Do you have the grades to be able to apply for the MEXT scholarship? Here’s how to find out!
MEXT Scholarship Minimum GPA Requirement
For a step-by-step walkthrough of the GPA calculation and other eligibility criteria, plus a GPA calculation spreadsheet and sample grading systems, click here to learn more about How to Apply for the MEXT Scholarship, the first book in the Mastering the MEXT Scholarship System
This is a sneaky eligibility criteria, as I discussed in a previous article. You will not find it in the application guidelines for students, either at the Embassy or the University. However, it does appear in the guidelines that MEXT issues to those organizations. They cannot nominate you for the scholarship unless you meet the minimum GPA requirement.
Since the requirement is not clearly stated, and I’m certain your GPA is not calculated on a 3.00 scale, it’s possible that you might end up applying for the scholarship without ever realizing that you are not eligible.
By the end of this article, we will make sure that does not happen to you.
Although we will calculate your GPA, this is not an official calculation. Ultimately, the university and embassy are responsible for calculating the official scores themselves and they are not going to accept your calculation.
How to Convert Your Grades to MEXT’s Scale
The problem is that no university in the world – not even in Japan – uses a 3.00 GPA scale. That means you have to convert whatever grade or marks system your country uses to the MEXT scale.
Unfortunately, converting your overall average from one system to the other does not work. If you convert the overall average, the result will not be accurate. You need to convert each course grade one-by-one. If you want proof of why this is true and a sample of how converting an overall average can go horribly wrong, I have included one in my upcoming book, How to Apply for the MEXT Scholarship, but you don’t need to read that to believe me.
What grades count for the calculation?
As of the 2020 University Recommended MEXT Scholarship Application process, MEXT has removed the “last two years” reference from its instructions to universities in how to calculate GPA. It used to be that only your last two years of grades counted for the calculation, but now it appears that all grades earned over your most recent degree will be counted. This change should apply to both the embassy and university
All grades earned in your current degree-seeking program, or in the degree program you graduated from most recently, if you are not currently enrolled in a degree.
Degree-Seeking Program
Only grades earned in a degree program count. If you are attending university as a non-degree student, attending a language program, or attending a language school, those grades do not count.
If you studied abroad during your degree, your study abroad semester may or may not count, depending on how it is reflected on your transcript. If your grades from study abroad are reflected on your home university transcript, then those grades count. If your grades are not reflected – if they only show up as pass/fail credits – then those grades do not count.
Calculating Pass/Fail Grades
In general, grades earned in pass/fail courses do not count. However, if you earned a “fail” grade in a pass/fail course and it is impossible to distinguish that grade from a failing grade in a graded course, then it may be counted.
Calculating Your GPA: Grading Systems
In order to calculate your grades, you will need an explanation of your grading system. An explanation of the grading system is generally a chart that shows all of the possible grades that can be earned and, ideally, the descriptive value of each one.
Typically, this will appear on the transcript itself, or it may be available from your university’s website. In my book, How to Apply for the MEXT Scholarship, I include images and conversion charts for every grading system I have worked with in my career.
Without a grading system, your grades are impossible to interpret.
Grading systems vary wildly from country to country, so the same grade could be a good score in one country and a terrible score in another. For example, a 71% in Japan is below average (2.00 on the MEX 3.00 scale), but in the UK it is at excellent grade (3.00 on the 3.00 scale). A “D” grade in the US is just one place removed from failure (1.00 on the 3.00 scale), but in Australia, D stands for Distinction (3.00 on the 3.00 scale).
You need your grading system to be able to convert your grades. If it is not printed on your transcript, then talk to the international office at your university or a graduate school admissions office. Either of those offices would need to be able to convert foreign grades to your university’s system in order to accept students, so they should have access to conversion charts.
Calculating Your GPA: Grading Buckets
Based on your grading system, you need to determine how to fit your grades into grading “buckets.” A grading bucket is a group of grades that all convert to the same value on MEXT’s chart.
MEXT’s official conversion chart is as follows:
| System | Grades | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4-Level System | Excellent | Good | Average | Fail | |
| 4-Level System | A | B | C | F | |
| 4-Level System | 100 – 80 | 79 – 70 | 69 – 60 | 59 – 0 | |
| All other grading systems with 4 distinct grading buckets will use this system | |||||
| 5-Level System | S | A | B | C | F |
| 5-Level System | A | B | C | D | F |
| 5-Level System | 100 – 90 | 89 – 80 | 79 – 70 | 69 – 60 | 59 – 0 |
| All other grading systems with 5 distinct grading buckets will use this system | |||||
| MEXT System Grade | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Each column in the table above is a Grading Bucket, whether that’s a single letter, description, or range of scores. But these are not the only options. You might have a system with pluses and minuses, with more than 5 letters, or other variations, such as different percentage cut-offs.
It is important that you find the conversion that works for your grading system. Your grading system will tell you how to fit your grades into the buckets above.
Once you have done that, I recommend that you make a copy of your transcript so that you can write directly on it. You can also do your calculations in a spreadsheet, of course, or however you prefer.
Whatever system you are using, write your MEXT GPA score next to your score for each course that you took over the last 2 full years.
Calculating Your Grades: Credits
Next, we need to multiply each MEXT grade by the number of credits you earned in the class, if you have a credit system.
A credits system is when you need to obtain a specific number of credits in order to graduate. Most courses will be worth multiple credits in this kind of system, depending on the number of hours spent in class and on work outside of class.
Here are a few common credit systems:
- In Japan, many universities assign 2 credits per lecture course
- Many semester-system universities in the US assign 3 credits per lecture course
- Another credit system in the US and Canada is to assign 0.5 credits per semester course and 1 credit for a year-long course
- In the ECTS system in Europe, each course is typically worth 6 credits
If you have credits for each class, the number of credits will be printed next to each class on your transcript. Multiply that number by your MEXT grade for each course to get your Quality Points for that class.
What if Your University Doesn’t Use Credits?
There are a few alternative systems you may see.
The first, and easiest, is if there are no credits at all. In this system, you simply have to pass a certain number of courses. None is weighted more than the other. In that case, each course has a credit value of 1 and your quality points for the course would be equal to the MEXT grade.
Semester and Year Courses
If your university distinguishes between semester-long courses and year-long courses, but does not specify credits, then treat a year-long course as 2 credits and a semester-long course as 1 credit for the sake of calculating your grade.
Average Marks
I have seen average marks systems where each course was worth a maximum number of marks and students had to acquire a specific number of total marks across all courses in order to graduate.
In such a system, you still need to convert your grades for each individual course. You would get your converted grade based on the percentage of available marks that you earned and the number of credits would be equal to the total number of marks available.
Calculating Your MEXT GPA: Moment of Truth
GPA calculation formula
By this point, you should have your MEXT GPA for each course, the number of credits for each course, and the number of quality points (GPA x credits) for each course.
Divide the total number of quality points by the total number of credits to get your overall MEXT GPA.
How did you do? Did you clear the 2.30 threshold?
In most cases, I find that applicants’ GPAs are higher than they expect, especially if you come from a country with a harsh grading system.
If your grades are higher than 2.30, then you are eligible to apply, and there is nothing that should stop you. If you want to learn more about creating an application strategy and adopting a professional mindset to increase your chances of success, you can find advice and worksheets to improve your chances in How to Apply for the MEXT Scholarship.
Of course, I have tons of free advice and resources in the other articles on this site, as well! You can find all of my MEXT articles at this link.
What If You Don’t Have Grades
There are some degree programs out there that do not award grades such as research-only graduate programs. In this case, you cannot calculate your GPA, so what do you do?
If you are applying for the Embassy Recommendation MEXT Scholarship, then please contact the Embassy for more details to be sure, but the instructions below may apply to you.
For the University Recommendation, if you have no grades, then your Letter of Recommendation (from your Dean or President, as required in that application process), must explicitly state that you are in the top 30% of your graduating class within the faculty or the university as a whole.
The top 30% letter only works if you have no GPA. If you have a GPA below 2.30, you cannot override that low GPA, even if you are in the top 30% of your class.
Questions?
Let me know in the comments below!
Special Thanks
Special thanks to the TranSenz supporters on Patreon. You can show your support for TranSenz on Patreon for as little as $2 per month (or less than 0.15% of the monthly MEXT stipend). Patreon supporters are instrumental in helping to cover the costs of maintaining this site and get priority responses to any questions as well as advance access to news and offers.
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Hi Travis,
Thanks for all the articles you have put up. It helps a lot.
I was wondering when calculating GPA, should I calculate the average of each academic year aside and then calculate the average of those years to be above 2.3 or does each year have to be above 2.3 by itself.
I hope my question is clear.
Thanks in advance
Best Regards
Nassir
Hi Nassir,
Thank you for your kind words. I am glad to hear that you’ve found the articles to be helpful!
For the GPA calculation, you should not calculate the GPAs for individual years at all. Convert each of the course grades to the MEXT scale then take the average of all of your courses all at once.
Calculating the averages for individual years then calculating the average of those 4 years could give you an inaccurate result and the average for individual years does not matter.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
My university uses a 10-scale grading system as follows:
9.6 – 10.0 = O(Outstanding)
9.0 – 9.5 = S(Excellent)
8.0 – 8.9 = A++(Distinction)
7.0 – 7.9 = A+(Very good)
6.0 – 6.9 = A(Good)
5.5 – 5.9 = B+(Satisfactory)
5.0 – 5.4 = B(AVERGAGE)
4.0 – 4.9 = C(Below Average)
<4.0 = F(Failed)
So in this scale what should be cut off for MEXT(2.3 out of 3)?
Thank you.
Hi Arijit,
It is not possible to say what the cut off would be in another grading system. You need to convert all of your grades one-by-one to the Japanese system and then take the average. (If you try to convert 2.3 to your system or try to convert just your overall GPA, it will not give an accurate result. I have tried this with many different systems and have an example in my book.)
Your grades look fairly straightforward to convert using the letter grades:
O/S/A = 3
B = 2
C = 1
F = 0
(Ignore plusses and count those as being the same as the letter).
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you so much for the reply.
On the embassy website in my country(India), they asked for a minimum 65% marks. So can I assume 65% marks in my country’s grading system maps to 2.3 out of 3 in MEXT grading system?
Hi Arijit,
In that case, it should be approximately around the same range, but that does not guarantee that if you have 65% marks that you will have at least a 2.3 MEXT GPA. As I mentioned before, there is no way to accurately convert a cumulative GPA. If you want to be sure, the only way is to convert the grades one-by-one.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Dear Travis,
Thank you for your continued support for all aspiring students arpund the world.
I have a question about rounding up the GPA.
I am current Mext bassy recommend masters student and i submitted for extension to PhD.
My Gpa was 2.88 out of 3.0 to be exact. I rounded it to 2.9. Can i do that? Would it be a problem?
Thank you.
Hi Hsu,
Your GPA should be calculated to three decimal places, so you cannot round to 2.9. But on the other hand, there is no problem with a 2.88 GPA. The minimum requirement is 2.50 and you are well above that!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Dear Travis,
Thank you very much for your reply. I didn’t know that and I submitted with 2.9. Could I lose the scholarship because of this?
Hi Hsu,
No, you shouldn’t lose the scholarship over rounding. Usually, it is the university, not the scholar, that is responsible for the GPA calculation. So, even if they ask you to calculate it, they are going to double-check it. They may correct the calculation themselves or ask you to correct and resubmit, but in any case, I don’t think it will be a problem.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
I have been following your guides and I could say that it has been very helpful for my apps. I would just like to ask for the conversion of my current grading scale to the MEXT 3.0 scale.
Grade Point Description
4.0 Excellent
3.5 Superior
3.0 Very Good
2.5 Good
2.0 Satisfactory
1.5 Fair
1.0 Passed
0.0 Failed
Thank you in advance!
Best,
Kyle
Hi Kyle,
Thank you for your kind words.
For your grading scale, I would convert it as follows:
4.0 – 2.5 = 3
2.0 – 1.5 = 2
1.0 = 1
0.0 = 0
There is a possibility that 2.5 would be converted to a MEXT 2 and 1.5 would be converted to a MEXT 1, so if you want to give yourself a harsh conversion to make sure you still qualify under those conditions, that could be a useful reference. (I chose to convert them to the higher grade because the qualitative description of 2.5 was “Good”, but both cases could be a judgement call.)
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
Thanks for the article in such depth and detail.
I am following your articles while preparing for my application and it helped a lot.
Now, at this point, I need your help to confirm the grading system of my university to the MEXT grading system. Would you please let me know the MEXT equivalent grading points for this classification?
Distinction – 75% and above
First Division – 65% and above
Second Division – 50% and above
Fail – 50% below
Thank you very much in advance.
Hi Andreas Hoffman,
If there are no other breakdowns of grading category (like Third Division or Second Division (Upper)/Second Division (Lower)), then it would be a severe calculation, indeed. Without any other way to distinguish between grades, the only conversion method I can think of.
Distinction – 75% and above = 3
First Division – 65% and above = 2
Second Division – 50% and above = 1
Fail – 50% below = 0
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz