Mexican Grade to GPA
Convert a Mexican calificación on the 0–10 scale to a US 4.0 GPA.
8.4 is Bien (8.0–8.9) with a passing mark of 6.0, which maps to 3.0 on the US 4.0 scale.
Mexico has no single passing mark: 6.0 is common at secondary and undergraduate level, 7.0 at many universities, and 8.0 for postgraduate study. The threshold on your own transcript or reglamento is what applies.
Mexican marks run 0 to 10. Evaluators read 9.0–10 as an A worth 4.0 and 8.0–8.9 as a B worth 3.0; everything from the passing mark up to 7.9 is a C worth 2.0. So an 8.4 converts to 3.0, and what counts as failing depends on your institution.
Ten points, three thresholds
Mexico grades on a 0–10 scale, sometimes written out of 100 with the same meaning. What varies — unusually — is the pass mark. Secondary schools and many undergraduate programmes pass at 6.0; a large number of universities set it at 7.0; and postgraduate study commonly requires 8.0. The same 7.5 can therefore be a solid pass, a bare pass, or a fail depending on where it was earned.
That is why this converter asks for the threshold first. The A and B bands do not move — 9 and above is Excelente, 8 to 8.9 is Bien — but the boundary between a passing C and a failing grade sits wherever your reglamento puts it.
The promedio general
Mexican transcripts report a promedio general, the average of your calificaciones, and it is the figure closest to a GPA. Many institutions compute it as a straight arithmetic mean rather than weighting by credits, which is worth mentioning on an application because it differs from how a US GPA is built.
Worked example
Converting a calificación of 8.4 at an institution passing at 6.0.
- 1 Note your institution’s pass mark. This example uses 6.0, common at secondary and undergraduate level.
- 2 Take the calificación. The course mark is 8.4. A mark out of 100 is divided by 10 first — 84 becomes 8.4.
- 3 Check it passes. 8.4 is above 6.0, so the course is acreditada.
- 4 Find the band. 8.4 falls in the 8.0–8.9 range, described as Bien.
- 5 Read the US grade point. Bien maps to a B, which is 3.0 on the US 4.0 scale.
Mexican calificación → US GPA
The A and B bands are fixed; the lowest passing band and the fail threshold depend on the institution.
| Calificación | Description | US letter | US 4.0 GPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9.0–10.0 | Excelente / Muy bien | A | 4.0 |
| 8.0–8.9 | Bien | B | 3.0 |
| Pass mark – 7.9 | Suficiente / Regular | C | 2.0 |
| Below the pass mark | Reprobado / No acreditada | F | 0.0 |
| Pass mark 6.0 | Secondary and many undergraduate programmes | — | — |
| Pass mark 7.0 | Many universities | — | — |
| Pass mark 8.0 | Common at postgraduate level | — | — |
Reporting a Mexican record abroad
State the promedio general on its original 0–10 scale and say what the passing mark was, because the threshold changes how the number should be read. A 7.8 at an institution passing at 6.0 sits comfortably above the line; the same 7.8 in a postgraduate programme passing at 8.0 does not.
Some Mexican universities also record marks as NA (no acreditada) rather than a number when a course is failed, and a few use letter systems of their own. Where the transcript uses anything other than the 0–10 numbers, the transcript legend is what an evaluator will read.