Skip to the guide
Groundwork / UT Austin

How often do UT classes give an A?

In spring 2026, A’s made up 58.1% of the letter grades in the lower-division classes we compared, versus 51.9% in upper-division classes. The split also varies by subject: Ensemble (ENS) had 99.1% A’s and business Statistics (STA) had 22.4%—a history of those classes, rather than a prediction of your grade.

Find a course

By · Written by AI; calculations checked against the linked data.

In this guide

How much does the share of A’s vary by subject?

Spring 2026 has 81 subjects with enough grades for this comparison. The chart shows the five highest and five lowest shares in the selected term. Each subject combines its qualifying courses, so a large class counts more than a small one.

Showing spring 2026.

81 subjects meet the minimum for spring 2026.

Highest shares of A’s · spring 2026
Ensemble ENS99.1%338 A’s out of 341 letter grades · 3 courses
Liberal Arts Honors LAH90.1%182 A’s out of 202 letter grades · 2 courses
Physical Education PED88.5%1,150 A’s out of 1,300 letter grades · 7 courses
Liberal Arts L A88.1%192 A’s out of 218 letter grades · 3 courses
Religious Studies R S87.5%246 A’s out of 281 letter grades · 3 courses

Share of A grades · A-minus is separate

Lowest shares of A’s · spring 2026
Business statistics STA22.4%225 A’s out of 1,006 letter grades · 3 courses
Aerospace Engineering ASE24.0%192 A’s out of 799 letter grades · 9 courses
Engineering Mechanics E M32.2%286 A’s out of 887 letter grades · 3 courses
Operations Management O M33.7%229 A’s out of 679 letter grades · 3 courses
Economics ECO34.0%1,774 A’s out of 5,224 letter grades · 15 courses

These are course subjects, identified by the code before the course number. STA and SDS are different subjects: STA covers the business statistics courses here; Statistics and Data Sciences (SDS) had 65.9% A’s in spring 2026. A subject’s classes, requirements, and students can differ greatly from another’s.

Do lower-division classes give more A’s?

Yes, in each of the three recent terms below. Lower-division classes are the introductory level; upper-division classes are the more advanced undergraduate level. The gap is a comparison of groups of classes, rather than the effect of moving up a level.

Share of A’s by undergraduate course level

Swipe or scroll sideways to compare every column.

TermLower divisionUpper divisionDifference
Fall 202558.1%50.2%7.9 percentage points
Spring 202658.1%51.9%6.2 percentage points
Summer 202658.6%53.8%4.8 percentage points

A’s alone leave out the rest of the grade distribution. A course with many A-minuses may look different when you compare its average GPA. The course pages show both measures and let you compare terms within one course.

Has the share of A’s changed over time?

Across the fall terms shown, the lower-division share rose from 31.0% in 2011 to 58.1% in 2025. The upper-division share rose from 30.8% to 50.2%. The mix of classes and students changed too, so this chart does not explain why the percentages rose.

Share of A’s in fall terms, 2011–2025
Lower divisionUpper division
0%20%40%60%2011201520202025
See the percentages for each year
Share of A’s in each fall term

Swipe or scroll sideways to compare every column.

Fall termLower divisionUpper division
201131.0%30.8%
201231.0%30.9%
201332.1%30.3%
201432.8%32.0%
201534.0%32.2%
201635.8%33.2%
201737.1%35.3%
201839.7%37.0%
201941.2%37.7%
202053.6%51.1%
202149.8%44.4%
202251.4%46.0%
202352.9%46.9%
202459.3%49.4%
202558.1%50.2%

How we got this

We recalculated UT’s course grade distributions on October 28, 2026, from the course data updated October 27. We combined sections within each course and term, kept courses with at least 50 letter grades, and compared subjects with at least 200 letter grades. The subject code defines each group; this is not a ranking of academic departments or instructors. UT’s STA catalog and SDS catalog describe the two different statistics subjects.

The share is the number of A’s divided by all A-through-F letter grades, including plus and minus grades. A-minus is not counted as an A. Credit/no-credit results, withdrawals, and other non-letter results are left out. We added grade counts before calculating percentages; we did not average class percentages. Course levels follow UT’s course-number rules. Summer has fewer qualifying subjects, and an aggregate percentage does not measure course difficulty.

UT may withhold small classes or other results to protect student privacy.

Download the subject, course-level, and historical percentages (CSV) ↧