Portugal vs Russia Grading System

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.

How does the Russia grading system work?

Russian universities use a 1–5 scale with whole numbers only. 3 is minimum pass. Transcripts also include Zachot (Pass)/Nezachet (Fail) notations for practical work.

⚠️ Only whole numbers 1–5 are used. Zachot/Nezachet notations appear alongside and are not part of the GPA calculation.

Do Portugal and Russia 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 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.

What a good grade means in Russia

Three passing grades cannot separate good work from outstanding work, so a Russian 5 covers a very wide band and the transcript alone under-describes strong students. That is precisely why the red diploma matters: it is the distinction that carries the information the numeric scale cannot, and it is worth stating explicitly on any application abroad. Conversely a 4 is a genuinely respectable grade rather than the mediocre result it looks like when read as "four out of five".

Will a grade from Portugal get you into Russia?

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

Muito Bom (18–20) → approximately 4.0 GPA.

What goes wrong converting grades from Portugal to Russia?

The pass marks differ — 10.0 in Portugal against 3 in Russia — so the two scales have different usable ranges and the middle of one is not the middle of the other.

Mistakes specific to Portugal grades

• Converting a 20-point mark to a percentage by multiplying by five. A 15/20 is a good Portuguese degree; "75%" reads as unremarkable in the US.
• Expecting the top of the scale to be reachable. Above 18 is very rare, which compresses the meaningful range considerably.
• Omitting the honours designation where you hold one — it is quota-like in practice and communicates more than the mark.

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

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, Russia 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 Portugal grading works · How Russia 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.

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.

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