What are Scottish Highers? Grades, equivalents to A levels and UCAS points explained

If you are outside Scotland, or you are a parent trying to work out what your child is actually sitting, the Scottish system takes some explaining. Here it is without the jargon.

01What a Higher is

A Higher is a one year qualification awarded by the SQA, normally sat in fifth year of secondary school at age sixteen or seventeen. It sits at SCQF level 6, which is the same level as an A level in the framework, though a Higher is a one year course and an A level is two.

Most students sit four or five Highers in S5, and those grades are what universities make offers on. Many then stay for S6 to add Advanced Highers, more Highers, or both.

02Grades and bands

Highers are graded A to D, with anything below that recorded as no award. Each grade is split into bands: an A is band 1 or 2, a B is band 3 or 4, a C is band 5 or 6, and a D is band 7. Bands sometimes matter for competitive courses and for appeals, so they are worth knowing about.

03What is a Higher equivalent to?

A Higher is roughly comparable to an AS level in content volume and to an A level in level of demand, which is why the honest answer is "somewhere between the two". Five Highers at A is broadly treated as comparable to three good A levels for university entry in the rest of the UK, and English universities routinely make offers in Highers.

Nationals, sat in S4, are the rough equivalent of GCSEs. Scotland does not use GCSEs.

Advanced Highers, sat in S6 at SCQF level 7, are more demanding than A levels and are sometimes credited towards first year at university.

04UCAS points

Under the UCAS tariff, a Higher at A is 33 points, B is 27, C is 21 and D is 15. An Advanced Higher at A is 56 points, B is 48, C is 40 and D is 32. An A level at A star is 56 for comparison.

Note that most Scottish universities make offers in grades rather than points, for example AABB at Higher, so tariff points matter more for some courses than others.

05When are Highers sat, and results day

Highers are examined in the SQA spring diet, usually across late April, May and early June, with the exact timetable published by the SQA each year. Results are issued in early August, which is earlier than A level results, and this is why Scottish applicants often know their outcome before the rest of the UK.

06Resits, appeals and expiry

Highers can be resat, at school, at college, or through distance learning providers, and universities generally accept resat grades though a few competitive courses look at first sitting. There is a post results service through which your school can request a review of marking if there is evidence something went wrong.

Highers do not expire. A Higher sat ten years ago is still a Higher, though for competitive courses such as Medicine, universities often ask that qualifications were achieved recently, so check each course.

07Are Highers harder than A levels?

Different rather than harder. A Higher packs a course into one year, so the pace is faster and the exam comes sooner. An A level goes deeper over two years. Students who move between the systems usually report that Highers feel more compressed and Advanced Highers feel closest to A level depth.

08Where Higher Biology fits

Higher Biology is one of the most commonly taken Highers in Scotland and a standard requirement, alongside Higher Chemistry, for Medicine, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine and most life science degrees. It is assessed by two exam papers worth 100 marks and an assignment worth 20.

Everything we publish for Higher Biology is free: full walkthroughs of the 2025 exam, guides to the assignment, the course specification, past papers and exam technique. No account, no paywall.