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

A Saudi transcript showing "Exceptional" or "Very Good" alongside a number out of 5.00 looks like it should convert cleanly to a US GPA. It doesn't, mainly because Saudi universities genuinely don't share one national grading standard, and the secondary sources available to check against each other disagree about which specific institutions use which scale.

There is no single national scale

This is the fact that has to anchor everything else in this guide. UNSW's own postgraduate admissions documentation states directly that Saudi Arabian institutions set their own grading systems, with no single countrywide standard imposed across all universities. In practice, that shows up as a split between 5.0-point and 4.0-point GPA scales depending on the institution, and the secondary sources checked for this guide don't even agree on which specific universities fall into which category. One source lists King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) and Umm Al-Qura University as the 4.0-scale exceptions against a 5.0-scale majority, while a separate source instead lists King Saud University and KFUPM together as using the 5-point variant, directly contradicting the first on at least one institution. The only reliable way to know your own university's actual scale is to check your transcript's own stated grading key or your registrar's documentation, not a generic list from a third-party site.

The top band's name and cutoff aren't standardized either

Several sources describe a top grade band commonly labeled "Exceptional," generally mapped to roughly 95 to 100 percent and a GPA value around 5.00 on a 5-point scale. But other sources checked for this guide use different labels for what appears to be the same relative rank, including "Very Good" and "Superior" at different percentage bands, and official-looking institutional bylaw pages and third-party converter sites don't consistently agree with each other on the exact percentage cutoffs separating each tier. If an application asks for your exact letter-grade equivalent, quote the label and percentage exactly as your own transcript and university grading key state them rather than relying on a generic band-name table, since the research for this guide found no single authoritative version that every Saudi institution follows.

Tawjihi is the wrong term, and the secondary score usually isn't your GPA input anyway

A common mix-up in this specific research area is reaching for "Tawjihi" as the name of the Saudi secondary school exam. It isn't. Tawjihi is Jordan's and Palestine's secondary qualification. Saudi Arabia's own exam is the Thanaweya Amma, a separate national system. The two get confused partly because AACRAO and similar credential-evaluation resources sometimes discuss secondary grading scales across the Arab world together, and partly because converter sites don't always distinguish them clearly.

More importantly for a graduate-school GPA conversion specifically: the secondary-school score generally isn't what feeds into your university GPA at all. Sources describing the comparable Jordanian and Kuwaiti secondary exams both describe that score as a factor in university admission decisions, not something calculated directly into a later university GPA. A source specifically confirming this exact mechanic for Saudi Arabia's Thanaweya Amma wasn't found for this guide, but the general pattern (a secondary exam score used for admission, not folded into your eventual degree GPA) is consistent enough across the region that it's worth assuming by default and confirming with your own university if it genuinely matters for your application. Either way, what a graduate program actually wants from you is your university-level transcript and GPA, not your secondary exam score.

One real official table, from one specific university

Most of what's available on this topic comes from third-party converter sites rather than a university's own published grading key. One genuine exception found for this guide: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals' own registrar publishes an official letter-grade-to-point table, effective since September 1997, on its 4.0-point scale: A+ equals 4.00, A equals 3.75, B+ equals 3.50, B equals 3.00, C+ equals 2.50, C equals 2.00, D+ equals 1.50, D equals 1.00, and F equals 0.00. That's a real, citable, institution-published table, not a third-party estimate, though it describes only this one university's own scale. A separate commercial source adds specific percentage bands behind these same letters (roughly 95 to 100 for A+, 90 to 94 for A, and so on down to below 60 for F), but KFUPM's own registrar page doesn't itself publish percentage ranges, so those specific cutoffs should be treated as unconfirmed and checked with the registrar directly if they matter for your own application.

One more detail worth flagging if you're comparing scales at all: at least one source describes Saudi institutions that use the separate 5.0-point scale as recording an F grade as 1.00 rather than 0, genuinely different from how KFUPM's 4.0-scale table treats a failing grade. Don't assume a failing grade is worth zero points by default across every Saudi institution, that assumption holds for some scales and not others.

Why generic converters specifically struggle with Arab grading systems

One commercial credential-evaluation blog checked for this guide claims that generic online converters are routinely wrong by 0.2 to 0.3 GPA points specifically for Arab secondary and university systems, citing the region's wide variation in grading structures as the reason. That specific figure comes from a single commercial source and wasn't independently verified for this guide, so it shouldn't be repeated as a settled statistic. The underlying reasoning behind it does line up with everything else found in this research, though: with Saudi institutions genuinely split between 4.0 and 5.0-point scales, with disagreement even among secondary sources about which university uses which, a generic converter built around one assumed scale has a real, structural reason to get a Saudi transcript wrong in a way it might not get a more standardized system wrong.

Why a formal credential evaluation is the safer route here specifically

Given how much Saudi institutions' own grading scales genuinely vary, and how inconsistently the secondary sources checked for this guide describe the same universities, self-calculating a GPA from a generic online converter carries real risk of applying the wrong scale to your transcript. If an application requires a formal credential evaluation, use a NACES-member evaluator such as WES or ECE and let their documented methodology produce the number. Our WES vs. ECE vs. IQAS guide covers how to pick the right evaluator for your specific destination country.

What to put in a cold email instead of a self-converted number

If you're emailing a potential advisor rather than submitting a formal application, skip the self-converted GPA question entirely. State your raw grade and your transcript's own scale exactly as it's printed, for example "GPA 4.6/5.0 (Exceptional/Very Good standing)," rather than presenting a converted number that invites the unanswerable follow-up question of which of several conflicting scale mappings you used. If you're specifically navigating the King Abdullah Scholarship Program's outbound funding process, our guide to PhD and Masters funding for Saudi students abroad covers that program directly. If you're instead looking at KAUST's own inbound funding for international students studying in Saudi Arabia, that's covered separately in our guide to a funded PhD in Saudi Arabia.

Confirm specifics before you rely on them

The absence of a single national Saudi grading standard, and the existence of both 4.0 and 5.0-point institutional scales, are consistently confirmed across the sources checked for this guide, including UNSW's own admissions documentation. Exactly which institutions use which scale, the precise percentage cutoffs behind each grade band, and the exact labels used for each tier are all places where sources genuinely disagree. Verify your own institution's grading key directly with your registrar, or use a NACES-member credential evaluator, rather than relying on any single generic table, including this one.

Finding the funded path once your transcript is sorted

A correctly explained GPA helps an application land the way it should, it doesn't replace the funding search itself. GradScoutFunding searches professors by field and country, confirms they're actively publishing, and drafts a personalized first email grounded in their real recent paper for you to review and send yourself, it never sends anything automatically. The free tier gives you 2 credits with no card required, and paid credit packs are one-time purchases that never expire.

Common questions