Academic grading in Finland

Comprehensive school

The "school grade" system has, historically, been a scale of 0 to 10, but all grades lower than 4 have been consolidated into a grade of 4. Thus, it is now divided between a failing grade (4), and 5–10, and passing grades. This is similar to the Romanian grading scale.

  • 10- Excellent, represents about the top 5%
  • 9- Very good
  • 8- Good
  • 7- Satisfactory (average)
  • 6- Fair
  • 5- Passable
  • 4 or below- Failure

In individual exams, but not in the final grades, it is also possible to divide this scale further with '½', which represents a half grade, and '+' and '–', which represent quarter-grades. For example, the order is "9 < 9+ < 9½ < 10– < 10". The grade '10+' can also be awarded for a perfect performance with extra effort by the student, though it is not an official grade.

Upper secondary schools

Upper secondary schools use the same grades for courses and course exams as comprehensive schools do, but the matriculation examination grades are in Latin. The grading system uses bell curve grading.

Matriculation examination grades[1]
Grade Abbr. Points English explanation Literal translation Percentage of participants
laudatur L 7 outstanding lauded (praised) Top 5%
eximia cum laude approbatur E 6 excellent approved with exceptional praise 15%
magna cum laude approbatur M 5 very good approved with great praise 20%
cum laude approbatur C 4 good approved with praise 24%
lubenter approbatur B 3 satisfactory gladly approved 20%
approbatur A 2 pass approved 11%
improbatur I 0 fail/unsatisfactory not approved bottom 5%

The magna cum laude approbatur grade was introduced in 1970 and eximia cum laude approbatur in 1996. Laudatur grades achieved before 1996 are now counted as eximia cum laude approbaturs.

In the grading of Master Thesis', there are also non sine laude between lubenter (B) and cum laude (C):

Higher education

Universities typically use grading scale from 0 to 5:

Finnish grade English explanation US equivalent[2] German equivalent[2]
5 excellent A 1.0
4 very good B+ 1.7
3 good B- 2.3
2 satisfactory C- 3.0
1 pass D 3.7
0 fail / insufficient F 5.0

As a rule of thumb, passing an examination requires obtaining 50% of the maximum points in the examination. There is almost no grade inflation in Finland and students' grade averages of over 4.0 are rare. In fact, it is not uncommon for an examination to be failed — or passed with grade 1 — by most students.

Before Autumn 2005, the grades from 0-3 were in use (0 = failed, 3 - very good/excellent) and can be seen in older certificates. Some courses have also been graded on a conditional system of either pass or fail.

Master's theses are typically graded with either the above scale, or by the Latin system used in high school matriculation exams, see above. Contrary to the upper secondary school however, the grade laudatur is typically used very rarely (significantly less than 5% of theses). Indeed, laudatur is often reserved for exceptional students and it is typically awarded for a thesis only once in 5 to 10 years (!). In practice, eximia is often considered as the best grade available and it best corresponds to a grade of 5 in the 0-5 scale.

PhD theses are usually evaluated by pass or fail, although some universities use the Latin system or the scale from 0 to 5.

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gollark: No, I mean how you would check that they were able to write and speak pre-language.
gollark: I'm not sure how you'd check something like that anyway.
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gollark: I don't know Hebrew at this time, but if it is anything like any natural language ever it isn't regular enough to be meaningfully machine-parseable.

References
  1. "The Matriculation Examination". Ylioppilastutkintolautakunta. Archived from the original on 2009-02-25. Retrieved 2009-04-27.
  2. "Conversion of grades of study and examination achievements abroad". RWTH Aachen University. Retrieved 3 March 2020.

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