Vietnam grade
to Canada
Vietnam → Canada
Converting Vietnam grades for study in Canada
Canada has no national conversion for Vietnamese grades — no federal or provincial body publishes one, and the two Canadian universities that publish a full table do not agree with each other. What most institutions publish instead is a single minimum on Vietnam’s own 10-point scale. Those are the figures worth planning against, and they are collected below. The calculator above stays what it says it is: a planning estimate.
What Canadian graduate schools actually require
Twelve universities publish a Vietnamese minimum for master’s admission. They cluster tightly, and several state the equivalence in words: 7 out of 10 is treated as a B.
| University | Master’s minimum | As published |
|---|---|---|
| Ottawa | 6.5 / 10 | PhD entry 7.5 |
| York | 7 / 10 | “B equivalent” |
| Carleton | 7 / 10 | B− overall; 7.99 (B+) in the major and for doctoral entry |
| Concordia | 7 / 10 | 4-year Bằng Tốt Nghiệp Đại Học |
| Manitoba | 7 / 10 | “Good / Bình / Khá”, last two years |
| Saskatchewan | 7 / 10 | “Good” |
| Calgary | 7 / 10 | doctoral: “superior academic standing” |
| Victoria | 7.0 / 10 | guide only; assessed against your institution’s scale |
| Toronto | 7.5 / 10 | B+ stated as 7.7 / 10 |
| Waterloo | 7.5 / 10 | 4-year bachelor’s |
| UBC | 8 / 10 | doctoral: 9/10 or 90/100 |
| Simon Fraser | 8 / 10 | publishes a full table (below) |
Read against Circular 08/2021, a 7.0 is the bottom of a B and a 7.5 sits mid-B. So the Canadian graduate bar is, almost everywhere, a Vietnamese B average — not the A that a naive percentage conversion implies.
The two full tables — and they disagree
Only two Canadian universities publish a row-by-row Vietnamese conversion, and they take opposite approaches. Wilfrid Laurier converts secondary school marks with a straight linear map; Simon Fraser converts a bachelor’s degree with a compressive one.
| Vietnamese mark | Laurier — school marks | SFU — degree transcript |
|---|---|---|
| 9.00–10.00 | 90–100% | A+ · 4.0 · Xuất sắc |
| 8.00–8.99 | 80–89% | A · 3.5 · Giỏi |
| 7.00–7.99 | 70–79% | B+ · 3.0 · Khá |
| 6.00–6.99 | 60–69% | B · 2.5 · Trung bình khá |
| 5.00–5.99 | 50–59% | C · 1.5 · Trung bình |
| 0.00–4.99 | below 50% | D / F · Không đạt |
An 8.0 is 80%, a B at Laurier and an A worth 3.5 at SFU. Part of that is scope — a Grade 12 report is not a degree transcript — but not all of it. If you are quoting a converted number in an application, quote the one the institution you are applying to publishes, and say which it is.
Undergraduate: far less is published
Only a handful of universities publish a Vietnamese secondary-school figure at all:
- Queen’s — “the minimum average needed to fall within the competitive range is approximately 8 out of 10”; Commerce wants 8 in English and Mathematics, Nursing 7.5 in senior English Literature.
- Ottawa — a 7.5/10 average across five senior subjects, with a minimum of 5/10 in each prerequisite.
- Manitoba — 7.0 average over the top three senior courses for flexible entry, 8.5 for direct entry, and no course below 6.0.
- Simon Fraser — 6/10 in Senior Mathematics, “based on a 50% pass scale”.
- Alberta — a 4.9 average across five required subjects in the Thị Tốt Nghiệp THPT, 6.9 for Engineering, and no subject below 4.
- Guelph — “with a minimum of 8”, though the page does not state the scale.
- Laurier — the full linear table above, plus six senior academic courses excluding Art, Civics, Sports & Military Education, Technology and Vietnamese.
McGill and Western deliberately publish no Vietnamese number, stating the bar in Canadian terms instead — “the equivalent of a B+ average” and “at least a B (3.0) average in the Canadian grading scale”. Toronto, Dalhousie, Concordia, York, Victoria, Toronto Metropolitan, McMaster and Calgary name the Bằng Tốt Nghiệp Trung Học Phổ Thông and publish no grade requirement against it.
There is no Canadian standard behind any of this
It is worth being clear about what does not exist. IQAS publishes International Education Guides for 19 countries and Vietnam is not one of them. CICIC publishes no foreign country profiles, and the Pan-Canadian Quality Standards in credential evaluation do not address grade conversion at all. OUAC’s published conversion table covers Canadian institutional scales only, and it routes international transcripts to WES. ICAS publishes Vietnamese document requirements with no grading scale. ICES and CES calculate a GPA but publish no scale for any country. Conversion in Canada is institutional discretion plus a commercial assessor, and nothing more.
One gap worth checking if your marks are in the 4s
WES’s published Vietnam country-profile PDF maps 8–10 to A, 6–7.9 to B, 5–5.9 to C and 0–4.9 to F. There is no D band. Under Circular 08/2021 Article 9 a mark of 4.0 to 5.49 is a D — a loại đạt, a pass that counts toward your average. On that table a 4.5 becomes an F. If an assessment has turned passed courses into failures, that is worth raising, with the regulation in hand. Our guide to the conversion tables sets out which published tables get this right and which do not.
How the Canada system works
Canada uses an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA): WES Canada, IQAS (Alberta), ICES (BC), CES (Toronto) or ICAS for admission, and IRCC-designated bodies for Express Entry.
Is it competitive?
Most Canada master's programmes look for the equivalent of a US 3.0+ (an upper-second / good average), with competitive and funded programmes wanting more. Convert first, then check each programme's stated minimum. For a credit-weighted multi-course result, use the WES iGPA calculator.
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
The documents this page rests on. Every one was read in full unless noted.
- Wilfrid Laurier University — Vietnam admissions requirements — one of only two full Canadian tables, and the linear one: 9.00–10.00 to 90–100%, down to below 50%. Undergraduate, from school marks.
- Simon Fraser University — graduate requirements, Vietnam — the other full table, and the compressive one: 8.00–8.99 reads as an A worth 3.5. Graduate, from a degree transcript.
- WES — Vietnam country profile (PDF) — the higher-education table with no D band, where a lawful 4.0–5.49 pass falls into the F row.
- IQAS — International Education Guides — nineteen countries, Vietnam not among them.
- CICIC — learn about the education system of the issuing country — publishes no foreign country profiles; the Pan-Canadian Quality Standards do not address grade conversion.
- OUAC — undergraduate transcripts — Ontario universities route international transcripts to WES; OUAC’s own conversion table covers Canadian scales only.
- ICAS Canada — required documents (PDF) — Vietnamese document requirements with no grading scale anywhere in it.
The twelve universities behind the master’s minimums, and the undergraduate figures for Queen’s, Ottawa, Manitoba, Alberta and Guelph, are linked inline beside each number.
Every figure on this page was read from the institution’s own website, linked above. Where an institution publishes nothing, we say so rather than filling the gap from a third-party converter. Requirements change — check the institution’s own page before you rely on a number, and remember that an admission minimum is a floor, not a competitive target.
Canadian admission and credential assessment are decided by the institution or the assessor, not by this page. The figures on your official Vietnamese transcript are always the authoritative ones.