Senegalese grading system
In Senegal, university course units and the baccalauréat are marked out of 20, and 10 is the pass mark. Baccalauréat candidates with an average from 8 to just under 10 sit a second group of tests.
Example · Credit-weighted average of 3 courses
bien (good)
A pass. 10 is the lowest pass.
3 courses, 15 credits. Your institution’s own rules on rounding or cutting off decimals decide the grade on your record.
University grades: 0 to 20
Course units and the licence (bachelor’s degree) at universities and higher-education institutions under Senegal’s LMD system. A course unit passes at 10 out of 20; the honours (mentions) are set by Decree 2012-1114 on the average over all the course units of the licence.
| Grade | On the transcript | Meaning | Pass? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16–20 | très bien | very good | Pass |
| 14–16 | bien | good | Pass |
| 12–14 | assez bien | fairly good | Pass |
| 10–12 | passable | pass, no honours | Pass |
| 0–10 | fail | Fail |
Baccalauréat results: 0 to 20
The baccalauréat at the end of secondary school, organised by the Office du Baccalauréat at Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar. The result comes from the average over the first group of tests; candidates between 8 and 10 choose three subjects (two main and one other) for the second group.
| Grade | On the transcript | Meaning | Pass? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10–20 | définitivement admis | passed outright | Pass |
| 8–10 | second groupe | allowed to sit the second group of tests | Fail |
| 0–8 | not admitted | Fail |
Senegalese grades and a US GPA
This page gives no US equivalents for Senegalese 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 Senegal
- The licence takes six semesters, and each validated semester earns 30 credits, so the degree is awarded with 180 credits.
- A semester also passes by compensation when the average of its course units, weighted by their coefficients (from 1 to 5), reaches 10 out of 20, whatever the mark in each unit.
- A student who retakes a course unit in a semester not yet validated keeps the last mark, even if it is lower than the earlier one.
- In the baccalauréat, points above 10 in the optional tests count towards an honour above passable in the first group, or towards final admission for a candidate in the second group.
- Of the 77,388 candidates who passed the 2025 baccalauréat, 43.61% passed in the first round and 56.39% in the second; 10.44% earned an honour, and only 139 earned très bien.
Sources: Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (Senegal), Décret 2012-1114 relatif au diplôme de licence; Centre national de l’orientation scolaire et professionnelle (CNOSP), Etudes après le Bac; Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (Senegal), Résultats du baccalauréat 2025.