GPA Vault is written and maintained by the GPA Vault team. This page explains how we research, write, and keep our content accurate.
Every calculator and guide is built around publicly documented, verifiable formulas and figures — official grading conventions, federal loan formulas, and government or institutional data (Department of Education, College Board, ACT, IB Organization, NCES, BLS). Our full sourcing approach for each calculator category is detailed on our Methodology page.
Drafting is assisted by AI tools, with every published page reviewed against source material before and after publication for factual accuracy — formulas are checked against the underlying math, and cited figures are checked against their original source rather than copied from secondary summaries.
We publish as "GPA Vault" rather than under invented personal bylines with fabricated credentials. Any site claiming a named "certified financial planner" or "academic advisor" author should be able to show you that person actually exists — we'd rather be transparent that this is a small, focused team producing tool-driven content than manufacture a fake individual expert persona.
Pages with time-sensitive figures — federal loan interest rates, repayment plan rules, test score percentile tables — are flagged internally for annual or as-needed review, tied to when the underlying official data actually changes (for loan rates, that's every July 1; for policy changes, whenever new rules take effect). Pages show an "Updated" date reflecting the last time the content was checked or revised.
If a figure, formula, or claim on this site is wrong, we want to know. Email canghun13@naver.com with the page and the issue, and we'll verify and correct it.
GPA Vault is free to use and carries display advertising. We do not charge for any calculator, and we do not sell, rent, or share the numbers you type into a tool — the calculators run entirely in your browser and the values you enter are never transmitted to us or stored.
Where this matters editorially is the loan and financial aid content, because that is the area where a site's revenue can quietly bend its advice. Our rule is that no commercial relationship changes what a page says. Specifically, we will not soften the warning that refinancing federal student loans into a private loan permanently destroys federal protections — income-driven repayment, forgiveness programs, and the federal deferment and forbearance options — no matter what any advertiser would prefer. If we ever add affiliate links, they will be disclosed on the page, marked in the underlying HTML as sponsored, and documented here, and this paragraph will be updated to describe the arrangement. Until such a disclosure appears, there are none.
Federal student aid rules changed substantially through 2025 and 2026 — the SAVE plan was vacated and replaced by RAP, Grad PLUS eligibility narrowed, Pell eligibility rules moved under OBBBA, and the Return of Title IV regulations were rewritten effective July 1, 2026. On fast-moving topics like these we do three things: state the effective date alongside the rule, distinguish clearly between what has actually taken effect and what has only been proposed, and correct our own earlier pages when we find they describe a superseded rule.
That last point is the one that matters most. On more than one occasion we have found a page on this site stating a rule that was accurate when written and had since been overtaken by events — most notably our earlier description of how the SAVE plan ended. In those cases we correct the page rather than leaving a plausible-sounding but outdated explanation in place, and we would rather flag genuine uncertainty about a rule than write with false confidence about it.
GPA Vault provides general educational calculators and information, not personalized financial, legal, or academic advice. Loan repayment decisions, financial aid appeals, and academic standing questions should ultimately be confirmed with your loan servicer, financial aid office, or school registrar — our tools are a planning aid, not an authoritative record of your specific situation.
Methodology — the formulas and data sources behind each calculator.