What does an 80 GPA mean?

I'm a little confused, my friend told me they have an '80 GPA' but I've never heard of anything like that. What does it mean? I thought GPA was on a 4.0 scale or a 5.0 scale for weighted GPAs.

It seems like your friend is referring to their percentage-based GPA, which is a different way of representing academic performance. Instead of the 4.0 or 5.0 scale that you might be familiar with, some schools use a percentage scale to calculate GPA, usually ranging from 0 to 100. In this case, an 80 GPA means that your friend has an average grade of 80% across all classes.

To better understand this in the context of the traditional GPA scale, you can roughly convert the percentage-based GPA to a 4.0-scale GPA. The conversion isn't exact, but it can provide a general idea. Here's an approximation to help you get an idea of the 4.0 equivalent:

- 90-100%: A (4.0)

- 80-89%: B (3.0)

- 70-79%: C (2.0)

- 60-69%: D (1.0)

- Below 60%: F (0.0)

With an 80% GPA, your friend would roughly fall into the B or 3.0 range on the 4.0 scale. Keep in mind that the conversion may not be exact, and different schools and institutions might have slightly different grading policies.