Make The Grade Meaning

(idiomatic) To prove satisfactory; to be successful or worthy of merit.

Example: 1938, "Tarnished Plate," Time, 17 Oct.:
  In 1916 the famed Van Sweringen brothers bought their first railroad—the Nickel Plate. . . . This year, as usual, the tarnished Nickel Plate cannot make the grade. In first seven months it lost $2,003,779.
2009, Margaret Wente, "Please stop nannying us, Toronto!" Globe and Mail (Canada), 19 March, p. A13:
  In the end, only eight plucky contestants made the grade.