Australian grading system
In Australia, university grades run from HD (best) to N, and P is the lowest pass. Honours grades: H1 to N, 0 to 100%, lowest pass P.
Example · Credit-weighted average of 3 courses
Between D and HD
Distinction or high distinction: your institution’s rule on rounding decides which grade goes on your record. P is the lowest pass.
3 courses, 15 credits.
University grades: HD to N
Subjects at Australian universities. The marks shown are the usual bands in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory; in Victoria, Western Australia and the ACT a High Distinction usually starts at 80%, a Distinction at 70% and a Credit at 60%.
| Grade | Meaning | Marks | Pass? |
|---|---|---|---|
| HD | high distinction | 85–100% | Pass |
| D | distinction | 75–84% | Pass |
| C | credit (also written Cr) | 65–74% | Pass |
| P | pass | 50–64% | Pass |
| N | fail (also written F) | 0–49% | Fail |
Honours grades: H1 to N, 0 to 100%
Subject results at the University of Melbourne and some other universities that grade like British honours classes.
| Grade | Meaning | Marks | Pass? |
|---|---|---|---|
| H1 | first class honours | 80–100% | Pass |
| H2A | second class honours, A division | 75–79% | Pass |
| H2B | second class honours, B division | 70–74% | Pass |
| H3 | third class honours | 65–69% | Pass |
| P | pass | 50–64% | Pass |
| N | fail | 0–49% | Fail |
Australian grades and a US GPA
This page gives no US equivalents for Australian grades: we found no table for them on Wikipedia or from an official source, and we do not make one up. A US university reads a foreign transcript itself or through the credential evaluation service it names, and its conversion is the one that counts.
Send your grades as they are, with the scale above. When a form asks for your average, give it on your own scale and say which scale it is: the converter’s average does exactly that, weighted by credits when you enter them.
What to know about grades in Australia
- Most universities turn grades into a 7-point GPA (HD 7, D 6, C 5, P 4), weighting each subject by its credit points.
- Monash, RMIT, Swinburne, Murdoch and Bond use a 4-point GPA instead: HD 4, D 3, C 2, P 1.
- A fail scores 0 grade points at many universities but up to 2 at others, such as UQ, QUT and Griffith.
- The University of Melbourne, UNSW, the University of Sydney and Wollongong rank students by a weighted average mark (WAM) of their percentage marks rather than a GPA.
- School leavers are ranked for university entry by the ATAR, a percentile rank rather than a grade: an ATAR of 80.00 means doing better than 80% of the student's Year 7 age group.
Sources: Wikipedia, Academic grading in Australia; Wikipedia, Grading systems by country: Australia.