University of Nottingham（诺丁汉大学）entry requirements for Chinese students (2027) — minimum average mark, university list tiers and programme extras

Nottingham's 2027 entry requirements for applicants educated in China are not a single number. For taught master's programmes, the minimum weighted average depends on which UK degree class the programme asks for and which Tier your bachelor's institution falls into. The university's own published thresholds run from 0.68 to 0.82. Anything beyond that table — programme-specific portfolio or interview requirements, test scores, English level, and which study modes are accepted — you need to check the university's own pages, which take precedence over anything written here.

诺丁汉大学（University of Nottingham）appears at position 97 in the QS 2027 World University Rankings. In the Chinese-language version of its 2027 entry requirements page, the university groups its three tables by degree class, with rows for Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3.

The three minimum average marks

Here is the master's table as published, with the university keeping the original wording for each band:

Tier 3 is defined on the page as all institutions other than those in Tier 1 and Tier 2. Read that as a catch-all band: if your university is not named in the Tier 1 or Tier 2 lists, the Tier 3 thresholds are the ones that apply, and they are the strictest of the three.

The practical pattern: moving up a Tier costs you a small margin on the standard2:1 column — from 0.75 at Tier 2 to 0.82 at Tier 3 — but the gap is wider on the 2:2 column, where the same step runs from 0.73 to 0.75. Programmes admitting to High 2:1 ask for the least spread between bands, which is why that column is the most useful baseline for comparing offers across universities.

How to work out which Tier you are in

Nottingham publishes the full China institution list as part of its entry requirements, organised by tier and by score band. The list reproduced in the material available for this article is around 414 lines long and is explicitly truncated, so treat it as incomplete.

To find your own position:

1. Search the university's China entry requirements page for your institution's Chinese name and its English names.
2. Note which Tier heading the entry sits under.
3. Read across to the column for the degree class your target programme requires.
4. Compare that figure with your own weighted average, calculated on the scale your university uses.

Because the list runs to several hundred entries and the university records multiple English name variants for many institutions, name matching is genuinely fiddly. If you cannot find your university in the page, treat it as Tier 3 and confirm with the university directly, which takes precedence.

Note what this list does not tell you. The published tables do not state how many Chinese institutions fall into each Tier, and this article will not estimate it. Nor does it group institutions into a ranked "prestigious" Band — the page's own vocabulary is Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3, and that is the vocabulary to use when you talk to admissions.

Programme-specific extras

The tier table sets a floor, not the whole picture. Individual programmes layer on their own conditions, and the main-stream entry requirements summary for2027 does not enumerate them.

So for each programme on your list:

1. Open that programme's page on nottingham.ac.uk, not just the central requirements page.
2. Check whether it asks for a portfolio, an interview, or a standardised test such as GMAT.
3. Check the stated English language requirement, which sits alongside the academic threshold rather than inside it.
4. Check the required degree class — a programme admitting2:2 applicants uses a different column than one asking for High 2:1.

Where a programme publishes no extra condition, that is not the same as a confirmed absence. Check the university's own pages, which take precedence.

Study modes

The2027 requirements cover degree routes the university accepts, including a Chinese Junior Diploma (Dazhuan) path with one or two years of final-year or top-up study leading to a bachelor degree, alongside UK HND/SQA AD routes completed in the UK only. The material available here does not set out which study modes — full-time, part-time or online — are accepted for each taught programme. That is per-programme, so check the university's own pages, which take precedence.

Undergraduate applicants reading this

For undergraduate entry from China, the university now accepts the Gaokao (NCCE) for entry to Year 1. The required Gaokao score varies by course and ranges from 70% to 82% of the total score achievable in the candidate's province of origin, and the Gaokao English component is considered. This is a different system from the master's tier table above; the tiers apply to postgraduate entry.

A short checklist before you apply

1. Identify the degree class your target programme requires.
2. Confirm your Tier from the university's own China entry requirements page.
3. Read your threshold from the matching column.
4. Gather programme-specific evidence — portfolio, interview, test scores.
5. Verify the English requirement and the study mode for that programme.

Each of these steps has to be confirmed against the university's own pages, which take precedence over this summary. Nothing here is an offer of admission, and thresholds alone do not decide an application.

Sources

• University of Nottingham — official website and China entry requirements