Japan vs Netherlands Grading System

How does the Japan grading system work?

Japanese universities use a 100-point percentage scale where 60 is the minimum pass. The descriptors (可/良/優/秀) are standard national designations.

⚠️ Japanese passing grade is 60, not 50.

How does the Netherlands grading system work?

Dutch universities use a 1–10 scale where 6 is the minimum pass. A 10 is almost never awarded. An 8 is genuinely excellent performance.

⚠️ A 10/10 is almost never awarded in the Netherlands. An 8 or 9 is outstanding.

Do Japan and the Netherlands 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 Japan

Japanese marking is conservative at the top. The 秀/S band above 90 is genuinely uncommon, and 優 (80–89) is the highest grade most strong students earn routinely — so an average in the 80s is a good degree rather than a modest one, and an aggregate above 90 is exceptional. The other thing worth knowing is that undergraduate grades carry less weight in Japanese graduate admission than they do almost anywhere else: entry usually turns on an entrance examination and on a prospective supervisor agreeing to take you.

What a good grade means in the Netherlands

This is the most extreme grade compression of any major destination, and Nuffic — the Dutch credential authority — states it outright: high grades of 9 and 10 are rarely awarded regardless of how good the work is, with a 10 given in roughly 0.1% of cases. The most common grades are 6 and 7, and an average of 8 is considered excellent. The convention dates to the nineteenth century, when 10 was defined as absolute perfection. Read a Dutch 7.5 as a genuinely good degree, and never as "75%".

Will a grade from Japan get you into the Netherlands?

Netherlands universities typically ask for 7.0 / 10 for a taught master's — a one-to-two-year postgraduate degree made mostly of classes. On Japan's scale that is roughly 66–73 / 100 (Good (良)). Read these against Dutch grading culture, not as ordinary percentages: a 7.0 is a solid result on a scale where an 8 is already excellent. The University of Twente asks 7.5 of applicants holding an international degree. A Dutch academic (WO) bachelor's often gives direct access to the matching master's with no grade bar at all — these figures apply to selective and research master's.

University of Amsterdam, Graduate School of Humanities — entry requirements · checked 2026-07-25 · the figure in your own terms is a double conversion, so it is a range. how this is worked out

90%+ (Excellent) → approximately 4.0 GPA. 80–89% → approximately 3.3 GPA.

What goes wrong converting grades from Japan to the Netherlands?

The pass marks differ — 60 in Japan against 6.0 in the Netherlands — so the two scales have different usable ranges and the middle of one is not the middle of the other.

Mistakes specific to Japan grades

• Assuming your GPA drives graduate admission in Japan. Entrance examinations and supervisor agreement matter more, which is why we publish no grade threshold for Japan.
• Treating 60 as a low pass. It is the Japanese pass mark, so the scale's usable range is narrower than in countries passing at 50.
• Reading an 80 as unremarkable because it is 80%. 優 is the highest grade most students regularly achieve.

What should you do next, applying from Japan to the Netherlands?

1. Check the course, not the country. Entry requirements are set per programme and revised every cycle. The 7.0 / 10 above is the typical bar, not a guarantee — selective courses ask for more.
2. Check whether an evaluation is even required. Unlike the US and Canada, Netherlands 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 Japan grading works · How Netherlands 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.

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.

Taught master's

A one-to-two-year postgraduate degree made mostly of classes and assignments, as opposed to a research master's built around a thesis.

Frequently asked questions