China vs United States 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 United States grading system work?

US universities use a 4.0 GPA scale as a credit-weighted average. A=4.0, B=3.0, C=2.0, D=1.0, F=0. Plus/minus grades (A-=3.7, B+=3.3) are common.

Do China and the United States 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 the United States

US marking is generous by international standards, and this is the mirror image of the trap that catches Indian and Chinese applicants. A US 3.5 is a good but unremarkable result, held by a large share of graduates from selective institutions — it is not equivalent to a British 3.5-out-of-4-style elite performance. Applying to the UK, an American should expect their GPA to translate to a lower-sounding percentage than instinct suggests, and that is normal rather than a downgrade.

Will a grade from China get you into the United States?

United States universities typically ask for 3.00 / 4 for a taught master's — a one-to-two-year postgraduate degree made mostly of classes. On China's scale that is roughly 72–78 / 100 (Good (良好)). US graduate schools publish a 3.0 minimum near-universally. The competitive figure is the average GPA of admitted applicants across all graduate programmes at UNC Chapel Hill (gradschool.unc.edu/admissions/averagescores/) — a reference point, not a cut-off. Programmes set their own bars above the school minimum, and applicants below 3.0 are usually invited to contact the programme rather than turned away.

UC Riverside Graduate Division — admission requirements · checked 2026-07-24 · the figure in your own terms is a double conversion, so it is a range. how this is worked out

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

What goes wrong converting grades from China to the United States?

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 the United States?

1. Check the course, not the country. Entry requirements are set per programme and revised every cycle. The 3.00 / 4 above is the typical bar, not a guarantee — selective courses ask for more.
2. Budget for a credential evaluation. Most United States universities require your transcript assessed by an approved service before they will consider it — roughly $200 and 4–7 weeks. Our WES guide explains which report to order, since choosing the wrong one means paying twice.
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 United States 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