Cuban grading system
In Cuba, university grades run from 5 (best) to 2, and 3 is the lowest pass.
Example · Credit-weighted average of 3 courses
Between 4 and 5
bien (good) or excelente (excellent): your institution’s rule on rounding decides which grade goes on your record. 3 is the lowest pass.
3 courses, 15 credits.
University grades: 2 to 5
Degree programs at Cuban universities, under the Ministry of Higher Education's teaching regulation.
| Grade | On the transcript | Meaning | Pass? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | excelente | excellent | Pass |
| 4 | bien | good | Pass |
| 3 | regular | fair, lowest pass | Pass |
| 2 | mal | fail | Fail |
Cuban grades and a US GPA
This page gives no US equivalents for Cuban 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 Cuba
- The academic index (índice académico) is the plain average of the final grades of every subject passed, each counted once and not weighted by credits, cut off at two decimals without rounding.
- The final graduation exercise is graded on the same scale but left out of the academic index.
- A student graded 2 at the first exam sitting can take the subject again at the second and third sittings of the same period.
- The Título de Oro, the highest graduation award, needs an academic index of at least 4.75, a 5 in the final graduation exercise and an outstanding overall record.