PFP calculator: will your ELMAB3 make it?
Five G2 grades decide Polytechnic Foundation Programme eligibility: English and Math, plus your best three other subjects. Set them below; the aggregate and both gates update as you go. No sign-up.
Checked July 2026 against MOE’s published rules. Rules can move — confirm on MOE’s and the polytechnics’ own pages before big decisions.
Grades are G2-equivalent, 1 (best) to 5 on the results slip. Taking a subject at G3? Enter its G2-equivalent grade.
Eligibility is the entry ticket, not a guaranteed place — popular courses fill, and some set extra subject requirements.
How this calculator counts
ELMAB3 is a sum of five grades: English Language and Math, plus your best 3 other subjects. Each G2 subject is graded 1 (best) to 5, so ELMAB3 runs from 5 (perfect) upward — and lower is better. The calculator adds your five grades and checks three things:
- ELMAB3 of 12 or less. The aggregate bar.
- English at Grade 3 or better. A hard gate, whatever the aggregate.
- Math at Grade 3 or better. The other hard gate — and the one that most often decides it.
All three must hold at once. An aggregate of 10 with Math at Grade 4 doesn’t qualify; neither does English and Math at Grade 2 with an aggregate of 14. The full rules and the application timeline are in PFP requirements, in plain language.
The two gates people miss
Most families find the aggregate first and stop there. The gates are stricter than they look: G1 grades don’t count toward ELMAB3, and three strong grades elsewhere can’t carry an English or Math grade of 4. If either required subject sits above Grade 3, the answer is “not yet” no matter what the sum says.
If Math is the blocker
It usually is — and that’s the good news. Math marks are lost to a short list of specific, fixable skills: signs, brackets, fractions, factorising. Improve Math by one grade and you take a full point off the aggregate and clear the gate in the same move. No other subject pays twice like that. What Grade 3 in G2 Math actually takes →
What is ELMAB3?
ELMAB3 is the sum of five G2 grades: English Language and Math, plus your best 3 other subjects. Each subject is graded 1 (best) to 5, so a lower total is better. It’s the aggregate the Polytechnic Foundation Programme uses.
What ELMAB3 do you need for PFP?
An ELMAB3 of 12 or less, with English and Math both at Grade 3 or better. Both conditions are hard requirements — an aggregate of 10 with Math at Grade 4 does not qualify.
Do G1 grades count toward ELMAB3?
No. ELMAB3 is computed on G2 grades. A strong G1 grade can’t stand in for a weak G2 one. If a subject is taken at G3, use its G2-equivalent grade from the results slip.
Steady works on the grade this calculator keeps pointing at. It reads your child’s marked papers and finds the skills that lose marks, then rebuilds them in fifteen minutes a day. Mock WAs are marked out of 40, so you always know where the grade stands. S$19 a month. Free for MOE FAS households.
See how Steady works Get a seat