Hey everyone — as someone who is currently finishing 11th grade (I should normally be finishing 12th 😀), I want to talk about a problem I’ve faced myself: passing the year, passing by average, and so on. First of all, what does “passing the year” mean? You can pass plainly, with a “Teşekkür” (Thanks) certificate, or with a “Takdir” (Honors) certificate.

Before I jump in, let me list the passing GPAs by school type in Turkey:

• Regular high schools and vocational schools: 2.50
• Anatolian high schools: 3.00
• Social Sciences and Science high schools: 3.50

With that out of the way, let’s get started. I’m using Anatolian high schools as the baseline below.

• If you have two “1”s and your GPA is below 3.00, you pass with responsibility (you’ll be retested).
• If you have two “1”s but your GPA is above 3.00, you pass directly — no responsibility.
• If you have three or more “1”s and your GPA is below 3.00, you have to repeat the year or take the summer exams to raise your grades and pass.
• If you have three or more “1”s but your GPA is above 3.00, you pass directly via the average, no responsibility, just like a plain pass.

So how do we calculate this GPA?

Let me use myself as an example. At my school I take 16 different classes plus 1 hour of guidance counseling. When calculating, we don’t include guidance counseling.

Say my biology grade was 3 in the first term and 4 in the second term — my year-end grade is 4, and biology is 3 hours per week. I multiply my year-end grade by my weekly hours: 4 × 3 = 12. I do the same for every class and add the results up.

At my school we have 36 hours of classes per week (excluding guidance). To hit a 3.00 GPA I need to reach 36 × 3 = 108.

After multiplying each (year-end grade × weekly hours), I sum them and divide by the total weekly hours. Right now my total comes to 106: 106 ÷ 36 ≈ 2.94. I’m only 2 credits short of a 3.00. That’s really all there is to it.

“Thanks” / “Honors” calculation

For the Teşekkür/Takdir calculation, you compute each term separately. To earn a “Teşekkür” for the second term, your weighted average has to be at least 70.00.

You multiply again by the weekly hours — this time using the numeric grade (out of 100). For example, biology = 76, 3 hours/week: 76 × 3 = 228. Do this for all classes, then divide by the total weekly hours (excluding guidance):

• Score ≥ 70.00 → Teşekkür (Thanks)
• Score ≥ 85.00 → Takdir (Honors)