Drop-lowest-grade calculator
Compare your average before and after dropping the lowest eligible percentages. Choose equal, pooled-points or renormalized-weight averaging.
How it works
A worked example
Quiz percentages of 50%, 80% and 90% average 73.3333% when each quiz counts equally. Dropping the eligible 50% quiz leaves 85%. If quiz point totals differ, pooling points can produce a different before-and-after result.
Assumptions to check
Enter one graded group at a time. All rows need recorded scores; a recorded zero counts. Mark required assessments as Never drop. This tool drops lowest percentages, not the combination that maximizes a points-based average. Retained weights are renormalized. Blank future work, extra credit, dropped highest scores and category redistribution rules are not modeled.
Read all calculation notes ↗A few useful answers
Will this exactly match Canvas?
Not necessarily. Canvas can choose a drop based on its effect on the group’s points average rather than simply the lowest percentage. Use this calculator only when the confirmed rule drops the lowest percentages.
What happens to the dropped assessment’s weight?
In weighted mode, retained weights are divided by their new total. A policy that moves the weight to a final exam requires a different calculation.
Can I drop a required final?
Mark it Never drop. The calculator removes only eligible rows and refuses a drop count that leaves no retained assessment.
Planning estimates, not official academic results. Your course and institution set the rules.
A points total is not the same as an equal quiz average
An assessment out of 100 points counts ten times as much as one out of 10 in pooled-points mode. Equal-percentage mode gives each assessment the same influence. Select the method your syllabus uses before interpreting the improvement.
Why a low percentage may not be the score an LMS drops
With 50/50, 65/100 and 12/24, the lowest percentage is 12/24. Removing it gives 115/150, about 76.67%. Removing 65/100 instead gives 62/74, about 83.78%. Those are different rules; this tool deliberately applies the explicitly selected lowest-percentage rule.
Carry a group average into the full course carefully
If these are quizzes worth 20% of a course, the new quiz average is only that category’s average. Enter it with the category’s syllabus weight in the weighted grade calculator. It is not automatically your final course grade.
Guides for this calculation
Check your institution’s rules
These sources explain example methods and policy differences. No university preset is applied.
Canvas: dropping by impact can differ from dropping the lowest percentage ↗