Netherlands vs Norway Grading System

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.

How does the Norway grading system work?

Norwegian universities use A–F letter grades where A is highest and E is minimum pass. F is fail. Enter A=5, B=4, C=3, D=2, E=1, F=0.

Do the Netherlands and Norway 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 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%".

What a good grade means in Norway

The A–F letters look immediately familiar to American readers, and that familiarity is misleading in one specific way: the Norwegian scale is criterion-referenced against ECTS definitions, where C is explicitly described as a good result meeting the standard expected — not the mediocre grade a C signals in the United States. A Norwegian B is a strong result. Anyone converting letter-for-letter into a US GPA will systematically understate a Norwegian transcript.

Will a grade from the Netherlands get you into Norway?

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

An 8.0 → approximately 3.3 GPA. A 9+ → approximately 4.0 GPA.

What goes wrong converting grades from the Netherlands to Norway?

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

Mistakes specific to the Netherlands grades

• Multiplying a Dutch grade by ten. An 8.0 is not "80%" — it is an excellent result that few students average across a degree.
• Expecting a degree classification. Dutch degrees generally have none; cum laude exists but is awarded sparingly and on institutional rules.
• Assuming a Dutch bachelor's guarantees entry to any Dutch master's. Research master's and selective programmes set their own grade bars, typically 7.0 to 7.5.

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

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, Norway 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. Dutch institutions issue a transcript plus a diploma supplement explaining the grading scale in English — send the supplement, because it makes the 0.1% point about 10s for you and pre-empts the misreading that costs Dutch applicants most.
4. Read both systems in full. How Netherlands grading works · How Norway 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.

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.

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.

Credits / credit hours

A measure of how much a subject counts toward your degree — bigger subjects carry more credits and pull your average further.

Frequently asked questions