How Canvas calculates your grade
Canvas computes your course grade in two stages. First, it works out a percentage for each assignment group — after applying that group's drop rules. Then it combines the groups into one course total.
Weighted course: each group percentage is multiplied by the group's weight, and the contributions are added. Official example: groups at 75%, 98%, and 87% with weights 20%, 50%, and 30% give (0.75 × 0.20) + (0.98 × 0.50) + (0.87 × 0.30) = 90.1%.
Unweighted (points-based) course: Canvas pools all earned points and divides by all possible points, after drops and exclusions. Inside a group, higher-point assignments naturally count more, because Canvas does not weight individual assignments beyond their points.
A 0%-weighted group contributes nothing, even if it holds graded work. This calculator follows the same rules — including the cases most calculators get wrong below.
Assignment groups, weights, and empty groups
Groups are the categories your instructor sets up — Homework, Quizzes, Exams, Projects. Your course total depends on each group's weight and on whether the group has any graded work yet.
Empty group: if a weighted group has no graded items, Canvas removes it and divides the remaining contributions by their combined weight. In the official example above, if the 30% group had no graded work, the total would be [(0.75 × 0.20) + (0.98 × 0.50)] ÷ 0.70 = 91.43% — higher, because the empty group stops dragging the average down.
Weights that don't total 100%: Canvas allows weights above or below 100%. When every group has graded work, this calculator uses the weighted sum as-is — Canvas does not document a general renormalization for that case, so the assumption is shown in the notes above. If a group is empty, the documented renormalization still applies.
Drop rules: Canvas drops the best outcome, not the lowest percentage
A group can be set to drop the lowest N scores, drop the highest N, and mark some assignments as never drop. The counter-intuitive part: “drop lowest” means drop the score(s) whose removal gives the best group percentage — not necessarily the lowest percentage. Point value matters.
Official example: scores of 100% on 50 points, 65% on 100 points, and 50% on 24 points. Undropped, that's 127 out of 174, or 73%. Dropping the 65%-on-100 item gives 62 out of 74, or 84% — better than dropping the 50%-on-24 item. This calculator evaluates every drop combination and picks the best-outcome one, exactly as Canvas does.
Two more rules: only graded assignments can be dropped — a blank assignment is never a drop candidate — and for all drops to apply, the group must hold at least 1 + dropped + never-drop graded scores. If it doesn't, the drop rules don't apply, and the calculator says so.
Blank, missing, excused, and zero — they are not the same thing
| Status in Canvas | What it means | Effect on your total |
|---|---|---|
| Blank (dash) | No grade entered yet | Excluded from the current grade; counted as zero in the final-grade view |
| Missing | Status label for an unsubmitted assignment past its due date | The label itself changes nothing; it only matters if a zero has been entered |
| Excused (EX) | The instructor excused the assignment | Excluded from earned and possible points entirely |
| Zero | An entered grade of 0 | Counts fully: 0 earned out of the full points possible |
The most common surprise: a blank assignment inflates your current grade, because Canvas leaves it out until a grade exists. Switching to the final-grade view above shows the same course with ungraded work counted as zero.
Current grade vs total grade
On the Grades page in Canvas, the “Calculate based only on graded assignments” checkbox is on by default and shows your current grade — graded work only. Turn it off and Canvas shows your total grade, with ungraded work treated as zero. Use the “Which total?” toggle above to switch between the two.
The instructor-side “View Ungraded as 0” setting is a visual aid only: it does not enter real zeros or change student grades. Your instructor's zeros are what count.
What-If Grades — and what Canvas can't solve for you
Canvas has a built-in What-If Grades feature: click a score cell on your Grades page, type a hypothetical score, and the total recalculates. It works on graded and ungraded assignments, never changes your official scores, and you can revert to the actual score. It cannot, however, tell you what score you need on remaining work to reach a target.
That's what the Target % field above does: enter a target and the calculator solves for the uniform percentage you need across all your remaining (not yet graded) work. If the target is unreachable — needing over 100% — it says so plainly.
Related tool: What-If Grade Calculator for single-assignment what-if scenarios, and Final Grade Calculator for one final exam.
What other Canvas calculators miss
Most existing Canvas calculators take only category-level scores and weights, or a single final-exam target. They typically skip per-assignment entry, best-outcome drop rules, the excused / blank / zero distinction, empty-group renormalization, weights that don't total 100%, current-vs-final views, and batch target solving. This calculator models all of them, because that is where the real Canvas surprises live.
Canvas grading scheme
Canvas converts percentages to letters using a grading scheme. The default scheme is:
| Letter | From | Letter | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 94% | C+ | 77% |
| A− | 90% | C | 74% |
| B+ | 87% | C− | 70% |
| B | 84% | D+ | 67% |
| B− | 80% | D | 64% |
| D− | 61% | ||
| F | below 61% |
Institutions often replace the default with their own scheme, so confirm your course's cutoffs. Use the scheme selector above to switch to a standard 10-point scale, or compare letters on the Grading Scale page. Full walkthrough: How to Calculate Your Grade in Canvas.
Assumptions this calculator states openly
Canvas's official guides leave a few edge cases undocumented. Where the guides are silent, this calculator makes the most defensible choice and shows it in the notes:
- Weights not totaling 100% with all groups graded: weighted sum used as-is (no general renormalization).
- Excused items and drop rules: excused items are excluded from the drop pool, since only graded assignments can be dropped.
- Drop-rule ties: the first best-outcome combination is kept; ties are rare and don't change the percentage.
- Rounding: the scheme lookup uses the computed percentage with no early rounding.
- Weighted grading periods: not modeled — enter one grading period at a time.
Sources
Rules on this page come from Instructure's official Canvas guides: How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?, How do I create rules for an assignment group?, How do I view my grades in a current course?, What-If Grades, and What are grading schemes?. This calculator is not affiliated with or endorsed by Instructure or Canvas.