Dutch Grades to GPA

A working equivalence with its method printed beside it: your cijfer placed between the pass line (5.5) and the ceiling (10), replayed onto the US 4.0. Honest, checkable, and labelled for what it is.

cijfer in, 4.0-scale outband anchoring · zero upload

Your cijfer

Working equivalence-enter a grade above

cijfer	Linear 4.0 equivalence
10	4.00
9.5	3.67
9	3.33
8.5	3.00
8	2.67
7.5	2.33
7	2.00
6.5	1.67
6	1.33
5.5	1.00

Not an evaluationThis is a working equivalence with its method shown - not a credential evaluation any institution accepts. Here is the difference, plainly.

The method, and its honest limits

Equivalence = 1.0 + 3.0 × (your cijfer − 5.5) ÷ (10 − 5.5) - the pass line lands on a US D (1.0) and the ceiling on 4.0, the same linear logic as Germany's modified Bavarian formula for foreign grades, generalized. Below the pass line, no equivalence is printed, because a failing grade has no US GPA equivalent worth pretending about.

The Dutch scale is the textbook compression case: 9s are rare and 10s are near-mythical, so the top of the scale is barely used and any linear conversion reads Dutch excellence as US mediocrity. A cijfer of 8 - a grade Dutch professors give sparingly - lands at 2.67 on the linear method, while evaluators who know the culture routinely treat 8+ as A-range work. Both facts belong in the same sentence, which is why this page prints the method beside the number. Nuffic, the Dutch body for international credential comparison, publishes country comparisons on exactly this basis.

Compute the cijfer average first on the Dutch grade calculator, see the scale itself on the Dutch grading scale page, or convert between any two systems with the general converter.

Questions this page gets asked

What is a Dutch 8 in GPA?

Linearly, 2.67 on a 4.0 scale (anchoring the 5.5 pass and the 10 ceiling). Culturally, an 8 average is excellent work that credential evaluators reviewing course-by-course often place in the A range. Any single number without that caveat is misleading you in one direction or the other.

Why do Dutch grades convert so low?

Because Dutch graders barely use the top of their own scale - 9s are rare, 10s nearly nonexistent - while US transcripts cluster high. Linear interpolation cannot see grading culture, so it compresses Dutch excellence into the US middle.

Is a 7.5 a good grade in the Netherlands?

Yes - comfortably above the 5.5 pass and around the level Dutch universities call ruim voldoende to goed. Linearly it reads 2.33 on a 4.0 scale, which says more about the method's limits than about the grade.

Do Dutch universities issue GPAs?

No. Dutch transcripts carry cijfers out of 10; the GPA is always someone else's conversion. If an application requires an official one, that is credential-evaluator territory.

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Reading someone else's grades for a job or an admission? How to read a foreign grade