<p>So my D is ready t take her first class outside Smith and is looking at a quirky sci class at Hampshire - she has taken a lot of intensive sci at smith already and will take 2 sci classes at Smith in the fall. My somewhat admittedly obnoxious question is will she find the Hampshire class challenging enough is comparison to what she is used to at Smith and how is it listed on her transcript?</p>
<p>It’s listed on your transcript like a class you would take at Smith, and yes, it counts in your Latin Honors GPA. I don’t know anything about quirky science classes at Hampshire.</p>
<p>Considering she is taking 3 out of 4 science classes a semester I’m not sure the whole Latin Honors thing will be an issue - she only had a history class by default:) My guess is she won’t quite make the rounds of all the areas. BTW is Dean;s list by semester or at the end of the year and what is the GPA requirement?</p>
<p>Dean’s List is by year - you need a 3.33 average to qualify.</p>
<p>Don’t rule out Latin Honors until she’s a second semester senior. 
You can get a commendation for completing the distribution even if you don’t qualify for honors by GPA (I’m not sure of percentages, but only about 10% of graduating students qualify for Latin Honors by GPA, and then the field is narrowed by those who actually complete the distribution. The GPA isn’t set in stone from year to year, but usually you need a 3.8 or something close to that to be in the running).</p>
<p>OWMa, What is the quirky science class about?</p>
<p>Borgin, the GPA for magna floats around 3.7 to 3.8, cum laude is considerably lower and represents a much larger body.</p>
<p>My back of envelope calculations at D’s graduation were:</p>
<p>1.5 percent summa cum laude (11)
4.5 percent magna cum laude (30)
approx 14 percent cum laude (98)</p>
<p>The 10 percent mark is Phi Beta Kappa, different academic honor.</p>
<p>Hard to say how challenging she’ll find her Hampshire class, but she will probably find the experience enriching. I took an Amherst class and was frankly disappointed. The class was quite rigorous but the students for the most part sat around like vegetables, except for one boy who was from UMASS (and later transferred to Amherst) who was a super extra smart guy, great thinker. And then us women’s college transfers, we at least talked and grappled with the material even if we didn’t always get it. The Amherst students just sat there and played with their hair or texted while counting down the minutes until they could go to lacrosse/field hockey/soccer practice. </p>
<p>So basically that convinced me that my Smith courses were just fine thank you very much, but it was a worthwhile experience and I’m glad I had it.</p>
<p>The class is about the science of cheese Did find out that you have to be there at 7 am one day a week so that may be the end of it. S&P she has heard similar things about Amherst - I think the draw of this was that it was a break form all the Chem and bio requirements but still related to her interests and love of cheese
Do study abroad classes count for the LH distribution?</p>
<p>OMG I am really jealous…I’d love to take a class on the science of cheese! And since Hampshire classes are quite self-directed, I’m sure your daughter will be as challenged as she wants to be. I took a (for credit) J-term class there on the visual display of quantitative information (think Tufte) and there a was lot of leeway on our final projects. Mine kept me busy and interested, but not frustrated. </p>
<p>I also took 2 Mt. Holyoke classes while at Smith (a qualitative research one in the anthro dept. and a stats class in the math dept.) and 2 Amherst ones (econometrics and political theory). My Mt. Holyoke classes were easier than the average Smith class I took and I did better in them; my Amherst classes were harder and I got worse grades than I did at Smith. However, I think at least a portion of the difference was due to the subject matter and not the college itself.</p>