Canada vs Morocco Grading System

How does the Canada grading system work?

Most Canadian universities use a 4.0 GPA scale similar to the US. Some use 4.33 (A+=4.33). Quebec uses a percentage system where 60% is the pass mark.

⚠️ Quebec uses a percentage system, not GPA.

How does the Morocco grading system work?

Morocco follows the French 20-point grading system. Pass mark is 10/20. Grade compression mirrors France.

⚠️ Pass mark is 10/20, not 50%. A 13–14 is a good result.

Do Canada and Morocco mark to the same standard?

No — and it is the difference in marking culture, not the arithmetic, that makes a direct comparison mislead. Here is how each country actually uses its own scale.

What a good grade means in Canada

Canadian marking is closer to the US than to the UK, but somewhat stricter: an A at many Canadian universities starts at 80% rather than the 93% common in the US, so a Canadian percentage transcript can look deceptively modest to an American reader. Graduate admission bars are also set higher than the US minimum — UBC asks for a B+ average (76%) in the final two years, well above the 3.0 that most US graduate schools publish.

What a good grade means in Morocco

Twenty-point marking is severe in a way that catches out anyone reading it as a percentage out of 20. Moroccan professors rarely award above 17 or 18, anything above 16 is exceptional, and a 20 is treated as theoretically unattainable rather than a realistic target. A 14 out of 20 is a genuinely good degree — Bien — and converting it as 70% badly misrepresents it. This is the single most important thing for a Moroccan graduate to explain on an application to a percentage-marking country.

Will a grade from Canada get you into Morocco?

We do not yet hold published entry requirements for Morocco, so we do not compare your grade against a bar we cannot cite. The conversion above still tells you how your result reads in Morocco terms.

Canadian 4.0 GPA maps near-directly to US GPA. WES Canada is the primary evaluation service for Canadian institutions and immigration.

What goes wrong converting grades from Canada to Morocco?

Morocco rarely awards near the top of its own scale — 18.0 is realistically the ceiling rather than 20.0 — so a converted result will look lower than you expect even when it is strong.

Mistakes specific to Canada grades

• Quoting a GPA without saying whether the scale is 4.0 or 4.3. On a 4.3 scale a 4.0 is an A, not a perfect score.
• Assuming the whole degree counts. Several Canadian universities assess graduate admission on the final two years only.
• Treating a Quebec percentage as interchangeable with an Ontario GPA — they are different systems in the same country.

What should you do next, applying from Canada to Morocco?

1. Check the course, not the country. Entry requirements are set per programme and revised every cycle. We hold no published national bar for this destination, so the course page is the only figure that binds.
2. Check whether an evaluation is even required. Unlike the US and Canada, Morocco universities commonly assess foreign transcripts in-house. Confirm on the course page before paying for a report you may not need.
3. Get your documents moving early. Transcripts come from the registrar and are normally sent institution to institution. Canadian applicants abroad sometimes need to explain the scale in use, since "Canada" implies no single one — ask your registrar for the grading key, which most print on the reverse of the transcript.
4. Read both systems in full. How Canada grading works · How Morocco grading works

What do these grading terms mean?

GPA (Grade Point Average)

The US way of expressing an overall grade, on a 0–4.0 scale where 4.0 is the top — so a 4.0 is roughly what a 90–100% or a First Class would be elsewhere.

Percentage scale

A 0–100 marking scale — but the numbers are not comparable across countries: 70% is an outstanding result in the UK and a modest one in India.

Honours degree

A bachelor's degree that includes a higher-level final year or research project — in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand it is often an extra year, and master's entry can depend on it.

Transcript

The official document from your university listing every subject you took and the grade you got — not the same as your degree certificate, and universities abroad want both.

Credential evaluation

A paid report from an approved company that restates your foreign qualification in local terms, which many US and Canadian universities require before they will assess you.

Grade compression

Where a marking culture rarely uses the top of its own scale, so the highest grades anyone actually earns sit well below the theoretical maximum.

Frequently asked questions