Quick answer: The University of Information Technology and Sciences (UITS) in Dhaka grades on a 4.00 scale. An A+ is worth 4.00 and needs 80% or more, an A is 3.75, an A- is 3.50, and anything below 40% is an F worth 0.00. Your semester GPA is the credit-weighted average of your grade points, and your CGPA is the same idea stretched across every semester, except that UITS counts your best grade when you retake a course. The rest of this guide works through the official table, the exact marks split inside each course, four worked examples with real numbers, and the retake, attendance and graduation rules that decide whether you actually finish your degree.
This is a practical point that students get wrong every semester: the 5.00 scale you knew at SSC and HSC does not follow you to university. At UITS, a GPA of 5.00 does not exist. If you carry the school scale in your head, you will misread your own transcript. UITS uses the University Grants Commission (UGC) common grading system, and its own Civil Engineering curriculum says so in plain words: “The UGC approved common grading system is adopted for assigning a letter grade and grade point.” That sentence matters, because it means the table below is not borrowed from a generic calculator. It is published by UITS itself.
Check Your UITS GPA With the Calculator
The fastest way to use this guide is to calculate as you read. Open the CGPA calculator, add one row per course, enter each course credit and its letter grade, and read off your semester GPA. The calculator uses the same 4.00 grade points as the UITS table below, so your result will match the worked examples in this article if you enter the same grades and credits.
One honest note: there is no dedicated UITS calculator page on this site, so use the main calculator on the homepage and the UITS grade points from the table below. Do not use a calculator set to another university’s scale. The neighbouring private university UIU, for example, gives an A at 90% and uses 3.67 for A-, which has nothing to do with UITS. If your calculator shows A- as 3.67, you are on the wrong scale.
Is This Guide About Your UITS?
Yes, if you study at the University of Information Technology and Sciences in Baridhara, Dhaka, Bangladesh – the private university founded on 7 August 2003, on Holding 190, Road 5, Baridhara J-Block, Dhaka-1212. It is the first IT-based private university in Bangladesh, and its website is uits.edu.bd.
No, if you mean USTC. The University of Science and Technology Chittagong (USTC) is a different private university in Chattogram, founded in 1989, with its own campus at Foy’s Lake. The initials look similar and search engines mix the two up, but their grading documents are separate. This guide does not apply to USTC, and USTC guides do not apply to UITS. The same warning holds for foreign lookalikes: UIT in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and UTS in Sydney, Australia, share similar initials and nothing else.
The Official UITS Grading Table
Here is the table exactly as UITS publishes it in its Outcome-Based Curriculum for Civil Engineering (revised August 2023, Part D, section 20). The mark bands use “less than” boundaries, so read them carefully: 79% is an A, not an A+, and 69% is a B+, not an A-.
| Marks | Letter grade | Grade point | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80% and above | A+ | 4.00 | Outstanding |
| 75% to less than 80% | A | 3.75 | Excellent |
| 70% to less than 75% | A- | 3.50 | Very good |
| 65% to less than 70% | B+ | 3.25 | Good |
| 60% to less than 65% | B | 3.00 | Satisfactory |
| 55% to less than 60% | B- | 2.75 | Above average |
| 50% to less than 55% | C+ | 2.50 | Average |
| 45% to less than 50% | C | 2.25 | Below average |
| 40% to less than 45% | D | 2.00 | Pass, minimally acceptable |
| Less than 40% | F | 0.00 | Fail |
Three extra marks appear on UITS records. I means Incomplete: you met most of the course requirements but could not finish the rest. W means Withdrawal: you withdrew from the course by the deadline with consent. R means a retaken course: an F or I that you later retook turns into R in the final transcript, where it counts as a neutral grade. None of I, W or R carries grade points on its own, which is why students who count them as zero or as passes both get the wrong CGPA.
UITS describes its own grade meanings in words as well as numbers. A is exceptional performance, B is very good, C is satisfactory, D is minimally acceptable, and F is unacceptable. That wording is useful when you read a transcript comment or an academic warning: a D is a pass, but only just, and an F means the course does not count toward graduation at all until you complete it.
How Your Marks Are Built Up in Each Course
Your final percentage in a course is not one exam. UITS assesses theory courses continuously, and the split is fixed in the curriculum. For a theory course worth 100 marks: attendance 10 marks, continuous assessment (class tests, assignments and similar work) 20 marks, midterm examination 20 marks, and term final examination 50 marks. For a laboratory course worth 100 marks: attendance 20 marks, lab report and lab performance 30 marks, quiz and final examination 30 marks, and viva voce 20 marks.
Two consequences follow. First, attendance is not a token. In a theory course it is 10% of your grade before you sit any exam, and in a lab it is 20%. A student who skips labs is losing a fifth of the course before the viva starts. Second, the midterm plus continuous assessment together are 40% of a theory course. A weak final can still be rescued by strong coursework, and a strong final cannot fully rescue a semester of missed class tests. When students ask why their grade looks lower than their final-exam score suggested, this split is usually the answer.
How to Calculate Your Semester GPA, Step by Step
Work through these steps in order, and do not average your letter grades directly. Grades must be weighted by credits first, or a 1.5-credit lab will count as much as a 3-credit theory course, which it does not.
- Convert each course percentage to its letter grade using the table above, then to its grade point. A 68% course is a B+ at 3.25, not an A-.
- Multiply each grade point by that course’s credit hours. This gives the course’s quality points (also called weighted grade points).
- Add up all the quality points for the semester.
- Add up all the credits you attempted in the semester, including any course you failed. UITS is explicit here: semester GPA divides by credits attempted, pass or fail.
- Divide total quality points by total credits attempted. Round to two decimal places, half-up.
Try it on the homepage calculator as you go: one row per course, credit in one box, grade point in the next. If your hand calculation and the calculator disagree, check step 1 first. Nine times out of ten the error is a band boundary – 74% entered as B+ instead of A-, or 79% entered as A+ instead of A.
The Formulas
Semester GPA = (sum of credit x grade point for each course in the semester) divided by (total credits attempted in the semester).
CGPA = (sum of credit x best grade point for each course across all semesters) divided by (total credits counted). For CGPA, UITS uses the best grade of a retaken course, not an average of attempts, and it leaves out surplus elective credits above the minimum degree requirement, even though those credits still appear on your transcript.
That last point about surplus electives is easy to miss. If your degree needs 147 credits and you finish with 150 elective credits in total, the extra credits are documented but do not enter the CGPA calculation. Your CGPA is not dragged down – or pulled up – by an optional course you took beyond the requirement.
Worked Example 1: A Semester GPA of Exactly 3.50
Take a first-year style semester with five courses. The grades are ordinary, not perfect, which is the point: a 3.50 does not need straight A grades.
| Course | Credits | Grade | Grade point | Quality points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Structured Programming Language | 3.0 | A | 3.75 | 3.0 x 3.75 = 11.25 |
| Engineering Physics | 3.0 | B+ | 3.25 | 3.0 x 3.25 = 9.75 |
| Differential and Integral Calculus | 3.0 | A- | 3.50 | 3.0 x 3.50 = 10.50 |
| Engineering Chemistry | 3.0 | A- | 3.50 | 3.0 x 3.50 = 10.50 |
| Structured Programming Lab | 1.5 | A- | 3.50 | 1.5 x 3.50 = 5.25 |
Total credits = 3.0 + 3.0 + 3.0 + 3.0 + 1.5 = 13.5. Total quality points = 11.25 + 9.75 + 10.50 + 10.50 + 5.25 = 47.25. Semester GPA = 47.25 / 13.5 = 3.50 exactly.
Notice what the lab did. At 1.5 credits it contributed only 5.25 quality points, half the contribution of a 3-credit A- course. If you had averaged the five grade points directly – (3.75 + 3.25 + 3.50 + 3.50 + 3.50) / 5 – you would also get 3.50 here, but only by accident, because four of the five courses share similar weights. Change one credit and the unweighted average breaks. Always weight by credits.
Worked Example 2: Turning Semester GPAs Into a CGPA
Suppose you finished your earlier semesters with 30 credits at a CGPA of 3.20. That means your quality points so far are 30 x 3.20 = 96.00. This semester you take 18 credits and earn a semester GPA of 3.50, so this semester adds 18 x 3.50 = 63.00 quality points.
Total quality points = 96.00 + 63.00 = 159.00. Total credits = 30 + 18 = 48. CGPA = 159.00 / 48 = 3.3125, which rounds to 3.31.
The lesson is about momentum. One strong semester at 3.50 lifted a 3.20 only to 3.31, because the earlier 30 credits still carry most of the weight. Early semesters matter more than students expect, and a single good semester does not erase a weak start. The reverse is also true: one bad semester early on is survivable if the semesters after it are consistently strong, because every new credit dilutes the old ones a little further.
Do not average semester GPAs directly either. Averaging 3.20 and 3.50 gives 3.35, which is wrong here, because the two semesters carry different credit totals (30 versus 18). Credit-weighting is not optional detail. It is the calculation.
Worked Example 3: What a Retake Actually Does to Your CGPA
This is the example UITS students ask about most, and it is where generic calculators mislead. Imagine a student with 27 credits of other courses worth 87.75 quality points, plus one 3-credit course failed with an F (0.00).
Before the retake, the F counts: total quality points 87.75 + 0.00 = 87.75, total credits 27 + 3 = 30, GPA = 87.75 / 30 = 2.925, which rounds to 2.93.
Now the student retakes that 3-credit course and earns a B+ (3.25). UITS counts the best grade, so the course now contributes 3.0 x 3.25 = 9.75 quality points, and the credits are still counted once, not twice. Total quality points = 87.75 + 9.75 = 97.50, total credits = 30, CGPA = 97.50 / 30 = 3.25.
The retake lifted the result from 2.93 to 3.25, a jump of 0.32, because the F stopped contributing zero points and the course stopped being dead weight. Two warnings still apply. First, the original F becomes R in the final transcript; it is neutral for the CGPA, but the attempt is not hidden from every reader of your record. Second, for waiver decisions based on semester results, UITS uses the originally obtained grades, not the improved ones. A retake fixes your CGPA. It does not rewrite every administrative decision that used the old grade.
Worked Example 4: What You Need Next Semester to Hit a Target
Working backwards is the most useful calculation a student can do, and it prevents wasted hope. Suppose you have completed 45 credits at a CGPA of 3.20, so your quality points are 45 x 3.20 = 144.00. Next semester you will take 15 credits, and you want a CGPA of 3.40 at the end of it.
Target total quality points = 60 credits x 3.40 = 204.00. Quality points still needed = 204.00 – 144.00 = 60.00. Required semester GPA = 60.00 / 15 = 4.00.
In other words, you would need a perfect 4.00 average – A+ in every course – to reach 3.40 in one semester from this position. That is possible, but it is not a plan you should bet a scholarship on. A more realistic target, say 3.30, needs (60 x 3.30 – 144.00) / 15 = (198.00 – 144.00) / 15 = 54.00 / 15 = 3.60, an average between A- and A. Run this calculation before you promise yourself a target, and set the target the arithmetic supports.
GPA vs CGPA at UITS
GPA describes one semester. CGPA describes your whole degree so far. They use the same formula, but they answer different questions, and UITS treats them differently in two places. Semester GPA divides by credits attempted, including failed courses, so an F hits your semester GPA immediately. CGPA uses the best grade of each course, so a retaken F stops hurting once you pass the retake. Students who check only their semester GPA after a retake often think the retake “did not work”, when in fact the semester GPA of the old semester is history and the CGPA is where the improvement shows.
For comparison with other Bangladeshi private universities, the same distinction applies, but the numbers differ. The UCTC grading guide and the NDUB grading guide both use the UGC table, yet their retake and standing rules are their own. The SIU grading guide and the Fareast grading guide are useful in the same way: same national table, different university rules. Never copy a standing or retake rule from another university’s guide and assume UITS follows it.
Retakes, Improvements, Incomplete and Withdrawal
Retake: you may register any course from your curriculum as many times as you wish, and from the second registration it counts as a retake. Every registration gets a grade, and the best grade counts in your CGPA. An F or I grade turns to R if the course is retaken. Other letter grades stay as they are in the record.
Improvement: UITS also allows students to make up GPA and credit deficiencies by completing courses in later semesters and backlog courses with better grades, and the best grade counts in CGPA. Here the document needs a careful reading. It says the better grades “should not be more than 65-69% (in letter Grade B+)”. Read literally, that looks like a B+ ceiling on improvement grades. That reading is unusual, the sentence is compressed, and this guide does not present it as a settled rule. If you plan an improvement, confirm the cap with your department before you register, because the difference between a capped B+ and an uncapped grade changes the whole calculation.
Incomplete: if genuine reasons stop you finishing a course, you may ask the course teacher before the term final for an I grade, provided your continuous assessment and midterm marks are reasonable. You then sit a makeup term final in the following semester, your other marks carry over, and the final grade replaces the I in the previous semester. If you do not complete it, the I turns into an F in the next semester, and no I appears in the final transcript.
Withdrawal: you may withdraw from a course by the deadline with the consent of your instructor and your academic advisor, and you get a W. If you drop a whole semester within the deadline and the application is approved, you get W in every course of that semester. Drop the semester after the deadline and you get F grades instead. The deadline is therefore not paperwork. It is the difference between a neutral W and a set of zeros in your semester GPA.
One more detail from the same section: F grades in elective or optional courses are ignored when counting the final CGPA. That does not help with a failed core course, which you must complete, but it does mean a failed elective does not permanently anchor your final CGPA the way students fear it does.
The Attendance Rule Most Students Miss
Attendance at UITS is compulsory, and the threshold is 70% of total classes including tutorials and labs. Fall below it and you are not allowed to take the final exam. That is separate from the attendance marks themselves (10 marks in theory, 20 in labs). A student can lose twice: first through low attendance marks, then through exclusion from the final, which makes the course effectively failed regardless of midterm performance.
Practical advice follows directly. Track your attendance per course, not as a vague overall feeling, because the rule applies course by course. If illness or a family emergency is pushing you below 70%, talk to the department before the final-exam list is drawn up, not after it. And remember that labs count: a student who attends lectures but skips lab sessions can still fall below the combined threshold.
Graduation, Good Standing, and the 2.25 vs 2.50 Question
To graduate from the Civil Engineering programme you must earn the full credit total – 147 credits for Civil Engineering, including the specified core courses – and meet a minimum CGPA. Here UITS’s own document disagrees with itself, and you should know about the disagreement rather than discover it in your final semester.
The grading section (Part D) says a student must obtain a minimum CGPA of 2.5 to be awarded a degree, and that a student is not in good standing if semester GPA falls below 2.5 or CGPA falls below 2.5. The programme description section (Part B) of the same document says the minimum CGPA for the B.Sc. in Civil Engineering is 2.25. The IT programme brochure gives 144 credits as its total, and other programmes have their own totals, so always check your own programme sheet.
Until your department confirms which figure governs your batch, treat 2.5 as the safe target. A student graduating at 2.4 under the 2.25 reading would still be below the grading section’s good-standing line, and no student wants their final semester to become an argument about which page of the curriculum wins. The maximum time to complete Civil Engineering is six years, extendable with university permission, so a slow recovery is possible, but it is not open-ended.
For context, UITS admits undergraduates under UGC rules: at least 2nd Division or GPA 2.5 in both SSC and HSC, or a combined GPA of 6.00 if either result includes a 2.00, plus an admission test arranged by the university. O-level and A-level applicants need at least five O-level and two A-level subjects, with GPA 4.00 or B grade in four subjects and GPA 3.5 or C grade in the other three. Those are admission GPAs on the 5.00 school scale, not university CGPAs, and mixing the two scales up is the classic first-year error.
Common Mistakes That Cost UITS Students Points
- Using the 5.00 school scale at university, or a neighbour university’s scale (UIU’s 3.67 for A- is the commonest trap).
- Reading 79% as A+ or 69% as A-. The bands are “less than” bands: 79% is A (3.75), 69% is B+ (3.25).
- Averaging letter grades or semester GPAs without weighting by credits.
- Counting a retaken course twice, or assuming the old F still counts after a successful retake. UITS counts the best grade and the credits once.
- Assuming an F disappears from every decision after a retake. It becomes R for CGPA purposes, but original grades still govern waivers.
- Ignoring attendance until the final-exam list is published. Below 70%, there is no final to sit.
- Dropping a semester after the withdrawal deadline and expecting W grades. After the deadline, UITS records F grades.
- Treating an I grade as permanent. It converts to a real grade after the makeup final, or to F if you do not sit it.
- Assuming every programme needs 147 credits. That is Civil Engineering. IT needs 144, and other programmes differ.
- Planning a CGPA recovery without running the backwards calculation in Worked Example 4, and discovering too late that the target needed a perfect semester.
Tips to Protect and Raise Your CGPA
Protect the 40% first. Continuous assessment plus midterm is 40 marks in a theory course, and those marks are earned week by week, not in one night. Students who treat class tests as minor usually lose the grade before the final begins.
Guard attendance like a grade, because it is one twice over: marks in the course, plus eligibility for the final. If you must miss classes, miss them where the cost is lowest and keep every course above 70%.
Retake strategically, not emotionally. A retake is worth most when it replaces an F or a D in a high-credit core course, because the quality-point swing is largest there. Retaking a 1.5-credit lab to turn a B into an A moves your CGPA far less than most students expect, and it costs a registration either way.
Use the best-grade rule honestly. Because UITS counts your best grade, a retake has no CGPA downside beyond time and fees – the new grade cannot drag your CGPA below the old one in the calculation. That makes retaking a failed core course one of the safest academic investments available, provided you are ready to pass it properly this time.
Check your own programme sheet every semester. Credit totals, core requirements and any department notice about the 2.5 graduation figure can change by batch, and the curriculum itself warns that rules and requirements may change. The Registrar’s Office and your department office are the verification route for anything this guide flags as unclear.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is UITS grading on a 4.00 or a 5.00 scale?
University work at UITS is on a 4.00 scale, using the UGC common grading system. The 5.00 scale belongs to SSC and HSC results. A university CGPA above 4.00 is impossible, and any calculator showing one is using the wrong scale.
What marks do I need for an A+ at UITS?
80% or more. A score of 79% earns an A at 3.75, and 74% earns an A- at 3.50. The one-mark boundary matters, so check your exact percentage, not a rounded grade.
Does a retake erase my F?
For CGPA purposes, effectively yes: the best grade counts, the credits are counted once, and the F becomes R, a neutral grade in the final transcript. For waiver decisions based on semester results, no: UITS uses the originally obtained grades.
Can I improve a C or a D?
Yes, UITS provides for improvement through later-semester and backlog completion with better grades, and the best grade counts in CGPA. The document’s wording suggests grades “should not be more than 65-69% (in letter Grade B+)” for improvement, which may mean a B+ cap. Confirm the cap with your department before registering, because this guide does not treat that wording as settled.
What happens if my attendance falls below 70%?
You are not allowed to take the final exam for that course, including tutorials and labs in the count. This is separate from losing attendance marks, and it applies course by course.
What CGPA do I need to graduate from UITS?
The grading section of the August 2023 curriculum says 2.5, and the Civil Engineering programme section of the same document says 2.25. Treat 2.5 as the safe target and confirm with your department, since graduating below the grading section’s good-standing line is a risk no student should take on an assumption.
Does an F count in my semester GPA?
Yes. Semester GPA divides by credits attempted, pass or fail, so an F contributes zero quality points while still adding its credits to the denominator. That is why a single F in a 3-credit course hurts more than students expect, and why a retake helps so much once passed.
Conclusion
UITS grading is simpler than it looks once you separate the three layers: the national UGC table, the marks split inside each course, and UITS’s own rules for retakes, attendance and standing. The table gives you the grade points. The split explains why coursework and attendance decide so much of your grade before the final. The retake and attendance rules decide whether a bad semester is a setback or a permanent drag. Run your numbers with credits weighted, check your attendance before it becomes a problem, retake failed core courses promptly, and aim for 2.5 or above so that no version of the graduation rule can catch you out. If anything in your own programme sheet differs from this guide, the programme sheet and the Registrar’s Office win – that is the one rule that outranks all the others.
Sources
- UITS Civil Engineering Outcome-Based Curriculum, revised August 2023 (grading, assessment, retake, improvement, withdrawal, dropout and programme rules)
- UGC Uniform Recommended Grading System (effective from session 2006-2007)
- University of Information Technology and Sciences – history, founding date, campus and programmes