The grade you need on the rest of the course

"What do I need on the final" is the famous question, but it is a special case. The general question — the one you can ask in week 6, week 10, or the night before anything — is: given my average on what is graded, what do I have to average on everything left? One formula answers it for any split:

needed = (target − average × done/100) ÷ ((100 − done)/100)

Here done is the percent of the course grade already locked in — not the percent of the calendar that has passed, a distinction this guide returns to, because confusing them is the classic mistake.

The worked example

You hold an 82 average, 60% of the course is graded, and you want to finish at 85. The locked work has banked 82 × 0.6 = 49.2 points. The target needs 85 − 49.2 = 35.8 more, and the remaining slice is worth 0.4 of the course. So the rest has to average 35.8 ÷ 0.4 = 89.5.

That number is a plan: every quiz, project, and exam still to come has to average just under 90. Push the target to 90 instead and the formula returns (90 − 49.2) ÷ 0.4 = 102.0 — above 100, which the calculator reports as not reachable rather than dressing an impossibility up as a goal. The right response to 102.0 is not despair; it is re-aiming at the best target that is still alive, which one or two more runs of the formula will find.

Why late-course targets move violently

Hold the average at 82 and the target at 85, and watch what the graded share does to the answer:

Same student, same gap between 82 and 85 — but the price of closing it climbs from an 88 average to impossible as the remaining share shrinks. The mechanism: with R percent remaining, every point of target costs 100÷R points of performance on what is left. At 50% remaining that ratio is 2×; at 10% remaining it is 10×. This is the arithmetic reason "I'll fix it at the end" fails, and the equally real reason a strong start is worth so much: a 95 average over 90% of the course holds an 80 with a cushion of −55.0 — the already-secured state, where even zeros cannot take the target away.

The special cases you already know

Set done to 0 and the formula says needed = target — with nothing graded, you need to average what you want to earn, which is reassuringly obvious. And when the only thing remaining is one final exam, this tool and the final grade calculator are the same machine: an 82 average with 60% graded and only a 40%-weight final left returns 89.5 in both. Use whichever framing matches your situation; the semester calculator covers the two-terms-and-an-exam shape schools formalize.

Fine print that actually matters

The "share graded" input must come from your syllabus's category weights, not the calendar. Ten weeks into a fifteen-week course is not 67% graded if the final is worth 30% and has not happened — in that world, at most 70% can be locked. Reconstruct the true share from the weight table (the weighted-grade guide shows how), and remember the formula also assumes your current average holds on the already-graded share — regrade requests and dropped scores can still move it. The syllabus, as ever, wins.