GKS-U's Grade Rule Nobody Explains: What a Passing CGPA Actually Looks Like

7 min read

Most Global Korea Scholarship explainers, including two of ours, describe the undergraduate eligibility bar as "CGPA 80% or top 20% of your class." That's true, but it skips the part that actually stops applicants from Vietnam, Indonesia, Nigeria and dozens of other countries whose schools never issue a CGPA on a 100-point scale: NIIED's guidelines name four specific grading scales as acceptable, publish a conversion table for them in Appendix A, and spell out exactly what happens when your transcript matches none of them.

If your school's grading system doesn't look like any of those four numbers, this is the part of the guidelines worth reading before you assume you're ineligible.

  • 80%Minimum percentile score NIIED accepts, or top 20% of your class
  • 4GPA scales the guidelines recognize: 4.0, 4.3, 4.5 and 5.0
  • 2.64/4.0The lowest passing CGPA on that scale — equal to the 80% floor
  • Oct 2025When NIIED published the 2026 GKS-U Application Guidelines this is checked against

Four scales, one floor

NIIED's eligibility section states the grade requirement as an either/or: a percentile score of 80% or above, or a CGPA at or above a set minimum on one of four accepted scales. Appendix A's official GPA Conversion Table is how those four minimums line up with each other and with the percentile score.

Your scale Top band Minimum to qualify (= 80%)
4.0 3.97–4.00 2.64–2.71
4.3 4.26–4.30 2.80–2.89
4.5 4.46–4.50 2.91–3.00
5.0 4.95–5.00 3.23–3.33
100-point 100 80

Appendix A actually runs 21 bands per scale, not just the top and bottom — enough to convert any CGPA to its 100-point equivalent, not only to check whether you clear the floor. If your transcript already reports a CGPA on one of these four scales, that's the whole exercise: find your row, read across.

What happens when your transcript uses none of them

Three paths through the GKS grade requirement: a transcript already on the 4.0, 4.3, 4.5, 5.0 or 100-point scale reads straight off Appendix A; a transcript on any other scale needs a school-confirmed converted transcript; and a CGPA below the 80% floor can still qualify by submitting proof of a top-20%-of-class class rank instead Your school's transcript Reports a CGPA, a percentile, or a class rank 4.0/4.3/4.5/5.0 or 100-point scale Read Appendix A directly A different scale Needs a school- or government- confirmed converted transcript Below 80% Still eligible with proof of top 20% class rank

All three land in the same application — eligible to proceed to review

Nothing here requires a 4.0-scale CGPA specifically — it's one of three routes to the same eligibility checkbox.

NIIED's own FAQ appendix answers this directly: if your grades don't belong to any of the four accepted scales, you submit an official document from your school or a government body (your education ministry, for instance) explaining your grading system, plus a converted CGPA that the school itself confirms. A conversion you ran yourself through a tool like scholaro.com or wes.org is accepted — but only once your own school or university puts its stamp on the converted number. The screening committee decides eligibility from what you submit, not from the raw transcript alone.

An online conversion tool isn't enough by itself Scholaro and WES both produce a converted GPA, and NIIED's guidelines explicitly allow using one — but the converted figure only counts once your school or university confirms it in writing. Submit the conversion tool's printout alongside an official letter or certificate from your school that the converted score is correct. Neither document needs an apostille or consular confirmation, but it does need the school's own authentication.

The 80% floor has an exception, too

CGPA or percentile route

Score 80% or above (or the equivalent CGPA from the table above) on your most recent school's overall record — high school for an associate-degree applicant, high school or junior college for a bachelor's applicant.

Class rank route

Below 80%, but ranked in the top 20% of your graduating class? Still eligible — submit an official certificate or letter from your school confirming the rank alongside your original transcript.

Quick Hop: a transcript that reports only a cumulative CGPA, with no semester-by-semester breakdown, is fine to submit as-is — NIIED's guidelines say to leave the per-semester boxes blank on the application form and fill in the cumulative figure only. If that cumulative figure also isn't on a percentile scale, that's exactly the case Appendix A's conversion table exists to solve.

Soo, what?

A CGPA that looks "low" next to a Korean classmate's 4.0-scale transcript often isn't low at all once it's converted — a 3.6/4.3 reads as roughly 86 on the 100-point scale, comfortably above the floor. Running the actual conversion before assuming you don't qualify saves an application a lot of people talk themselves out of early.

Where this question actually gets answered

Soo House — the platform connecting expats and foreign residents across Korea to real classes, events and each other — sees a version of this question in its own community chat every GKS intake season, and it rarely comes from one country at a time: a member from Hanoi asks about a 10-point scale in the same week a member from Lagos asks about a First Class/Second Class honours system, and both are really asking the same thing — "does my school's grading even register on this form?" The answer is almost always yes, once the conversion is done properly and confirmed by the school that issued the transcript, which is the one step a quick Google search of the eligibility rule tends to leave out.

For the rest of what counts toward GKS-U eligibility — nationality, age, and the disqualification rule that catches Korea-schooled applicants — our GKS-U eligibility guide covers it, and the GKS scholarship guide walks through the Embassy Track versus University Track choice this grade requirement applies to either way. Once you've landed in Korea on a GKS offer, Soo House is also where a lot of that same cohort finds its first Korean-language study group and meetup outside campus.

The questions people ask

Can I just use the Scholaro or WES conversion and submit that?

Not on its own. NIIED's guidelines accept a conversion from a tool like that, but only once your own school or university confirms in writing that the converted figure is correct — an original certificate or testimonial with the school's authentication, not an apostille.

My CGPA converts to below 80%. Am I automatically disqualified?

No. You can still qualify by submitting an official certificate or letter from your school confirming you ranked in the top 20% of your graduating class, alongside your original transcript.

My transcript only shows a cumulative CGPA, not grades by semester. What do I put on the form?

Leave the semester-by-semester boxes blank and enter your cumulative CGPA (or percentile) for the whole curriculum period instead. If your transcript doesn't give a percentile figure, use Appendix A's GPA Conversion Table to find your 100-point equivalent.

Where to check

  • studyinkorea.go.kr — the Study in Korea portal, with the current cycle's GKS-U Application Guidelines PDF, including Appendix A's full GPA Conversion Table
  • niied.go.kr, or gksniied@korea.kr — NIIED's International Scholarship Center, for anything the guideline doesn't answer
  • Your own school's registrar or international office — the body that has to confirm any converted grade

Your Next Hop: before you decide your grades don't qualify, pull up Appendix A yourself and find your actual row — most applicants who think they're borderline are reading a percentile estimate, not the official conversion.

Checked October 2026 against NIIED's 2026 Global Korea Scholarship Application Guidelines for Undergraduate Degrees (published October 2025) — the eligibility CGPA thresholds (2.64/4.0, 2.80/4.3, 2.91/4.5, 3.23/5.0, 80 points), the top- and bottom-band figures from Appendix A's GPA Conversion Table, and the FAQ appendix answers on grade-conversion tools, the top-20%-rank exception and cumulative-CGPA transcripts are drawn directly from that document. Grading-scale rules are set per application cycle — confirm against the guideline for your own year before relying on any figure here.

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