Credits & Grades
For regular and successful participation in a seminar, course or lecture, students are awarded a certificate (Schein). The grading system is made up of a scale of five grades, whereby the lowest pass grade is 4,0.
| ECTS | A | B | C | D | E | FX | F | |||||
| A+ | A- | B+ | B- | C+ | C | C- | D | E+ | E- | FX | F | |
| Grade | 1,0 | 1,3 | 1,7 | 2,0 | 2,3 | 2,7 | 3,0 | 3,3 | 3,7 | 4,0 | 4,3 | 4,7/5,0 |
For a successfully completed seminar or lecture, the foreign students receive ECTS-credits; these ECTS-credits will be recorded in an official transcript of records by the Office for International Relations.
SOME GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT ECTS
How does ECTS work?
ECTS was introduced during a pilot phase extending from the academic year 89/90 to the academic year 94/95. Five subject areas were selected for testing the ECTS mechanism: Business administration, chemistry, history, mechanical engineering and medicine. One faculty or department from each of the 145 member institutions of higher education participated in the scheme. The results of this pilot phase were encouraging enough to convince the European Commission to implement it as part of the in-coming SOCRATES programme, which will incorporate, re-structure, and expand the existing ERASMUS programme.
ECTS is a decentralised system based upon the principle of mutual trust between participating institutions. The few rules of ECTS, which concern information (on courses available), agreement (between the home and host institutions), and the use of credit points (to indicate student workload), are intended as reinforcement of this mutual trust. Each ECTS department describes the courses it offers not only in terms of content, but also in terms of the credits assigned to each course.