NTU GPA Calculator (CAP 5.0 Scale)
| Grade | Academic Units |
|---|
NTU grade scale reference (CAP 5.0 system)
| Grade | CAP Points | Percentage Band | Honours Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| A+ | 5.00 | 90-100% | First Class (4.50+) |
| A | 5.00 | 85-89% | First Class (4.50+) |
| A- | 4.50 | 80-84% | First Class threshold |
| B+ | 4.00 | 75-79% | Second Class (Upper) |
| B | 3.50 | 70-74% | Second Class (Lower) |
| B- | 3.00 | 65-69% | Third Class |
| C+ | 2.50 | 60-64% | Pass |
| C | 2.00 | 55-59% | Pass (minimum) |
| D+ | 1.50 | 50-54% | Conditional pass |
| D | 1.00 | 45-49% | Conditional pass |
| F | 0.00 | Below 45% | Fail |
Sources: NTU Office of Academic Services, NTU Academic Regulations. Percentage bands are indicative; each NTU school sets its own per-course cut-offs.
How GPA Is Calculated at NTU
Nanyang Technological University reports the Cumulative Average Point (CAP) rather than a traditional GPA, but the arithmetic is identical to any Academic Unit weighted GPA. Each course on the NTU academic transcript carries an Academic Unit value (AU). A standard lecture course at NTU carries 3 AU; lab-paired modules and design projects carry 4 AU; the final-year project and major capstone modules can carry up to 8 AU. Multiplying grade points by AU rather than averaging unweighted grades means a B+ in an 8-AU final-year project moves the CAP almost three times as much as the same B+ in a 3-AU general elective.
Two CAP figures appear on every NTU transcript. The first is the semester CAP (sCAP), computed over only the courses attempted that semester; this drives Dean's List eligibility. The second is the cumulative CAP (cCAP), computed across every course since matriculation, including failed courses awaiting retake. The cCAP at graduation is the figure used for Honours classification and for overseas graduate-school applications.
How to Calculate GPA NTU Step by Step
The five steps below mirror what the calculator above does automatically. Use them if you want to verify your registry-issued figure or if you only have a printed transcript without an electronic copy.
- List every course. Write down each course from the NTU academic transcript with its Academic Units, letter grade, and whether it is a core programme course, a major prescribed elective, or an unrestricted elective.
- Convert grades to grade points. Use the NTU CAP table (A+/A = 5.00 down to F = 0.00). Audit grades (S/U) and Pass/Fail courses are excluded from CAP entirely; do not enter them.
- Multiply each row. Compute Grade Points x Academic Units for every course. A 3-AU course with an A scores 15.00 quality points; an 8-AU project with a B+ scores 32.00 quality points.
- Sum and divide. Add the quality-point column to get total quality points. Add the AU column to get total AU. Divide the first by the second.
- Round. Round to 2 decimal places to match the figure NTU prints on the academic transcript.
Worked example. A second-year NTU Computer Science student has six courses this semester: Data Structures and Algorithms (3 AU, A = 5.00), Operating Systems (3 AU, A- = 4.50), Database Systems (3 AU, B+ = 4.00), Probability and Statistics (3 AU, B+ = 4.00), Software Engineering (4 AU, A = 5.00), and a General Education elective (3 AU, B = 3.50). Quality points: 3 x 5.00 + 3 x 4.50 + 3 x 4.00 + 3 x 4.00 + 4 x 5.00 + 3 x 3.50 = 15.00 + 13.50 + 12.00 + 12.00 + 20.00 + 10.50 = 83.00. Total AU: 19. Semester CAP = 83.00 / 19 = 4.37. That sCAP sits in the Second Class (Upper) Honours band (4.00 to 4.49) and falls 0.13 short of the Dean's List threshold of 4.50.
NTU Honours Classification and Dean's List
NTU awards five degree classifications at graduation. The thresholds are uniform across every NTU school, although the median graduating CAP varies by programme (Renaissance Engineering Programme and Premier Scholars Programme cohorts cluster well above 4.50, while large general-engineering cohorts cluster around 3.80 to 4.20). The Dean's List is a semester recognition layered on top: a student needs the semester CAP at or above 4.50 and must rank in the top 5% of the school's cohort that semester.
| CAP Range / 5.0 | NTU Honours Class | UK Equivalent | US GPA (CAP x 0.8) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.50 - 5.00 | First Class Honours / Dean's List | First Class | 3.60 - 4.00 |
| 4.00 - 4.49 | Second Class (Upper) Honours | Upper Second (2:1) | 3.20 - 3.59 |
| 3.50 - 3.99 | Second Class (Lower) Honours | Lower Second (2:2) | 2.80 - 3.19 |
| 3.00 - 3.49 | Third Class Honours | Third Class | 2.40 - 2.79 |
| 2.00 - 2.99 | Pass Degree | Pass | 1.60 - 2.39 |
| Below 2.00 | Withdrawal Risk | Fail | Below 1.60 |
The Dean's List notation appears on the NTU transcript next to the qualifying semester and is widely recognised by Singapore employers and by overseas graduate admissions offices as a top-of-cohort signal. Multiple Dean's List semesters strengthen graduate scholarship applications such as the NTU Research Scholarship, the A*STAR Graduate Scholarship, and the Public Service Commission overseas merit awards.
NTU CAP vs NUS CAP: Same Scale, Slightly Different Bands
NTU and the National University of Singapore both use the CAP 5.0 system with identical grade letters and identical Honours thresholds. The table below shows where the two universities diverge at the letter-grade percentage cut-offs. Differences are small for most students but matter at the boundary (for example, a student scoring 81% in an NUS course can earn an A grade where the same 81% at NTU would be marked A-).
| Letter Grade | NTU CAP / Percentage | NUS CAP / Percentage | Same? |
|---|---|---|---|
| A+ | 5.00 / 90-100% | 5.00 / 85-100% | No (NUS sets A+ lower) |
| A | 5.00 / 85-89% | 5.00 / 80-84% | No |
| A- | 4.50 / 80-84% | 4.50 / 75-79% | No |
| B+ | 4.00 / 75-79% | 4.00 / 70-74% | No |
| B | 3.50 / 70-74% | 3.50 / 65-69% | No |
| C+ | 2.50 / 60-64% | 2.50 / 55-59% | No |
| D | 1.00 / 45-49% | 1.00 / 40-44% | No |
| F | 0.00 / Below 45% | 0.00 / Below 40% | No |
The published cut-offs are indicative; in practice each NTU school and each NUS faculty sets its own per-course percentage bands relative to the cohort distribution. NUS in particular bell-curves heavily for large-cohort modules, so the percentage at which a B+ is awarded varies year to year. Both universities map to identical CAP values once the letter grade is assigned, so the Honours thresholds (4.50 First Class, 4.00 Second Upper) are interchangeable across the two institutions.
NTU vs Other Singapore Universities
Singapore has six autonomous universities. NTU and NUS share the CAP 5.0 scale. The other four (SMU, SUTD, SIT, SUSS) all use a US-style 4.0 GPA. The table below summarises the grading system and First Class threshold at each.
| University | GPA Scale | First Class / Top Honour Threshold | Known For |
|---|---|---|---|
| NTU (Nanyang Technological University) | CAP 0 to 5.0 | 4.50 | Engineering, Business, Sciences, Education, Communication |
| NUS (National University of Singapore) | CAP 0 to 5.0 | 4.50 | Law, Medicine, Computing, Engineering, Sciences, Business |
| SMU (Singapore Management University) | GPA 0 to 4.0 | 3.60 Summa cum laude | Business, Law, Social Sciences, Computing |
| SUTD (Singapore University of Technology and Design) | GPA 0 to 5.0 | 4.50 | Engineering, Architecture, Design, Information Systems |
| SIT (Singapore Institute of Technology) | GPA 0 to 5.0 | 4.50 | Applied degrees, Health Sciences, Engineering, Hospitality |
| SUSS (Singapore University of Social Sciences) | GPA 0 to 5.0 | 4.50 | Social Sciences, Business, Law, Human Development |
For applications across these six universities, World Education Services and Educational Credential Evaluators treat the CAP 5.0 and SMU 4.0 systems on equal footing. The important figure is the percentile within the graduating cohort, not the raw CAP itself, because grading distributions differ across schools and across years.
How Polytechnic Graduates Enter NTU
Polytechnic diploma holders apply to NTU through the polytechnic admission route. The polytechnic cGPA on the 4.0 scale is used directly by NTU at application time; no conversion to the CAP 5.0 system is needed. Most NTU engineering, business, and science programmes set a polytechnic cGPA cut-off of about 3.50. Competitive programmes lift the threshold further: Renaissance Engineering Programme, Premier Scholars Programme, Business and Computing double degree, and Computer Science typically need 3.80 or above. Once matriculated, the polytechnic graduate's NTU coursework is graded on the CAP 5.0 scale from the first semester; polytechnic grades do not transfer into the NTU CAP.
NTU also awards Advanced Placement credit for prior polytechnic study in matching diplomas (typically 1 to 2 semesters of credit for engineering and computing diplomas). The Advanced Placement reduces the AU needed for the degree but does not seed the CAP; every AU on the NTU transcript is graded fresh.
Common Mistakes When Calculating NTU CAP
The five mistakes below drive most CAP disputes that NTU students bring to the Office of Academic Services:
- Treating CAP as an unweighted average. Adding the grade points of every course and dividing by the course count ignores Academic Unit weighting. An 8-AU capstone course moves the CAP almost three times as much as a 3-AU general elective.
- Including audit (S/U) grades. S/U graded courses are excluded from CAP entirely (neither numerator nor denominator). They appear on the transcript but do not influence the figure.
- Forgetting failed-course AU stays in the denominator. An F counts as 0 grade points, but the AU still appears in the divisor until the course is cleared on a retake. This is why a single F drags the cCAP heavily, especially in high-AU capstone modules.
- Mixing up sCAP and cCAP. Dean's List uses sCAP, the single-semester figure. Honours classification uses cCAP, the full-record figure. Reporting the semester CAP when an application asks for the cumulative CAP is a common error.
- Multiplying by the wrong US conversion factor. The CAP 5.0 to US 4.0 conversion is multiplication by 0.8 (CAP x 0.8 = US GPA), not division by 1.25 (which gives the same result) and not subtraction of 1.0. Some online converters drop the A+ category when mapping to US grades; NTU's A+ and A both score 5.00 CAP, which both map to 4.00 US.
How to Raise Your NTU CAP Across Remaining Semesters
The fastest CAP lift across the remainder of an NTU degree comes from three levers: securing A or A- in high-AU final-year projects and capstone modules, retaking failed modules early so the failed-attempt AU clears from the cumulative denominator, and converting B+ grades into A- or A in any module weighted at 4 AU or more. Because the final-year project alone typically carries 6 to 8 AU, lifting that single grade from B+ to A is equivalent in CAP movement to lifting two or three 3-AU electives.
Use the calculator above to model the lift: enter completed courses with their actual grades and AU, then add hypothetical rows for the remaining semesters with the target grades and AU. The live CAP read-out shows whether the target Honours class is arithmetically possible across the AU still to attempt. A student currently at CAP 4.20 with 90 AU completed and 45 AU remaining needs an average CAP of 5.10 across the remaining 45 AU to graduate at 4.50, which is impossible; the realistic target becomes Second Upper Honours rather than First Class.
How is GPA calculated at NTU?
How to calculate GPA NTU step by step?
What CAP do I need for First Class Honours at NTU?
What is the difference between the NTU and NUS GPA scales?
How do I convert my NTU CAP to a US 4.0 GPA?
How do I maintain First Class Honours through the rest of my NTU degree?
How does a Singapore polytechnic GPA convert to the NTU CAP for admissions?
Last verified: 2026-05-25. Sources: NTU Office of Academic Services, NTU Academic Regulations and Admissions.