Swiss Grades to GPA

A working equivalence with its method printed beside it: your Note placed between the pass line (4) and the ceiling (6), replayed onto the US 4.0. Honest, checkable, and labelled for what it is.

Note in, 4.0-scale outband anchoring · zero upload

Your Note

Working equivalence-enter a grade above

Note	Linear 4.0 equivalence
6	4.00
5.5	3.25
5	2.50
4.5	1.75
4	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 Note − 4) ÷ (6 − 4) - 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.

Switzerland runs the mirror image of its northern neighbour: 6 is the best grade and 4.0 is the pass - the same numbers that mean "barely passed" and "failed" in Germany. That inversion is the single most common error in generic converters fed Swiss transcripts. The linear method anchors the 4.0 pass and the 6.0 ceiling: a 5.0 lands at 2.50, a 5.5 at 3.25, and a 6.0 at 4.0. Swiss universities also grade in half-steps as a rule, and a 6 is rare in practice - the working range for good students is 4.5 to 5.5.

Average your Noten first on the Swiss grade calculator (ECTS-weighted, direction handled correctly), or convert into any other system with the general converter.

Questions this page gets asked

What is a Swiss 5 in GPA?

2.50 as a linear working equivalence - anchoring the pass at 4.0 and the ceiling at 6.0. In Swiss terms a 5 is gut, solidly above the pass; evaluators reading the whole transcript often place sustained 5s higher than the linear number.

Is a Swiss 4.5 a good grade?

It passes with room to spare - genügend to befriedigend territory. Linearly it converts to 1.75, near the bottom of the US passing range, which mostly demonstrates why linear conversion needs its caveat printed.

Why do Swiss and German grades confuse converters?

Because they run in opposite directions over overlapping numbers: a German 1.0 is the best grade and a Swiss 1 is the worst; a 4.0 barely passes in Germany and is exactly the pass in Switzerland. A converter that does not know the country mangles both.

Do Swiss universities use GPAs?

No - transcripts carry Noten out of 6, usually in half-steps. Any 4.0-scale number is a conversion, and whoever requires it should say how they want it computed.

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