How A-Level grades and rank points work in Singapore (2026): the 70-point UAS

The A-Level result slip looks simple: a column of letters from A to E next to each subject. What turns those letters into a university place is the University Admission Score (UAS), and the way the UAS is built changed for students who sat the A-Level from 2025 onward. This guide walks through the grade scale, the rank-point table, and the new 70-point UAS step by step, with the rules around General Paper, Project Work and Mother Tongue that trip students up.

The two bodies in your pipeline

Two organisations handle two different jobs.

SEAB (Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board), jointly with Cambridge, runs the Singapore-Cambridge GCE A-Level. SEAB sets the papers, marks them, and issues your subject grades. SEAB gives you letters, not a UAS.

The universities (NUS, NTU, SMU, SUTD, SIT and SUSS) take your grades and compute the UAS themselves, then use it to decide admission. The UAS is an admissions construct, not something printed on your SEAB certificate. This matters: when people say "my rank points", they mean a number the universities calculate, not a grade SEAB awarded.

H1, H2, H3: what the levels mean

Before grades make sense, you need the subject levels. A-Level subjects are offered at different depths.

• H1 is a subject at lighter depth. It carries the weight of 1 academic unit. General Paper and (where taken) Mother Tongue at A-Level are H1 subjects.
• H2 is the standard full-depth syllabus. It carries 2 academic units. Your three main content subjects are normally H2.
• H3 is an advanced extension taken on top of an H2 subject. It is not counted as an extra academic unit and is graded on its own scale (Distinction, Merit, Pass, Ungraded). H3 does not add rank points.

A typical Junior College student offers three H2 content subjects plus one H1 content subject, alongside H1 General Paper, H1 Project Work and Mother Tongue. The classic example is a science student taking H2 Mathematics, H2 Chemistry, H2 Physics and a contrasting H1 subject such as H1 Economics.

The A to E grade scale

For H1 and H2 subjects, SEAB awards grades on this scale:

• A, B, C, D, E are the passing grades, A being the highest.
• S is a subsidiary pass: below E but still a recorded standard of achievement.
• U is Ungraded.

That is the whole scale. There is no A-star, no numbers. The same A to E applies to H1 and to H2; the difference between them is the depth of the syllabus and the academic-unit weight, not the letters.

Grades to rank points

The universities convert each grade to rank points. An H2 subject is worth up to 20 points; an H1 subject is worth exactly half, up to 10 points.

Notice the floor: a passing E in an H2 subject is still 10 rank points, half of the maximum. The gap between an A and an E in one H2 subject is 10 points; the gap between an A and an E in an H1 subject is 5. This is why your three H2 subjects do most of the heavy lifting.

The 70-point UAS (from the 2025 A-Level cohort)

Here is the change that matters for current students. From the 2025 A-Level cohort onward (the intake admitted to university from Academic Year 2026), the UAS is computed on a maximum of 70 rank points, built from a smaller, more focused set of subjects.

The components that always count:

• Three H2 content subjects, up to 20 points each, for 60 points.
• H1 General Paper, up to 10 points.

That base is 60 plus 10, which is 70. That is the whole guaranteed score.

Two further components are optional and are only brought in if they improve your UAS:

• A fourth content subject (your H1 content subject, or a fourth H2 counted as an H1), up to 10 points.
• H1 Mother Tongue Language, or O-Level Higher Mother Tongue, up to 10 points.

When an optional component is added, the raw total can exceed 70, so the universities rebase it back to 70. Include a fourth subject and the raw maximum becomes 80 (three H2 plus GP plus the fourth at H1 weight), so your UAS is your raw score divided by 80, multiplied by 70. Add both a fourth subject and Mother Tongue and the raw maximum is 90, rebased the same way. The UAS is always reported out of 70, and the optional pieces are only counted if they raise the rebased figure.

Why the change, and the old 90-point system

The 90-point UAS, used for students who sat the A-Level in 2024 or earlier, added a compulsory H1 content subject, General Paper (or Knowledge and Inquiry in lieu) and Project Work (graded A to E, up to 10 points) on top of the three H2 subjects, summing to 90. The Ministry of Education's stated reason for moving to 70 was to reduce the emphasis on squeezing rank points out of every component, particularly Project Work.

For university admission in AY2026 and AY2027 there is a transition rule. Applicants who sat the A-Level in 2024 or earlier still have their score computed on the 90-point basis (including Project Work and the H1 content subject), then proportionately scaled to 70 so that they can be compared fairly against the newer cohorts. From AY2028, everyone is on the 70-point scale. If you sat the A-Level in 2025 or 2026, the 70-point method above is the one that applies to you.

General Paper, Project Work and Mother Tongue

These three sit outside your content subjects and each behaves differently.

General Paper (H1)

GP is the compulsory H1 for most JC students and counts directly in the UAS, up to 10 points, using the H1 column of the table. As one of the two guaranteed components, a strong GP grade is worth real points, not just a tick on the certificate. (For students who take H2 Knowledge and Inquiry, KI is now treated as one of the three H2 content subjects rather than a replacement for GP.)

Project Work (H1)

Under the 70-point UAS, Project Work is graded Pass or Fail and contributes no rank points. A pass is still a hard admission requirement at the local autonomous universities, so you cannot ignore it; you simply cannot bank points from it the way the 2024-and-earlier cohorts could.

Mother Tongue Language

H1 MTL, or O-Level Higher Mother Tongue, is an optional input to the UAS, treated as an H1 subject (up to 10 points) and only included if it raises your rebased score. Most local universities also have a Mother Tongue requirement you must satisfy to be admitted, which is separate from whether MTL adds to your UAS. Note that Mother Tongue "B" syllabuses are not counted toward rank points.

A worked example

Take a science student who sat the A-Level in 2026:

• H2 Mathematics: A, which is 20 points.
• H2 Chemistry: B, which is 17.5 points.
• H2 Physics: B, which is 17.5 points.
• H1 Economics (the contrasting subject): A, which is 10 points.
• H1 General Paper: B, which is 8.75 points.
• H1 Project Work: Pass (no points).
• H1 Mother Tongue: B, which is 8.75 points.

The three H2 subjects give 20 plus 17.5 plus 17.5, which is 55. GP adds 8.75. The guaranteed base is 63.75 out of 70.

Now test the optional components. Adding H1 Economics (10) and Mother Tongue (8.75) gives a raw total of 55 plus 8.75 plus 10 plus 8.75, which is 82.5, against a raw maximum of 90. Rebased: 82.5 divided by 90, multiplied by 70, is about 64.2. That is higher than 63.75, so the universities include the optional components and the student's UAS is roughly 64.2 out of 70.

The arithmetic shows where the score comes from. The three H2 subjects contributed 55 of the points and GP nearly 9, while the optional pieces nudged the total up by less than a point after rebasing. Effort spent lifting an H2 grade from B to A moves your score far more than effort spent on a contrasting subject.

How UAS becomes an offer

Each course publishes an indicative UAS range from the previous year and admits broadly in UAS order, subject to meeting subject prerequisites. Competitive courses such as Medicine, Law and Computer Science sit near the top of the range and often add interviews, aptitude tests or portfolios, so a strong UAS opens the door but does not by itself secure the most selective courses. Because the figures are indicative and shift year to year, check each university's admissions pages for the course you want.

Where to put your effort

If a high UAS is your goal:

• Protect your three H2 subjects above everything. They are 60 of the 70 points; one H2 grade slipping from A to C costs 5 points before rebasing, more than any optional component can recover.
• Take General Paper seriously. It is a guaranteed 10 points that many students under-prepare because it is "only H1". A B in GP is nearly 9 points; a C is 7.5.
• Pass Project Work and move on. It is a gate, not a score. Do not over-invest now that it carries no rank points.
• Pick a contrasting subject you can do well in. It only helps your UAS if its rank points survive the rebasing, which means a genuinely strong grade.

In summary

The A-Level grade scale is plain (A to E, with S and U), but the score that decides university entry is the 70-point UAS built from it: three H2 subjects and General Paper as the guaranteed core, a fourth subject and Mother Tongue as optional top-ups, and Project Work reduced to a pass-or-fail gate. Get the three H2 subjects right, treat GP as the points-bearing subject it is, and the rest takes care of itself.