APS Calculator

Admission Point Score from your matric percentages - the standard best-six /42, plus Wits and UCT on their own scales, because one APS number does not fit all.

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One matric, several APS scales

The standard Admission Point Score is simple: each subject's percentage maps to an NSC achievement level (80-100% is level 7, 70-79% level 6, and so on down to level 1 below 30%), and the APS is the sum of your best six levels excluding Life Orientation - maximum 42. That is the scale UJ and UP publish, straight from the DBE's seven-level scale in the national policy. Worked example: 82, 74, 71, 65, 61 and 55 percent, with LO at 90, gives 7+6+6+5+5+4 = APS 33. One catch survives every edge case: a subject the programme requires must be counted inside the six even when a spare subject scored higher.

Wits plays a different game entirely: your best seven subjects including Life Orientation, scored on its own percentage bands - ordinary subjects earn up to 8, English and Mathematics up to 10 (with a jump worth three points at once when either crosses 60%), LO at most 4, and 30-39% earns 0 rather than the standard scale's 2. UCT does not use levels at all: its Faculty Points Score sums your best six raw percentages excluding LO (out of 600), and the Science faculty doubles Mathematics and Physical Sciences (out of 800). That is why this page asks for percentages: an NSC level 7 could be a Wits 7 or a Wits 8, and no calculator working from levels can tell you which. The UJ and UP panels here use the standard scale their own pages state - including UJ, whose current official FAQ excludes LO outright despite the half-points story that still circulates on third-party sites.

The planner works in band edges, because that is where APS points live: 68% is two points from level 6, and 79% is one point from level 7. Give it a target and it finds the cheapest percentage moves. For the average-based screening some universities use, the panel also shows your plain average percentage excluding LO. For plain subject averages on the /100 scale, the South African grade calculator covers the university side, and the GPA converter maps South Africa's scale to other systems.

Questions this calculator gets asked

Does Life Orientation count in the APS?

For the standard APS used by UJ, UP and most universities: no - the score is the sum of your best six other subjects. Wits is the big exception: it counts LO inside its best-seven calculation, on a reduced scale worth at most 4 points.

What is the maximum APS?

42 on the standard scale: six subjects at level 7. Wits and UCT use their own scales with different maxima, so a Wits score or a UCT Faculty Points Score should never be compared against a /42 requirement.

I wrote eight subjects - which six count?

Your best six excluding Life Orientation, with one catch: any subject the programme requires (Mathematics for most BCom and BSc degrees, for example) must be inside the six even when another subject scored higher.

Is 79% the same as 80% for APS?

No, and this is the cruelest band edge in the system: 79% is level 6, 80% is level 7. One percentage point, one full APS point. The planner below works in exactly these edges.

Do IEB and DBE matrics score differently?

No. Both examinations map to the same seven achievement levels, so the APS arithmetic is identical.

Does meeting the minimum APS guarantee admission?

No. The published APS is a screening floor; selection happens above it, and competitive programmes admit well clear of their stated minimum.

Checked on 2026-09-21 against Wits entry requirements (APS table).

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