How to Convert the Egyptian Grading System to a US GPA (2026)

Most country-conversion guides in this series cover one national grading system that needs translating into a US GPA. Egypt is a harder case, because there isn't one Egyptian grading system to convert, there are at least two broad categories that coexist inside the country and don't fully agree even with each other. Public universities like Cairo, Ain Shams, Alexandria, and Mansoura grade by percentage tied to an Arabic honor classification. A newer group of private universities, the American University in Cairo (AUC) and the German University in Cairo (GUC) among them, already issue letter grades on something close to a US-style scale. The catch is that "already on a GPA scale" doesn't mean "the same GPA scale," and no single table bridges either category into a US admissions office's expectations. Here's what each system actually looks like, where they genuinely diverge, and what to submit instead of a calculator's guess.

Public universities: percentage and classification, not GPA

Egypt's large public universities report results as a percentage average tied to a named classification, not a computed GPA. The bands are commonly described in Arabic as Mumtaz (Excellent), Jayed Jiddan (Very Good), Jayed (Good), and Maqbul (Pass), but the exact percentage cutoffs behind those names aren't identical from one university to the next. Cairo University's credit-hour system sets Mumtaz at 90-100%, Jayed Jiddan at 85-89%, and works down from there in narrower bands. Alexandria University uses a different structure for the same names: Excellent at 90% and above, Very Good from 80 to under 90%, Good from 65 to under 80%, and Pass from 50 to under 65%. A "Jayed" (Good) on one university's transcript can sit on a meaningfully different percentage range than a "Jayed" on another's, which matters before any GPA conversion even starts.

Why a flat percentage-to-letter table gets this wrong

A generic US conversion table (90-100% = A, 80-89% = B, and so on) is the default most online calculators reach for, and it's not what Egyptian universities themselves use internally when they run a credit-hour system. Cairo University's own internal table, for example, breaks the 80-89% band into two separate letter grades with two separate point values: 85-89% as A- (3.7) and 80-84% as B+ (3.3), rather than treating the whole decade as one flat "B." Run an 82% through the generic table and you get a B (3.0). Run it through Cairo's own table and you get a B+ (3.3), a real difference, not a rounding error, for an identical mark. Neither table is "the" official Egyptian standard; there isn't one. Each is a specific institution's or calculator's own mapping, and they produce different answers from the same input.

The same public university can run two different systems at once

It gets more tangled still, because a single Egyptian public university can run two separate grading systems in parallel, depending on the specific faculty or program track a student is enrolled in. The classic "National System," still the default across most Egyptian public-university faculties, produces only a percentage and an Arabic classification, with no internally computed GPA at all. A newer "Credit Hour System," adopted by specific faculties and programs within some of the same universities (often business, engineering, and other programs restructured around a US-style credit framework), does compute an internal letter grade and point value, which is where a table like Cairo University's 90-100% = A (4.0) down to below-60% = F (0.0) actually comes from. Two students who both graduated from Cairo University, one from a National System faculty and one from a Credit Hour System program, can have transcripts that look structurally nothing alike, one showing a percentage and a classification, the other showing letter grades and point values, despite both carrying the same university's name. Before assuming any specific conversion table applies to your transcript, confirm which of the two systems your specific faculty or program actually used.

AUC and GUC already issue letter grades, but not the same ones

The American University in Cairo runs on a standard 4.0 scale recorded directly on students' permanent records by its Office of the Registrar: A at 4.0, A- at 3.7, B+ at 3.3, B at 3.0, B- at 2.7, C+ at 2.3, C at 2.0, C- at 1.7, D+ at 1.3, D at 1.0, and F at 0.0. That looks identical to a standard American university scale, because it was built around one. The German University in Cairo also issues letter grades rather than a percentage-and-classification result, but a foreign-recognition conversion table published by a German university (used to translate GUC's letter grades into the German 1.0-5.0 scale for exchange purposes) assigns its own specific point mapping to GUC's letters, separate from how AUC defines its own. The practical point: seeing a letter grade or a GPA-looking number on an Egyptian private-university transcript doesn't tell a US admissions office which institution's specific scale produced it, or guarantee it lines up one-to-one with a US A, A-, or B+. Even a transfer-credit office at a US university, when mapping AUC grades for its own exchange students, has published an adapted scale that differs from AUC's own official table, which is a sign that even specialists treat this as an interpretation, not a lookup.

What a formal credential evaluation actually does

Most US graduate programmes require a course-by-course evaluation from a NACES-member agency, most commonly WES or ECE, the same requirement that applies to transcripts from most countries outside US grading conventions. For an Egyptian transcript, that evaluation has to do real interpretive work: identifying which category of institution issued it, applying that specific institution's own grading regulations rather than a generic Egypt-wide table, and producing a US-equivalent GPA an admissions committee can actually compare against applicants from other countries. Our comparison of WES, ECE, and IQAS covers how each evaluator works and which one a specific target programme is likely to require.

What to actually report when a form asks for your GPA

When an application form or portal asks for a GPA before a formal evaluation has been completed, report your actual result as your transcript states it, whether that's a percentage and classification from a public university or a letter grade and institutional GPA from AUC, GUC, or another private university, rather than a figure you've run through an unofficial calculator. Many application systems have a free-text or "other" field specifically for grading systems that don't map cleanly onto 4.0, and a specific, accurate description of what your transcript actually shows is more useful to an admissions reader than an estimated conversion that may not match the number a formal evaluator eventually produces.

The practical steps, in order

• Identify which category your university falls into: a public university grading by percentage and classification, or a private university already issuing letter grades, and request your official transcript along with any grading-scale key your university's registrar can provide.
• Confirm your target programme's required evaluator, usually WES or ECE, on its own international-applicant admissions page before paying for anything.
• Report your actual result, percentage and classification or letter grade, as printed on your transcript when a form asks, rather than a calculator's converted figure, unless the programme explicitly asks for an estimate as a planning number.
• Build in real lead time: formal evaluations commonly take several weeks, longer during peak application season, and Egyptian university records offices can themselves take time to issue certified transcripts.

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