How To Use Excel to Keep Track of Grades

If you’re in college then you know how important grades can be. And if you’re like a lot of college students then you like to know exactly what grade you have in a class right now and what you need to do to get that A you’re shooting for.

At least I know that I’m that way. And with a little bit of Excel know how, it is a very easy process to have most of the work done for you. See how after the jump below.

I was curious one day and started playing around in OpenOffice’s spreadsheet application. My goal was to see how easy it would be to have my grades at any point in the semester. And you can bet that I was pretty happy when I found out how easy it could be with this spreadsheet.

Here’s some instruction on how to use it and some other things I think you should know.

  1. I like formatting. So I’ve separated things by using different font weights and colors so that I coud easily tell different columns and rows apart from each other.
  2. The first 4 classes (social psych, behavior modification, child development, and criminal justice system) on there were very easy since grades are calculated on a points system to begin with. I just plugged in those numbers.
  3. The 5th class (sociology of sport) was a bit harder since this professor uses items as a percentage of the total grade. Some basic math was used to see how many point each item would be worth
    • Tests are a total of 75% of the grade. Since this is the majority of what we have graded I made them all worth 100 points so I wouldn’t have to do as much math later
    • The presentation is worth 15% of the grade, and the in class portion is worth 10%. Since I essentially multiplied each test by 4 to get to 100 points each, I did the same with these percentages to make them worth 60 points for the presentation and 40 points for the in class. I’ll just have to remember to adjust those values when I put them in.
  4. I used the sum function [sum()] to add up the numbers in each column for the total.
  5. The grade is the sum of the points received column divided by the sum of the points possible column and having that number multiplied by 100 so it would look like a real grade (something like like: [[points earned]/[points possible]]*100).
  6. Please keep in mind that the grade shown here is the one that you would receive if you didn’t turn in anything for the rest of the year. I like to think of things that way, so it works for me. If this doesn’t work for you you can always add another cell that only takes into account what you have received a grade for.

Please let me know what you think of this spreadsheet in the comments, and feel free to ask any questions that I may have left you with. I’ll be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.

Again, you can find the spreadsheet here. It is in Excel 97/2000/XP format so the majority of people should be able to use it.

March 5, 2008 | Written by Chris Osborne | Filed Under College, Computers | Tags: |  

Comments

6 Responses to “How To Use Excel to Keep Track of Grades”

  1. Kayleigh on March 7th, 2008 9:33 am

    I would use this if my teachers didn’t randomly change the worth of assignments or getting rid of stupid assignments they shouldn’t have had in the fist place.

  2. k3davis on March 14th, 2008 5:29 am

    I’m unable to download your spreadsheet from adrive for some reason (clicking the link just brings me to my own adrive directory, I don’t see your file), but I’d like to take a look at it. Is there another way to get it? Thanks.

  3. Chris Osborne on March 14th, 2008 7:23 am

    Sorry, that should not have happened. When I tested it earlier it worked, so I guess I didn’t test it well enough.

    The link should work now.

  4. k3davis on March 14th, 2008 11:16 am

    Same result :( Maybe I am doing something wrong…? When I click on the link it asks me to log in, and when I do I see my own directory, not your file.

  5. Chris Osborne on March 14th, 2008 12:35 pm

    I don’t get it. I keep testing it and it keeps working. I’ve logged out and it works then too. This is just weird. And it’s coming at a terrible time because we’re about to leave for Spring Break.

  6. k3davis on March 15th, 2008 8:52 am

    Ah, enjoy your break. I was just curious to see the file, it is not a big deal. I’m using Firefox 3 beta so I tried in IE7 just for kicks. The link just takes me to adrive’s home page where I log in and see an empty folder (since I don’t have anything on there at present I assume it’s mine). However it’s not worth worrying about. Perhaps you can email it or post it somewhere else on the web - but don’t let my issue with it bother you. ;)

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