What we wish someone had told us before first semester
There is a room. It is small. There is a desk, and behind the desk sits a person who does not know you. They do not know your parents. They do not know that you were popular, or funny, or that your friends thought you were the smartest one in the group.
On the desk between you and this person is a single piece of paper. It has your name on it. It has numbers on it. That is all this person will ever know about you.
This room is a visa office; a university admissions portal; an immigration interview. The piece of paper is your transcript.
You will be in this room sooner than you think.
Seven constitutions. Fifty-seven governments since 1951. Remittances from workers abroad make up 25% of our entire GDP — one of the highest rates on Earth. Over 547,000 Nepalis took labor permits in 2024 — 1,500 every single day. And another 66,835 left not on work permits but permanently. They are not coming back.
You may not think you will be one of them. That is what every person who left also thought, once, sitting in a classroom just like yours.
One Student. Two Futures.
You graduate. Your transcript says 75%. Your GPA converts to roughly 3.0. You apply to an Australian university. You are above the minimum threshold. You get an offer. You go. Within two years, you are earning in Australian dollars. Within five, you are eligible for permanent residency.
Now rewind.
You graduate. Your transcript says 63%. Four back exams. Your GPA converts to 2.4. You apply to the same university. The minimum is 2.6. You are rejected. You apply to five more. None of them accept you. You stay. You take a job. It is fine. It pays.
Same person. Same brain. Same college. The difference between these two lives is twelve percentage points; the choices of eight semesters. And if you want to know what twelve percentage points are worth in rupees — the minimum wage in Australia is AUD $24.95 per hour. One Australian dollar is 101 Nepali rupees; that is NPR 2,520 per hour, NPR 96,000 per week, roughly NPR 50 lakh per year. At minimum wage. Flipping burgers only. Over ten years, that is 5 crore rupees. Over a working lifetime, it is 20 crore — earned by someone who got into the country because their transcript said 75% instead of 63%.
That fork is in front of you right now.
How It Happens
FIRST SEMESTER
You arrive. Everything is new. You skip a morning class because you were up until 3 AM in someone's room doing nothing — not studying, not even talking about anything real, just playing FIFA. Somebody mentions back exams and a senior laughs and says "bro, BE is normal, everyone has BE." You hear this and something relaxes inside you. Permission. You did not know you were looking for it, but you were. You stop going to the 7 AM classes. Then the 10 AM ones. You have eight semesters. You have time.
THIRD SEMESTER
Two back exams now. Maybe three. You are not worried because you look around and your entire friend group has them too. You talk about it at the canteen like it is funny — "bro I have back in Applied, you?" — and everyone laughs because everyone is in the same situation and if everyone is in the same situation then it is not a situation. It is just how things are. You tell yourself you will clear them next cycle. You open the textbook the night before the back exam. You close it. You open TikTok. You close TikTok. You open the textbook again. You read the same page three times without absorbing a single line. You go to the exam. You pass. Barely. Or you don't. Either way, the semester moves on and so do you.
FIFTH SEMESTER
The backlogs have not gone away. They have grown. And something has shifted that you cannot quite name. The friend group has split — not officially, not with any announcement, but you can feel it. Some of your classmates — the quiet ones, the ones who went to class when you didn't, the ones you called "padante" — they have clean transcripts. You start to hear them talking at lunch about IELTS coaching, about GRE prep, about universities in Melbourne and Sydney. One of them has already started an application. You listen and say nothing. For the first time, something cold moves through your stomach. But the feeling passes. You still have three semesters.
EIGHTH SEMESTER
It is over. The transcript is printed. The numbers are final. And you are sitting in front of a laptop, filling out an application to a foreign university, and your transcript is staring back at you, and there is nothing — nothing — you can do to change those numbers. Not now. Not ever.
You said you would figure it out later. That was first semester. This is later.
What the Numbers Mean
These are not opinions. These are the published requirements of foreign universities and immigration systems. They do not negotiate.
Canada. Most universities accept a maximum of 5 backlogs with a minimum of 65 to 70 percent. The University of Toronto, the University of Ottawa, the ones whose name means something on a resume — zero backlogs preferred, 70% or higher. More than 10 back exams: the good universities will not look at your application. They will not open it.
United States. Top MS programs require a minimum 3.0 GPA — roughly 75% in our system. Computer science and engineering programs want 3.4 to 3.7, which means 80% and above. They prefer zero backlogs. They might accept up to 5 if you score 315 to 325 on the GRE. Might.
Australia. They count the number of attempts, not subjects. Fail one subject, take three tries to clear it — that is three backlogs on your record. Not one. Three.
UK. More lenient — they may accept up to 15 backlogs. But you need IELTS 6.5 or higher, and the quality of university you can get into still depends on your percentage.
And here is what your percentage actually converts to in the system the rest of the world uses:
- 60% — 2.4 GPA — barely eligible anywhere
- 65% — 2.6 GPA — limited options, bottom of the list
- 70% — 2.8 GPA — doors begin to crack open
- 75% — 3.0 GPA — competitive, real universities, real programs
- 80%+ — 3.2+ GPA — scholarships, top programs, you pick them
If you want a government job in Nepal — Lok Sewa Aayog — the requirement is a Bachelor's degree from a recognized institution. That is it. No minimum percentage. No GPA cutoff. No backlog limit. Just pass. Just hold the piece of paper.
The rest of the world asks how well you did. Nepal does not ask. Which means the only question that matters is this:
Are you staying?
If you are sure — absolutely, permanently sure — that you will never want to leave Nepal, never calculate your salary in dollars, never look at the 1,500 people leaving every day and wonder if you should be one of them — then fine. Just pass. The system will not punish you for it.
But if there is even a 1% chance that someday you will want more — and remember, over 547,000 Nepalis took labor permits last year, 1,500 every single day — then what you do this semester is not about this semester.
You are 23. Maybe 25. You are sitting in a room in Kathmandu, filling out an application on your laptop. It is late. The form asks for your GPA. You type the number. The system tells you that you do not meet the minimum requirement. You close the laptop. You open it again. You search for universities with lower requirements. You find some. You do not recognize their names. You close the laptop again.
You think about the boy you were at 19. You want to talk to him. You want to grab him by the shoulders and say: please, just study, it is not that hard, just get the marks, you have no idea what you are throwing away.
But you cannot. Because that boy is sitting in a hostel room right now, reading this page, and he still thinks he has time.
"I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left." — Red, The Shawshank Redemption
That future you cannot talk to this you. So I am.
Aim for the high 70s. Low 70s minimum. Do not get back exams. Not because someone told you to. Because that room is coming, and when you walk into it, the only thing you will have is the numbers you are deciding right now.
This site exists to help you do that. Now go study. You have an exam tomorrow.