make the grade

Probably from a railway train climbing a length of track sloping uphill (a grade).

make the grade

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

• cut it, cut the mustard, make the cut, measure up, pass muster

• up to par
• up to snuff