Converting a UK Degree Classification to a Canadian GPA for Grad School Applications
By Muntasir Minhaz • Published Sep 16, 2025 • Canadians Studying Abroad
A UK First converts to roughly an A on a Canadian scale, a 2:1 to a B+/A-, and a 2:2 to a B, but Canadian graduate schools want an official WES Canada equivalency report, not your own calculation.
🎓 First-class honours needs a final mark of 70% or higher at most UK universities.
Upper second (2:1) sits at 60-69%, lower second (2:2) at 50-59%, third at 40-49%.
💵 WES Canada's Degree Equivalency and iGPA Calculator tools convert your UK classification into a Canadian-style GPA figure for applications.
Canadian graduate programs typically require an official WES report attached to your application, not a self-reported conversion.
⏱️ Order your WES report early, since evaluation processing takes time before an application deadline.
How the UK classification system works
UK undergraduate degrees classify your overall result into four bands rather than reporting a GPA. First-class honours needs a final weighted mark of 70% or higher. Upper second-class honours, written as 2:1 and read as two-one, covers 60-69%. Lower second-class honours, 2:2 or two-two, covers 50-59%. Third-class honours covers 40-49%. Each UK university sets its own exact weighting formula across your years and modules, so two students with a 2:1 from different universities did not necessarily earn identical percentages, only the same classification band. That banding creates its own downstream questions, for example, whether a three-year Bologna or UK honours degree qualifies for OLSAS law school applications at all.
Why Canadian graduate schools need a conversion
Canadian graduate admissions committees work in GPA, typically on a 4.0 or 4.33 scale, and most have never reviewed a raw UK transcript before. Rather than translate your classification themselves, Canadian universities and employers point applicants toward WES Canada , which builds Canadian-style equivalency reports covering the institution, program, and grades on a foreign transcript.
WES Canada offers a Degree Equivalency tool and an iGPA Calculator built for this kind of conversion, drawing on its records across thousands of institutions worldwide rather than one fixed formula per country. Because grading conventions vary between UK universities and even between departments at the same university, treat any generic classification-to-GPA table, including the rough figures below, as a planning estimate only. This same conversion work sits at the center of applying to a Canadian master's program with a foreign bachelor's degree, where credential assessment carries real weight in the admissions decision.
Rough equivalency to expect
| UK classification | UK percentage | Common letter equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| First-class honours | 70%+ | A |
| Upper second (2:1) | 60-69% | A- / B+ |
| Lower second (2:2) | 50-59% | B |
| Third-class honours | 40-49% | B- / C+ |
Treat this table as a starting reference. Individual Canadian graduate programs and individual credential evaluators apply their own formula, and some programs place more weight on your final-year modules than on your full three or four-year average.
How to get an official conversion
Order a course-by-course or document-by-document WES Canada report well before your application deadline, since evaluation takes processing time.
Send your official transcript directly from your UK university to WES Canada, since self-submitted copies typically do not qualify.
Check your target Canadian program's application page for which report type it requires, since some programs specify course-by-course evaluation while others accept a general equivalency statement. Credit-hour equivalence follows its own separate math, see how registrars actually convert ECTS credits to Canadian credit hours if your program also asks for a credit-hour breakdown.
Attach the official WES report to your application rather than quoting your own converted GPA figure in your application form.
What to do if your classification sits near a boundary
A 2:1 that sits at 60-61% and a 2:1 that sits at 68% both carry the same classification label, but a Canadian admissions committee reading your file alongside a WES report, or your full transcript, sees the actual percentage and module breakdown behind it. If your final mark sits close to the next classification up, ask your UK university's registry for your exact final percentage, not just the classification label, so you present the strongest accurate figure alongside your WES report. The same registry precision matters for bar admission too; converting a UK law degree into Canadian bar admission through the NCA route asks for comparable transcript detail.
Where this matters most
This conversion matters most for competitive Canadian graduate programs with a stated minimum GPA cutoff, professional programs like teacher's college or an MBA that screen by GPA before other criteria, and any scholarship application that asks for a numeric average. Ontario medical school applicants face the strictest version of this filter: OMSAS converts a foreign undergraduate transcript to its own weighted GPA before your file is scored at all. A qualitative admissions process that reads your full file, common in many research-based master's and PhD programs, weighs your transcript, reference letters, and research fit together, and treats the classification-to-GPA conversion as one data point rather than the deciding factor.