Vietnam grade
to US GPA
Vietnam → US GPA
How Vietnam grades convert to US GPA
Vietnam marks courses out of 10. The bands below are a planning estimate of what a single Vietnamese mark is worth on a US 4.0 scale — they are not the official Vietnamese conversion, and they are not what your university calculates.
Before you use one number. Converting a whole transcript by putting its cumulative 10-point average through a band table is unreliable: the shortcut collapses every course into one band, so it can only return a whole number. On simulated 40-course transcripts, more than 90% of results were off by more than 0.25 grade points. The US Embassy in Hanoi calls the direct conversion “completely inaccurate”. If you have your course list, use the per-course Vietnam GPA calculator instead — that is the method MOET Circular 08/2021 actually prescribes.
Grade equivalents at a glance
| Vietnam grade | US GPA (est.) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 8.50–10.0 | ~3.7–4.0 | A · 4 under Article 10 |
| 7.00–8.49 | ~3.3–3.5 | B · 3 under Article 10 |
| 5.50–6.99 | ~3.0 | C · 2 under Article 10 |
| 4.00–5.49 | ~2.0 | D · 1 under Article 10 |
| below 4.00 | 0.0 | F · 0 under Article 10 |
Two different numbers, and they are meant to be. The middle column is an unofficial US-admissions estimate. The right-hand column is the letter grade Circular 08/2021 Article 9 assigns to that band and the 4-point value Article 10 §2 gives it. A 6.0 estimates to roughly a US 3.0 for planning, but it is a C worth 2 in your university’s own GPA. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.
Note also what these bands are not. Xuất sắc, Giỏi and Khá are classifications of your cumulative average under Article 10 §5, and their boundaries are different — Xuất sắc starts at 9.00, not 8.50. Attaching those names to per-course bands is exactly the error in the widely-circulated EducationUSA table.
Is this competitive for US admission?
A cumulative 7.0+ is a solid result and 8.0+ is competitive for US programmes, but read those against the distribution rather than the converted number. The 10-point scale is strict at the top — a 10 is rarely awarded, and the US Embassy cites Vietnam’s Research Center for Vocational, Technical and Higher Education to the effect that a 7.5 average is likely to be in the top 10–15% of the class. A direct conversion turns that into a 3.0, which understates it. Confirm each programme’s own requirement.
Credential evaluation (WES / ECE)
WES converts the 10-point Vietnamese scale by band. Transcripts must come from your institution.
The Vietnam grading scale page has the grade table behind this estimate. Other countries are on the CGPA to US GPA hub.
Which Vietnamese rules apply to your transcript depends on when you enrolled. MOET Circular 08/2021 took effect on 3 May 2021 and applies to intakes admitted after that date; earlier intakes fall under the superseded regulations. Institutions on the year-based (niên chế) system do not calculate a 4-point GPA at all. See how Vietnamese grading works before relying on any conversion — and note that a widely-circulated conversion table converts the wrong thing, giving a different grade for most marks.
Sources
Every figure and quotation on this page comes from one of the following.
- MOET Circular 08/2021/TT-BGDĐT — the current regulation. Source of the Article 9 course bands (A from 8.50, B from 7.00, C from 5.50, D from 4.00, F below 4.00), the Article 10 §2 point values and the Article 10 §5 classification bands that the right-hand column and the note beneath the table refer to.
- Decision 43/2007/QĐ-BGDĐT — the predecessor, still governing anyone who enrolled before May 2021. Read in full. Its Điều 22 bands and Điều 23 point values are identical to the above, which is why the same table applies to older transcripts.
- EducationUSA Vietnam — Basic Information on Grading in Vietnam (US Embassy Hanoi, 2025 edition). Read in full. Source of the “completely inaccurate” assessment of direct conversion and of the point that a 7.5 average is likely to be in the top 10–15% of the class.
The US GPA column on this page is an unofficial planning estimate and is not drawn from any of these documents. Only a credential evaluation is authoritative for an application, and the figures on your official transcript are always the authoritative Vietnamese ones.