University of Glasgow
degree classification calculator

Class boundaries

What do I need for a First?

The planner under the calculator works backwards from Glasgow’s own algorithm. Enter the marks you have so far, leave the years you have not finished empty (or set how many credits are still to come), and it shows the lowest mark you would need in every remaining module to reach each class. It runs the same calculation as the calculator, using the year weights and the secondary rules in the table above, so a class reached through one of those routes shows the lower figure.

The answer is a single mark repeated across every remaining module. Real marks vary, and where only some credits count or a class can be reached through a share of high marks, an uneven spread can sometimes get there with a slightly lower average. “Already secured” means the algorithm gives that class even at 0 in what is left, but you still have to pass those modules.

Everything is a grade point, not a percentage

Schedule A of the Code of Assessment sets eight primary grades, A to H, each subdivided into secondary bands — twenty-three in all, from A1 at 22 points down to H at 0. Grade A alone has five bands, deliberately, so that examiners have room to discriminate at the top. Practical and clinical work is graded under Schedule B (A0, B0, C0 and so on), which maps onto the same point scale, so both feed one calculation. Where a course is marked in percentages the Board of Examiners converts them to bands first — there is no single university-wide conversion table, and the Board approves one appropriate to the assessment.

Only years three and four count, and the weighting is your programme’s

Regulation 16.37(a): the classification uses the courses of the third and fourth years — Junior and Senior Honours — weighted by credit. Years one and two do not count at all. The two years are usually weighted equally, but a programme may weight Senior Honours more heavily, and any departure must be set out in the programme specification. Glasgow publishes no list of which programmes do what, so this page starts at 50:50 and gives you boxes to change it. An integrated master’s uses years three, four and five, with the fifth year counting at least 50% and the whole normally within the range 10:20:70 to 20:30:50.

A First starts at 17.5, and the bands have gaps

Regulation 16.37(c) gives the ranges: 17.5–22.0 a First, 14.5–17.0 an Upper Second, 11.5–14.0 a Lower Second, 8.5–11.0 a Third, and 0.0–8.0 a fail. Look closely and four narrow strips are in no band at all — 17.1 to 17.4, 14.1 to 14.4, 11.1 to 11.4 and 8.1 to 8.4. That is deliberate, not an oversight, and the next rule is what fills them.

In the gaps, your grade profile decides

Regulation 16.37(d): a GPA in one of those strips is resolved by the weighted course grade profile. The higher class is awarded where at least half of it sits at A grades (for a First), at B or above (Upper Second), C or above (Lower Second), or D or above (a Third). “Weighted” means by credit and by year weight, which is not the same as counting credits — the Code’s own worked example has a student with 115 of 240 credits at B or above, under half, who still qualifies for a 2:1 because the credits sit in the more heavily weighted year. This calculator applies the weighted test, as the regulation does.

There is no discretion. None.

This is the unusual part. Before 2021–22 Boards of Examiners could exercise discretion in borderline cases. Section 2.8 abolished it: awards “must now be determined solely by the rules” and “there is no scope for Exam Boards to apply any additional or alternative criteria”. Nearly every other university on this site has a clause letting a Board do something else. Glasgow removed its own.

Late work costs two bands a day, and the dissertation is a special case

Regulation 16.26: work submitted late loses two secondary bands for each working day, up to five days, after which it is graded H. Weekends do not count and a part day counts as a whole one. An Honours dissertation is treated oddly and in the student’s favour: you need at least D3 in it to be awarded Honours, and that requirement is judged on the mark before any late penalty — but the penalised grade is what enters your GPA. So a late dissertation can leave you eligible for Honours and still cost you a class.

Joint Honours is averaged twice

On a Joint Honours programme each subject is aggregated separately using its own year weightings, and the two subject GPAs are then combined, usually 50:50. The Code’s example has a student whose two subjects fall in different classes and whose joint GPA lands in a third — only the joint figure counts. To use this calculator for Joint Honours, work out each subject separately and then average the two results yourself.

What this calculator does not do

It applies the published algorithm to the marks you enter. It cannot know your programme’s approved variances, any extenuating circumstances, capped resit marks, or how a Board of Examiners will use its discretion. Where a rule is a judgement rather than a formula, the page says so rather than guessing.

Sources

Every figure on this page is read from Glasgow’s own regulations:

• University of Glasgow — Guide to the Code of Assessment, session 2025-26 — read in full: 16.22 to 16.24 the grades and secondary bands, 16.29 to 16.32 how a course result is aggregated and rounded, 16.34 the grade point average and its one decimal place, 16.36 and 16.37 the honours classification with its year weightings, its bands and the weighted grade profile rule for the gaps, 16.26 the late submission penalty, section 2.8 the abolition of Exam Board discretion, and Schedules A and B for the grade point values.

Regulations change between intakes. Your own cohort’s handbook is always authoritative.