Vietnam grades
and Chinese admission

Nobody in China converts your grades, and that is the official position

This is not a gap in what universities happen to publish. It is how Chinese admission is designed. The Ministry of Education’s Order No. 42, which governs the admission of international students, hands the judgement to each institution. Article 11 requires universities to publish their own admissions prospectus; Article 12 requires them to review each applicant’s qualifications and “对其进行考试或者考核” — to examine or assess them.

So the university tests you. It does not convert you. Across the fifteen universities we read — Tsinghua, Peking, Fudan, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Zhejiang, Nanjing, Wuhan, Sun Yat-sen, Xiamen, and the Guangxi and Yunnan institutions that enrol most Vietnamese students — not one publishes a minimum GPA for foreign applicants. Not on a 4.0 scale, not on a 100-point scale, not at all. The academic condition, where one is stated, is a phrase: 学习成绩优秀, “excellent academic results”, with no number ever attached to it.

And China’s credential bodies do not fill the gap either

CSCSE, the Ministry of Education’s service centre and the nearest Chinese equivalent to UK ENIC or WES, assesses exactly three things: the legal status of the awarding institution, the authenticity of the certificate, and the level of the credential. It will confirm that your Bằng Tốt Nghiệp Đại Học is a genuine bachelor’s degree. It will never tell anyone what a 7.5 is worth.

CHSI, which people often assume does this, states plainly that it does not accept foreign qualifications for verification at all — its role is verifying Chinese qualifications, mostly for Chinese students going abroad. The one official Chinese grade formula points in that direction too. CHSI publishes a GPA algorithm for Chinese transcripts, GPA = 4 − 3(100 − X)² / 1600 for marks from 60 to 100 — a tool for converting Chinese marks outward, with no counterpart pointing in.

HSK is the real gate, and it varies far more than any grade would

Where a Canadian or British university would publish a number out of 10, a Chinese university publishes a Chinese-language requirement. These are the published levels:

From HSK 3 to HSK 6 is an enormous spread — roughly 600 words of Chinese against 5,000. It is a far bigger difference than any grade threshold on any other page in this cluster, and it explains something a conversion table never could: why Vietnamese students concentrate in Guangxi and Yunnan. The border provinces ask for HSK 3 to 4. The national universities ask for 5 to 6.

From 2026 there is an actual entrance exam

The CSCA — China Scholastic Competency Assessment, 来华留学本科入学学业水平测试 — is run by the China Scholarship Council and was launched on 21 December 2025. The Shanghai Municipal Education Commission describes it as “a standardized test designed for international students who plan to pursue undergraduate degrees in China” and “an important reference used by Chinese universities in their admission and scholarship evaluation processes”.

It tests Professional Chinese in humanities and STEM tracks, plus Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, with the sciences available in Chinese or English, and sits five times a year from 2026. It is already compulsory at Shanghai Jiao Tong, Zhejiang, Nanjing, Sun Yat-sen, Xiamen and Yunnan Normal, and undergraduate applicants for the Chinese Government Scholarship must upload a score.

This is worth understanding as a shift rather than an addition. The CSCA occupies exactly the space a foreign-grade conversion would have occupied. China is not moving towards reading your transcript — it is moving towards testing you directly, the same structural answer Japan reached with the EJU. If you are applying for undergraduate entry from 2026, your CSCA score will matter more than your Grade 12 average.

Peking University does not recognise the Vietnamese school certificate

PKU publishes a list of national school-leaving qualifications it accepts, with the score required for each: Australia ATAR 90 or above, Germany Abitur 1.5 or better, France Baccalauréat 15 or above, the Netherlands VWO 7.0, Canada 84%, Brazil ENEM 700, plus Austria, Finland, Spain, New Zealand, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Iran.

Vietnam is not on it. The Bằng Tốt Nghiệp THPT appears nowhere, which closes the examination-exempt route. A Vietnamese applicant to Peking must instead take PKU’s own written entrance examination in Chinese, English and Mathematics, followed by a second-round assessment.

This is the third time the pattern has appeared in this cluster: the University of Tokyo’s PEAK programme lists fourteen countries and omits Vietnam, Kyoto’s iUP list omits it, and now Peking’s. Where a receiving university publishes a country list, Vietnam is routinely not on it — which is worth knowing before you assume your certificate speaks for itself. See Vietnam to Japan for the same pattern in Japanese admissions.

The scholarship route, and what it asks for

The Chinese Embassy in Vietnam runs the Vietnamese intake for the Chinese Government Scholarship. Its conditions are age caps and a phrase: a bachelor’s degree or equivalent and under 35 for a master’s, a master’s and under 40 for a doctorate, with 学习成绩优秀 — excellent academic results — and no figure attached. Chinese-taught master’s and doctoral applicants need HSK 4; those applying in another language meet the university’s own language requirement.

Two details worth catching. The scholarship requires a pre-admission letter from the university before the embassy will process you, so the university’s own assessment comes first. And the Vietnam partial-scholarship route covers master’s and doctoral study only — there is no undergraduate category in it.

What to send instead of a converted number

Since no one is converting your average, what matters is that your documents are in the form Chinese universities expect:

• Your notarised highest qualification and full transcripts, with a notarised Chinese or English translation if they are in Vietnamese.
• A valid HSK score report at the level your target university publishes — check that level first, because it is the requirement most likely to rule you out, and it is the one you can still change.
• A CSCA score if you are applying for undergraduate entry from the 2026 cycle.
• For a scholarship, the university’s pre-admission letter.

And keep your own numbers straight: your Vietnamese transcript already carries a 4-point CGPA under Circular 08/2021 if you are on the credit system, alongside the 10-point average. If a form asks for a GPA without naming a scale, say which one you are giving. See how the Vietnamese scale works, and the Chinese 100-point scale for the system you are entering.

Sources

The documents this page rests on. Every one was read in full unless noted.

• MOE Order No. 42 — administrative measures for international students — Articles 11 and 12, which require each university to publish its own prospectus and to examine or assess applicants rather than convert them.
• Shanghai Municipal Education Commission — on the CSCA — what the new entrance test is, its subjects, and its role in admission and scholarship evaluation. Verified directly.
• Peking University — recognised national qualifications and scores — sixteen entries, Vietnam absent. Verified directly.
• Peking University — examination admission route — the written entrance examination in Chinese, English and Mathematics that a Vietnamese applicant must take instead.
• CSCSE — foreign credential verification — establishes that verification covers legal status, authenticity and level, never grade.
• CHSI — verification scope — states that it does not accept foreign qualifications for verification.
• CHSI — GPA calculation — the one official Chinese grade formula, and it converts Chinese transcripts outward.
• Yunnan Normal University — 2026 international undergraduate admission — HSK 4 at 180, the CSCA requirement, and no GPA threshold. Verified directly.
• Guangxi Minzu University — international undergraduate admission — HSK 3, the lowest published bar found, and the university-run examination. Verified directly.
• Chinese Embassy in Vietnam — Chinese Government Scholarship — the age caps, the HSK 4 condition and the pre-admission letter requirement.

The HSK levels for Tsinghua, Wuhan, Nanjing, Sun Yat-sen, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Xiamen and Guangxi University are linked inline in the table above.

Every statement on this page was read from a Chinese government body or a Chinese university’s own site, linked above. Where nothing is published, we say so rather than filling the gap from an agency.

Admission and scholarship decisions are made by the university and by the China Scholarship Council. Requirements change every cycle, and several universities publish their prospectus only as a downloadable attachment — check the current 招生简章 before relying on any figure here. The figures on your official Vietnamese transcript are always the authoritative ones.