculated by multiplying each course’s grade points by its credit hours, adding those products together, and dividing by total credit hours. A single A- in a three-credit course contributes 11.1 quality points (3.7 × 3). A straight A in the same course would contribute 12.0. That 0.9-point difference gets diluted across dozens of courses over time, but students aiming for a 3.9 or above will feel the impact of even a few A- grades.
To put it in practical terms: a student who earns straight A grades in 120 credit hours graduates with a 4.0. If just 15 of those credit hours were A- grades instead, the cumulative GPA drops to roughly 3.96. If 30 credit hours were A- grades, it falls to about 3.93. These are still excellent GPAs, but for students chasing Latin honors or competitive graduate admissions, the math matters.
Not Every College Uses Plus/Minus Grading
Some institutions don’t use plus or minus modifiers at all. At these schools, any grade in the A range counts as a flat 4.0. Brown University, for example, only awards whole letter grades of A, B, or C, with no plus or minus distinctions. If your school follows a similar policy, work that would earn an A- elsewhere simply becomes an A worth 4.0 on your transcript.
You can usually find your school’s specific grading policy in the course catalog or registrar’s office. It’s worth checking, because the difference between a 3.7 and a 4.0 per course is significant when it comes to GPA calculations and how external organizations interpret your transcript.
How Graduate Admissions Services Treat an A-
If you plan to apply to law school or medical school, be aware that centralized application services recalculate your GPA using their own conversion tables. The Law School Admission Council (LSAC), which processes law school applications, converts an A- to 3.67 rather than 3.7. That small difference reflects LSAC’s own standardized scale, and it means your LSAC GPA may come out slightly lower than the GPA on your college transcript.
Medical school applications go through a similar recalculation process. These services exist to create a uniform basis for comparing applicants from schools with different grading systems. The takeaway: even if your school rounds favorably or uses a non-standard scale, graduate admissions services will apply their own conversion, and an A- will land in the 3.67 to 3.7 range regardless of what your transcript shows.
Is a 3.7 GPA Competitive?
A 3.7 GPA places you well above the national average for college students and is competitive for most purposes. It generally qualifies you for the dean’s list at many schools, makes you a strong candidate for internships and entry-level jobs that screen by GPA, and keeps you in the running for merit-based scholarships.
For graduate school, a 3.7 is solid for most programs. Highly selective law schools and medical schools often report median GPAs in the 3.8 to 3.9 range, so students targeting those programs typically need to minimize A- grades in favor of straight A’s. For master’s programs, MBA programs, and most doctoral programs outside the very top tier, a 3.7 is a strong foundation that won’t hold you back.
For employers, a 3.7 clears virtually every GPA cutoff used in hiring. Most companies that screen by GPA set their threshold at 3.0 or 3.5, so a transcript full of A- grades puts you comfortably above those benchmarks.