Enter your achieved, merit, and excellence credits for each subject to see your NCEA qualification status, endorsements, and University Entrance eligibility. Select your level, add your subjects, enter the credits you have earned in each grade, and press Calculate. The calculator handles all the NCEA rules including credit thresholds, level requirements, endorsements, and University Entrance criteria.
| Subject | Achieved (credits) |
Merit (credits) |
Excellence (credits) |
Total credits |
Subject endorse |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOTALS | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement) is New Zealand's main secondary school qualification. Students earn credits by completing assessments called standards, each worth a set number of credits. Each standard is graded Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit, or Excellence. You need 80 credits to gain any NCEA level. The standards you use must meet level requirements described below.
NCEA Level 1: 80 credits total. At least 8 credits must come from literacy standards (reading and writing) and at least 8 credits from numeracy standards. Credits can be from standards at Level 1 or above. From 2024 onwards, the literacy and numeracy requirement changed; check NZQA for the current rules if you are a 2024 or later student.
NCEA Level 2: 80 credits total. At least 60 credits must be from Level 2 or above standards. Up to 20 credits can come from Level 1 standards carried over from your NCEA Level 1 year.
NCEA Level 3: 80 credits total. At least 60 credits must be from Level 3 or above standards. Up to 20 credits can come from Level 2 or below standards carried over from previous years.
An NCEA qualification endorsement means the qualification certificate shows you achieved it with Merit or Excellence overall. To earn a Merit endorsement, you need at least 50 credits at Merit or Excellence in standards at the qualification level or above. For an Excellence endorsement, you need at least 50 credits at Excellence in standards at the qualification level or above.
A subject endorsement appears on your Record of Learning and recognises strong performance in a specific subject. You need at least 14 credits in a single subject at Merit or Excellence (for Subject Endorsed with Merit) or at Excellence (for Subject Endorsed with Excellence). Not all standards count: the credits must be at the level of the qualification or higher, and at least 3 of them must be from external standards (exams) in most subjects.
University Entrance is the minimum requirement to enrol in a New Zealand university. It requires three things in addition to NCEA Level 3: (1) at least 14 credits at Level 3 in each of three NZQA-approved subjects; (2) UE Literacy, which means at least 10 credits in reading and writing standards at Level 2 or above (5 reading, 5 writing); and (3) UE Numeracy, which means at least 10 numeracy credits at Level 1 or above. Not all subjects count for UE: only those on NZQA's approved subjects list. Many polytechnic and wananga programmes have different entry requirements and do not require UE.
Internal assessment results are available throughout the year as standards are completed. External exam results (for externally assessed standards, which are mostly exams held in November) are released by NZQA in January. Provisional results are typically released in mid-January and confirmed results in late January. The Record of Learning, which is the official document showing all your NCEA credits and endorsements, is available through NZQA's Learner Login.
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