Iran vs Turkey Grading System

How does the Iran grading system work?

Iranian universities use a 0–20 scale where 10 is the minimum pass. Scores of 17+ are genuinely excellent.

How does the Turkey grading system work?

Most Turkish universities use a 4.0 GPA scale under YÖK (Higher Education Council) framework.

Do Iran and Turkey 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 Iran

As in every 20-point system, the top of the scale is largely unused: a 17 is an excellent result and marks above 18 are very rare, so a moadel of 15 represents a strong degree rather than the 75% it becomes under arithmetic conversion. Iranian universities — Sharif, Tehran and Amirkabir in particular — are well known to admissions committees in engineering and the sciences, and a strong moadel from those institutions is read in context rather than at face value.

What a good grade means in Turkey

The doubled-letter system is the thing worth explaining on an application, because AA and BA look like typographical oddities rather than distinct grades to an admissions officer unfamiliar with them. On substance, the 4.0 GPA maps closely to the US scale, so a Turkish 3.2 needs little translation — but the accompanying percentage does, since Turkish percentage marking is stricter than American and a 75 is a good result rather than a modest one.

Will a grade from Iran get you into Turkey?

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

Excellent (17–20) → approximately 4.0 GPA.

What goes wrong converting grades from Iran to Turkey?

The pass marks differ — 10.0 in Iran against 2.00 in Turkey — so the two scales have different usable ranges and the middle of one is not the middle of the other.

Mistakes specific to Iran grades

• Multiplying the 20-point average by five. A 15/20 is a strong Iranian degree; "75%" does not convey that in US terms.
• Assuming the pass mark is always 10. Some institutions pass at 12 and postgraduate thresholds are higher.
• Underestimating document lead times. Obtaining and legalising Iranian transcripts for use abroad frequently takes longer than applicants expect.

What should you do next, applying from Iran to Turkey?

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, Turkey 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. Universities normally require your transcript sent directly by your institution rather than as a copy from you, which takes longer than most applicants expect.
4. Read both systems in full. How Iran grading works · How Turkey 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.

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.

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.

Frequently asked questions