Academic grading in Finland

This is an article on the grading that is used in Finland. Several systems are in use in different educational institutions in Finland.

Comprehensive school

The "school grade" system has historically been a scale of 0 to 10, but all grades lower than 4 have been discarded. Thus, it is now divided between 4, the failing grade, and 5–10, the succeeding grades. This is similar to the grading scale used in Romania. )

In individual exams, but not in the final grades, it is also possible to divide the scale further with '½', which represents a half grade, and '+' and '–', which represent one-fourth a grade better or inferior. For example, the order is "9 < 9+ < 9½ < 10– < 10". The grade '10+' can also be awarded for a perfect performance with extra effort by the student.

Upper secondary school

Upper secondary schools use the same grades for courses and course exams as comprehensive schools do, but the matriculation examination grades are in Latin. The grading system uses bell curve grading.

Matriculation examination grades

Grade	Abbr.	Points	English explanation	Literal translation	Percentage of participants
laudatur	L	7	outstanding	lauded (praised)	Top 5%
eximia cum laude approbatur	E	6	excellent	approved with exceptional praise	15%
magna cum laude approbatur	M	5	very good	approved with great praise	20%
cum laude approbatur	C	4	good	approved with praise	24%
lubenter approbatur	B	3	satisfactory	gladly approved	20%
approbatur	A	2	pass	approved	11%
improbatur	I	0	fail/unsatisfactory	not approved	bottom 5%

The magna cum laude approbatur grade was introduced in 1970 and eximia cum laude approbatur in 1996. Laudatur grades achieved before 1996 are now counted as eximia cum laude approbaturs.

Higher education

Universities typically use grading scale from 0 to 5:

Finnish grade	English explanation	US equivalent	German equivalent
5	outstanding	A/A+	1
4	very good / excellent	A-	2
3	good	B	3
2	satisfactory	B-	3.3
1	pass	C	4
0	fail	D/F	5

As a rule of thumb, passing an examination requires obtaining 50% of the maximum points in the examination. There is almost no grade inflation in Finland and GPAs of over 4.0 are rare. In fact, it is not uncommon that any given examination is failed - or passed with grade 1 - by most students.

Before Autumn 2005 the grades from 0-3 were in use (0 = failed, 3 - very good/excellent) and these can be seen in older certificates. Some courses have also been graded only failed or passed.

Master's theses are typically graded with either the above scale from 0 to 5 or by the Latin system used in high school matriculation exams, see above. Contrary to the upper secondary school, the grade laudatur is, however, typically used very rarely (significantly less than 5% of theses). Indeed, laudatur is often reserved for exceptional students and it is typically awarded for a thesis only once in 5 to 10 years. In practice, eximia is often considered as the best grade available and it best corresponds to grade 5 in the 0-5 scale.

PhD theses are usually evaluated by pass or fail, although some universities use the Latin system or the scale from 0 to 5.