UCAS Points Calculator

Three A levels at AAB are worth 136 UCAS points, and AAA is worth 144. Each A level grade has a fixed value (A* is 56, A is 48, B is 40, C is 32, D is 24 and E is 16) and the points simply add up. Enter your grades, predicted or achieved, and the calculator gives your total, what it looks like as A level grades, and whether it meets your offer.

How to use it

1. Tap a grade for each A level. Three rows are set up to start with.
2. Add anything else you take. BTECs, T Levels, the Extended Project, Scottish Highers, the IB, Access to HE and music grades are all in the list, and the search box covers every other qualification on the Tariff.
3. Type your offer, if you have one, exactly as the course page writes it: a points total such as 112, or A level grades such as ABB. The Results tab says whether you meet it and, if not, what would close the gap.

Two qualifications behave differently:

• The International Baccalaureate Diploma has no single points value. Add a row per Higher Level subject, a row per Standard Level subject, and rows for the Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge.
• The Access to HE Diploma is scored on its credit profile. Pick how many of its 45 graded credits are at distinction and merit; the rest are pass.

Checking an offer

Offers come in two forms, and they are checked differently.

• A points offer, such as "112 UCAS points", is met by your total across everything you hold, including the Extended Project and other extras.
• A grade offer, such as "AAB", is met grade by grade by your A levels. A*BB is 136 points, the same as AAB, but it does not meet AAB: the second grade is a B where the offer asks for an A. A higher grade in one subject does not make up for a lower one in another.

If your offer is in A level grades and you are taking a BTEC or another route, look for the line on the course page that restates the offer for your qualification, such as "DMM". That is the offer that applies to you.

What your total looks like at A level

The same total can come from different grades. These are the three-A-level combinations for common totals, most even spread first.

So "112 UCAS points" is BBC, and "120 UCAS points" is BBB.

How the Tariff is calculated

Two things decide what a qualification is worth:

• Size: how much teaching and assessment it involves. An A level is one unit of size, an AS is half of one, and a BTEC National Extended Diploma is about three. (AS grades score a little under half: an A is 20 points against 48 at A level.)
• Grade: how well you did within that qualification.

Points are then simply added together. There is no cap, no weighting by subject, and no partial credit for a qualification you did not complete.

So three A levels at A, A and B is:

$$48+48+40=136\text{ points}$$

Add an Extended Project at grade B and it becomes 156.

The tables

Every value below comes from the official UCAS Tariff.

A levels, AS and the Extended Project

There is no A* at AS. Core Maths (Level 3 Mathematical Studies) carries the same values as an AS.

BTEC Nationals

A BTEC National scores on its size and its grade, from the Certificate at half an A level up to the Extended Diploma at three. The Extended Diploma tops out at 168 points, level with three A*s.

Every size, every grade and the A level equivalent of each is on the BTEC UCAS points page.

T Levels

A T Level is about three A levels in size, which is why it tops out level with three A*s.

Scottish qualifications

International Baccalaureate

Grades 1 and 2 score zero at both levels. The Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge each run A = 12, B = 10, C = 8, D = 6, E = 4.

Access to HE Diploma

Scored across the 45 graded Level 3 credits. All 45 at distinction is 144 points; all 45 at pass is 48. UCAS publishes this as a lookup table of 136 credit profiles rather than a formula, because the per-credit values are not whole numbers, so a profile has to be looked up rather than multiplied out.

Graded music exams

Only grade 6 and above carry Tariff points. The values below are the same across ABRSM, Trinity and RSL for practical exams, and across ABRSM and Trinity for theory. Other boards, including LCM, publish their own values, so search for your board in the calculator.

What the points actually get you

This is the part most points calculators skip, and it matters more than the arithmetic.

Most selective universities do not use Tariff points at all. Russell Group offers, and competitive courses generally, are written as specific grades in specific subjects: "AAA including Chemistry", not "144 points". You can hit the points total and still be rejected for missing a named grade or subject. Two applicants on 144 points are not interchangeable if one has AAA and the other has a spread across qualifications the course does not accept.

Points do real work in these places:

• Clearing, where vacancies are frequently advertised as a points total.
• Foundation year and access routes, often in the 48–80 range.
• Post-1992 universities, which use points far more widely than the older institutions.
• Mixed qualification profiles, where there is no clean grade string to quote.

A few other things worth knowing:

• Not every qualification is on the Tariff, and being absent from it does not mean a university will not accept it. Ask the university.
• Some universities cap how much of your total can come from one source, or exclude certain qualifications entirely. The Extended Project and AS levels are the ones most often treated differently.
• Resits, retakes and qualifications taken years apart may be treated differently by different universities even though the Tariff counts them the same.

Whatever the number says, the course page is the authority.

Where these numbers come from

The values here are the current Tariff, which has applied to entry from 2017 onwards. It replaced an older scheme with much larger numbers, under which an A level A was worth 120 points and an IB Higher Level 7 was worth 130.

That old Tariff is still republished across a lot of the web, which is the single most common source of wrong answers on this topic. If you see a single A level grade worth more than 56 points, you are looking at a withdrawn table. A quick check: under the current Tariff, three A levels at A* come to 168 points, and nothing about a normal A level profile should produce a number in the many hundreds.

Every value on this page comes from the UCAS Tariff feed that powers UCAS's own Tariff calculator, cross-checked against the official UCAS Tariff spreadsheet for 2027 entry wherever the spreadsheet covers the same qualification. It does not cover the IB, so those values rest on the feed alone. The tables here are covered by automated tests that fail if they ever stop matching that data, so a stale figure cannot quietly survive a refresh.

Point values for established qualifications have been stable. Comparing the two most recent official spreadsheets UCAS publishes, of 12,277 shared rows only one qualification was repriced; the rest of the difference is newly recognised qualifications being added.

Sources

• UCAS Tariff points: what they are and how they work
• Calculate your UCAS Tariff points
• University entry requirements
• What is Clearing?
• UCAS Tariff points for apprenticeships
• Informed Choices, the Russell Group's subject guidance

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