Vietnamese grading system
In Vietnam, university grades run from 10.0 (best) to 0.0, and 4.0 is the lowest pass.
Example · Credit-weighted average of 3 courses
Good
A pass: 7.0–8.4 of the marks. 4.0 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.
US reading: 3.07 on a 4.0 scale in Wikipedia’s table. The school you apply to decides how it reads your grades.
University grades: 0.0 to 10.0
Course grades at Vietnamese universities under the Ministry of Education and Training's 2021 training regulation. Each letter also carries points for the GPA: A 4, B 3, C 2, D 1 and F 0.
| Grade | Meaning | Marks | Pass? |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | excellent | 8.5–10 | Pass |
| B | good | 7.0–8.4 | Pass |
| C | average | 5.5–6.9 | Pass |
| D | poor | 4.0–5.4 | Pass |
| F | fail | below 4.0 | Fail |
Vietnamese grades in US terms
Wikipedia’s table reads the university grades on the US scale as below. It is one convention, not a rule: each US university, or the credential evaluation service it names, makes its own conversion, so the school you apply to decides what your grades are worth. The table comes from EducationUSA Vietnam at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi and follows the older Vietnamese bands (giỏi from 8.0, khá from 6.5), not the 2021 letter cut-offs.
| Vietnamese grade | US letter | US grade points |
|---|---|---|
| 8.0–10.0 | A | 4.00 |
| 6.5–7.9 | B | 3.00 |
| 5.0–6.4 | C | 2.00 |
| 3.5–4.9 | D | 1.00 |
| below 3.5 | F | 0.00 |
What to know about grades in Vietnam
- Top marks are rare: students seldom score above 8.0 on a course, and 9 or 10 is nearly impossible at many universities.
- Course grades are rounded to one decimal place before the letter is given.
- Graduates are classed by cumulative GPA on the 4-point scale: 3.60 to 4.00 is xuất sắc (excellent), 3.20 to 3.59 giỏi (very good), 2.50 to 3.19 khá (good) and 2.00 to 2.49 trung bình (average).
- A xuất sắc or giỏi class drops one level when the courses a student had to retake exceed 5% of the programme's credits.
- Secondary schools also mark out of 10, and since the 2021 reform their overall results read tốt (good), khá (fairly good), đạt (pass) or chưa đạt (not yet passed).
Sources: Wikipedia, Academic grading in Vietnam; Wikipedia, Grading systems by country: Vietnam.