Norway vs Portugal Grading System

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.

How does the Portugal grading system work?

Portuguese universities use a 0–20 scale inherited from the French tradition. Pass mark is 10. Grades of 18–20 are rarely awarded.

Do Norway and Portugal 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 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.

What a good grade means in Portugal

As with other 20-point systems, the top of the Portuguese scale is barely used: marks above 17 are uncommon and 20 is effectively unattainable, so a 15 or 16 represents a strong degree rather than the mediocre 75–80% it resembles when converted arithmetically. The honours labels at 18 and above are worth stating on an application precisely because the number alone does not communicate how rare they are.

Will a grade from Norway get you into Portugal?

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

Norwegian A → 4.0 GPA. B (Very Good) → approximately 3.3 GPA.

What goes wrong converting grades from Norway to Portugal?

The pass marks differ — 1 in Norway against 10.0 in Portugal — so the two scales have different usable ranges and the middle of one is not the middle of the other.

Mistakes specific to Norway grades

• Reading a Norwegian C as an American C. Under ECTS definitions it describes solid work meeting the expected standard.
• Assuming E is a fail. E is the minimum pass in Norway; only F fails.
• Converting letters straight into US grade points. The underlying definitions differ, so the arithmetic misleads.

What should you do next, applying from Norway to Portugal?

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, Portugal 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 Norway grading works · How Portugal grading works

What do these grading terms mean?

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.

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.

Credits / credit hours

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

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