In Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, scholastic grades

Grade (education)

Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters , as a range , as a number out of a possible total , as descriptors , in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary...

use a 5-point grading scale, where:

• 1 ("Sehr gut" - "very good") is the best possible grade,
• 2 ("Gut" - "good") is the next highest grade,
• 3 ("Befriedigend" - "satisfactory") indicates "average" performance,
• 4 ("Genügend" - "adequate") is the lowest passing grade, and
• 5 ("Nicht genügend" - "unsatisfactory") is the lowest possible grade and the only failing grade (usually earned for less than 50% of the maximum achievable credit).

Students graduating from a Hauptschule usually go on to apprenticeships.
In Austria the GPA is the only criterion used for application purposes. All passing grades (1-4) in the Gymnasium permit further university study. All those achieving the Matura

Matura

Matura or a similar term is the common name for the high-school leaving exam or "maturity exam" in various countries, including Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia,...

 (which is awarded at graduation of Gymnasium) tend to go on to university. The Matura can be seen as an Austrian form of an International Baccalaureate degree.