The German Grading System Explained: What 1 to 6 Really Means

German schools grade on a scale from 1 to 6, and unlike most systems, lower is better. A 1 is excellent, a 6 is a fail, and your average (the Notendurchschnitt) can decide which schools and university programs are open to you.

The six grades and what they mean

The scale has been standardized across German states for decades, and every grade has an official name. Here is the full ladder, from best to worst:

• 1 = sehr gut (very good): performance meets the requirements to an outstanding degree
• 2 = gut (good): performance fully meets the requirements
• 3 = befriedigend (satisfactory): performance meets the requirements in general
• 4 = ausreichend (sufficient): performance has shortcomings but still meets the requirements overall
• 5 = mangelhaft (deficient): performance does not meet the requirements, but shows the basics are partly there
• 6 = ungenuegend (insufficient): performance does not meet the requirements at all

Grades 1 through 4 are passing, grades 5 and 6 are failing. In everyday use teachers also give in-between grades like 2+ or 2-, and in written form you will see decimals such as 1.7 or 2.3, especially on report cards and in the Abitur.

How the average (Notendurchschnitt) works

The basic average is just the arithmetic mean. If your grades in a subject are 2, 1, 3 and 2, the average is (2 + 1 + 3 + 2) / 4 = 2.0, a solid gut. In practice most subjects weight categories differently: a common setup is written exams (Klassenarbeiten) counting 50% and oral participation plus smaller tests counting 50%, but the exact split varies by state, school and teacher.

A worked example with weights: say your written exam average is 2.5 and your oral average is 1.5, with a 60/40 split in favor of written work. The subject grade is 2.5 x 0.6 + 1.5 x 0.4 = 1.5 + 0.6 = 2.1, which a teacher would typically round to a 2.

The upper school points system (Oberstufe)

In the last years before the Abitur, the 1-6 scale is converted into points from 15 down to 0. A 1+ is 15 points, a straight 1 is 14, a 2 is 11, a 4 is 5 points, and 0 points corresponds to a 6. This points system feeds into the final Abitur average, which is reported on the familiar decimal scale from 1.0 to 4.0.

Why everyone talks about the 1.0

A 1.0 Abitur is the best possible final average and has near-mythical status in Germany, because competitive university programs such as medicine admit largely by numerus clausus, a grade cutoff. For popular programs the cutoff can sit at 1.0 or 1.1, which means a single 2 in the wrong place can matter. That is why many students track their averages continuously instead of waiting for the report card.

Tracking your German grades without spreadsheet math

Doing weighted averages by hand for ten subjects gets old fast. GradeBuddy supports the German 1-6 system natively: you enter grades the way your school gives them, set category weights per subject (for example Klassenarbeiten 50%, mündlich 50%), and it shows your current average per subject and for the whole term.

If you are comparing your grades with friends abroad, see our guide on converting grades between countries for rough equivalences to US letters and UK 9-1.