Costa Rican grading system
At the University of Costa Rica, grades run from 10 (best) to 0 in half points, and 7.0 is the lowest pass; other universities set their own scales. Upper secondary grades: 1 to 100, lowest pass 70. Primary and lower secondary grades: 1 to 100, lowest pass 65.
Example · Credit-weighted average of 3 courses
Between 9.0 and 9.5
muy bueno (very good) or excelente (excellent): your institution’s rule on rounding decides which grade goes on your record. 7.0 is the lowest pass.
3 courses, 15 credits.
University grades: 0 to 10
The University of Costa Rica (UCR).
| Grade | On the transcript | Meaning | Pass? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9.5–10 | excelente | excellent | Pass |
| 8.5–9.0 | muy bueno | very good | Pass |
| 7.5–8.0 | bueno | good | Pass |
| 7.0 | suficiente | sufficient, lowest pass | Pass |
| 6.0–6.5 | insuficiente | fail, with the right to a make-up test | Fail |
| Below 6.0 | insuficiente | fail | Fail |
Upper secondary grades: 1 to 100
Educación diversificada, the final years of secondary school, under the Ministry of Public Education (MEP).
| Grade | On the transcript | Meaning | Pass? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 70–100 | aprobado | pass | Pass |
| 1–69 | aplazado | fail, with make-up tests | Fail |
Primary and lower secondary grades: 1 to 100
Grades 1 to 9 under the Ministry of Public Education; bilingual secondary schools pass Grades 7 to 9 at 70.
| Grade | On the transcript | Meaning | Pass? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 65–100 | aprobado | pass | Pass |
| 1–64 | aplazado | fail, with make-up tests | Fail |
Costa Rican grades and a US GPA
This page gives no US equivalents for Costa Rican 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 Costa Rica
- At UCR a course grade is rounded to the nearest half point, and a decimal of exactly .25 or .75 rounds up.
- A UCR student with 6.0 or 6.5 can take a make-up test (prueba de ampliación), and a 7.0 or better on it raises the course grade to 7.0.
- In schools, term marks are kept to two decimals and the annual average is rounded to a whole number, with .50 and above rounding up.
- A school student below the pass mark is recorded as aplazado and can sit make-up tests, and passing one records the subject at exactly 65 or 70.
Sources: Wikipedia, Academic grading in Costa Rica; Universidad de Costa Rica, Reglamento de régimen académico estudiantil; Ministerio de Educación Pública (Costa Rica), Reglamento de Evaluación de los Aprendizajes y de la Conducta (Decreto 45509-MEP).