I have a grade column with daily activities and homework averaged. I want to
take that average and show it in a letter grade based on accumulated points.
What should I do?

This is a good place to either use a nested IF statement or else a VLOOKUP()
statement. The nested IF is easier to set up as long as you have fewer than
8 breaks in grade points. If you're using straight A through F grading, it's
easy:

For example, we'll say your numeric average value is in cell B8 and your
grade scale is:
95-100 = A
85-94 = B
75-84 = C
65-74 = D
anything below 65 = F. Yeah, I know, I'm a tough taskmaster <g
With that scale your formula becomes
=IF(B8=95,"A",IF(B8=85,"B",IF(B8=75,"C",IF(B8= 65,"D","F"))))
or it could be simplified some as
=IF(B894,"A",IF(B884,"B",IF(B874,"C",IF(B864," D","F"))))
but the simplified version risks giving a higher letter grade (94.1 = A
instead of requiring 95 as the first formula does).

The nested IF statement has a limitation of 7 levels of nesting in versions
of Excel prior to 2007, so if you want to get down to A+,A,A-,B+,B,B-...
granularity, you're going to be out of luck.

But if you do need that level of reporting, then VLOOKUP() can work for you.
First set up a table like this one - it can be on same sheet, or on another
in the workbook. The number must go from in ascending order, top with
smallest, bottom with largest, and I'm showing column and row identifiers and
the numeric grades are the lowest required to achieve the associated letter
grade:

X Y
1 0 F
2 64 D-
3 67 D
4 70 D+
5 73 C-
6 76 C
7 79 C+
8 82 B-
9 85 B
10 88 B+
11 91 A-
12 94 A
13 97 A+

Once again your average grade is in B8 and your formula becomes (assuming
the table is on same sheet)
=VLOOKUP(B8,X1:Y13,2,1)
if you put the table on another sheet in the same workbook, simply add that
sheet's name to the table reference in the formula as:
=VLOOKUP(B8,'SomeOther SheetName'!X1:Y13,2,1)

Hope this helps - and that you're not quite the hard nosed grader I may
appear to be?


"PattyCake" wrote:

I have a grade column with daily activities and homework averaged. I want to
take that average and show it in a letter grade based on accumulated points.
What should I do?