China vs Saudi Arabia Grading System

How does the China grading system work?

Chinese universities use a 100-point scale with 60 as the minimum pass. The Gaokao entrance exam score is NOT a GPA equivalent and must never be used for international applications.

⚠️ The Gaokao score is your entrance exam result — not your university GPA. Use course transcript grades for international applications.

How does the Saudi Arabia grading system work?

Saudi Arabian universities use either a 5.0 or 4.0 GPA scale. The 5.0 scale is most common at major institutions.

⚠️ Saudi universities may use 5.0 OR 4.0 GPA scales. A 4.0/5.0 is NOT equivalent to 4.0/4.0. Check your transcript.

Do China and Saudi Arabia 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 China

Chinese marking deflates at the top. A course grade above 90 is genuinely hard to get, and leading universities such as Fudan and Shanghai Jiao Tong set A+ at 95 or above. An overall average in the low 90s already marks an outstanding graduate; a 95 aggregate is effectively unheard of. Admissions offices that see Chinese transcripts regularly understand this — an 85 average from a well-regarded Chinese university is a strong result, not a middling one.

What a good grade means in Saudi Arabia

The descriptors do more work than the number in Saudi Arabia, and they are set high: Mumtaz begins at 4.51 on the 5.0 scale, so the exceptional band is genuinely narrow. Our own data previously started Mumtaz at 4.25, which over-credited grades by roughly a quarter of a band until it was corrected against the published scale. For an applicant, the practical consequence is that a 4.3 is Jayyid Jiddan — very good — rather than the near-perfect result it looks like when read against a 4.0 maximum.

Will a grade from China get you into Saudi Arabia?

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

WES requires transcripts verified through CDGDC or sent directly from the Chinese institution.

What goes wrong converting grades from China to Saudi Arabia?

China rarely awards near the top of its own scale, so a result that looks modest in China terms converts higher than a direct comparison suggests.

Mistakes specific to China grades

• Submitting the Gaokao score as a university grade. It is an entrance exam from before your degree, and no evaluator will treat it as one.
• Quoting your university's printed GPA without the percentage. The percentage is what gets converted, and GPA formulas differ between institutions.
• Sending transcript copies yourself. Most US and Canadian universities require verification through CHESICC or delivery direct from your institution.

What should you do next, applying from China to Saudi Arabia?

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, Saudi Arabia 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. Chinese credentials are normally verified through CHESICC (the China Higher Education Student Information and Career Center), and WES requires your transcript and graduation certificate to arrive by that route rather than from you. Make sure your name matches across every document in both Chinese characters and pinyin — a mismatch is the most common cause of delay.
4. Read both systems in full. How China grading works · How Saudi Arabia grading works

What do these grading terms mean?

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.

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.

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.

WES

World Education Services, the most widely accepted credential evaluation company for the US and Canada — it converts your transcript into a US GPA that universities will accept.

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.

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