<p>The lucky Class of 2005 experiences the new tighter standards</p>
<p>Graduating with a Summa or Magna were always difficult...
These were and are significant honors.</p>
<p>But Harvard would pratically give away Cum Laude degrees and
Cum Laude in General Studies degrees like water.
I especially thought the Cum Laude in General Studies honors were nothing but a joke... you did not have to take the honors track in your field, nor write a thesis, and as long as you maintained a B-minus average... then you got Cum Laude in General Studies.</p>
<p>All they really needed to do to reduce the number of honors degrees was just axe the Cum Laude in General Studies award.</p>
<p>This year, getting a cum laude in general studies is actually quite a bit harder than getting a cum laude in your field. You need at least a 3.657 I think for a CL in GS and only a 3.414 for cum laude in field. Some fields don't even make you write a thesis for honors so it's a matter of taking a few more department classes to be eligible for the CL in field. I think it's a symptom of the blinkeredness of the department system that getting a good grade in a 90-level English seminar is considered more academically honorable for me than getting one in a higher-level math class.</p>
<p>Yes, I know they've made it more difficult...
I just wonder where the heck they came up with 3.657 or 3.414 for cutoffs... gee, why not make it pi+0.5 = 3.6415926.....</p>
<p>I think they took the minimum GPAs of people who on the basis of their theses got magna cum laude for the 3.657--not sure where the 3.414 came from, maybe it was a cutoff for a certain percentile of the class. The way they do it now, they're cutoffs that change every year based on the GPAs of the graduating class.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm just bitter because despite having a GPA right around A- and having deliberately sought out some challenging classes, I probably won't get any kind of honors at all.</p>
<p>ah</p>
<p>Once again Harvard is finally handling their business after following Princeton's lead. This is to be expected of course.</p>
<p>Princeton is attempting to force a reduction in grades.</p>