<p>I recently saw that ILR does not award students based on GPA with Latin honors. </p>
<p>If I graduate with above a 4.0, is there any way I would still receive some honor from Cornell, and not ILR? I know it sounds a bit funny, but graduating summa cum laude has always been kind of a idealistic goal for me I'd be kind of disappointed to think I didn't even have the chance to pursue that goal. It's more of a personal thing than anything. </p>
<p>Also I know about the requirement to be in the top 20% of a class and doing an honors thesis to graduate with honors in ILR, so no information on that topic is necessary. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance to anyone who has information about this.</p>
<p>Not that I know of but usually only about 8-15 seniors graduate with honors from ILR (as in do the honors thesis) so I’de say it’s still prestigious, especially if you mention that stat on your resume or in an interview. And just so you know top 20% usually means above 3.7</p>
<p>ILR does not given latin honors. Latin is a dead language and ILR is a modern subject. As you note, though, ILR does have an honors program, and it would be silly of you to not take advantage of it.</p>
<p>And frankly, any school that does give honors without requiring a thesis is a bit suspect (cough, Harvard, cough, CALS).</p>
<p>If you graduate with a 4.0 and are a varsity athlete you can become a member of the 400 club.</p>
<p>Not true. In Arts, latin honors is only given upon completion of a thesis. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sure. Relative to Engineering or biology majors. But relative to other social science majors I don’t think that 20% of the class graduating with a 3.7 constitutes Harvard-esque levels of grade inflation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I was trying to convey the fact that it’s arbitrary whether or not you say ‘cum laude’ or ‘with honors’. They mean the same thing, only one is in a language that nobody has spoken for two millennium.</p>
<p>Are ILR, AAP, and Human Ecology not allowed to give Latin Honors if they wanted to do so? Why wouldn’t they, if the ILRIES are competing with CAS and CALS for grad school and have the Latin Honors missing from their transcripts? This will be a disadvantage.</p>
<pre><code> I totally agree with you about the “with honors” being respectable. However, if the grad schools look at 3 transcripts from CAS that indicate cum laude and the fourth showing “with honors” in ILR, won’t they be a little suspicious?
</code></pre>
<p>Because it is a reflection of your persona and if you want people to give consideration to what you have to say you might want to be concerned about how you appear?</p>
<pre><code> Wouldn’t the grad schools be suspicious that the other colleges such as CAS within Cornell bestow latin honors to their students, but latin honors are not given to the ILR or Human Ecology students?? The inconsistency is disturbing. The “Cornell Daily Sun” published an editorial on this subject. All of the Cornell colleges should be able to bestow latin honors, becauses it raises questions about the quality of each college. After all, every student takes classes across the colleges. Ultimately, everyone’s program becomes interdisciplinary. So what are they possibly thinking by not being consistent in bestowing honors. It is destructive.
</code></pre>
<p>You are drawing out two separate issues here:</p>
<p>1) Whether or not graduating ‘with honors’ means something other than graduating ‘cum laude’. </p>
<p>It does not. And any graduate school who cares about such matters is frankly a graduate school that isn’t worthy of your consideration. Harvard Law is not going to turn you down because you graduated ‘with honors’ from ILR instead of ‘cum laude’. And Johns Hopkins Medical School isn’t going to turn you down because you happened to be in the College of Human Ecology.</p>
<p>2) Whether or not the University should encourage the colleges to be more consistent in their academic practices, especially in terms of honors, distinctions, and academic achievements.</p>
<p>I don’t know. There’s a narrow balance to be found between centralization and decentralization of academic requirements. Should the Hotel School be allowed to only require one freshman writing seminar? Should anybody in any college be allowed to minor in AEM? Should an individual college be able to decide what constitutes graduating with honors? Should an engineer be allowed to graduate Phi Beta Kappa?</p>
<p>Frankly, harmonization of honors requirements across the colleges would be a good thing, on net. But it’s hard to implement. Would an architecture major have to write a thesis? Would an engineer have to build something or write a paper? </p>
<p>If it means a lot to you, form a student committee and petition the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education.</p>
<p>I appreciate your response. Because getting into grad schools is intensely competitive enough, you just don’t need another obstacle especially from within your own university in being on par with others. Many universities, like Cornell, use the latin honor system, so why change it, put up a red flag? No need. Every college within Cornell should just use the latin terminology. Simple. Use cum laude instead of “with honors.” You have a fine idea about approaching the administration, or if the students could make this effort who are interested, as I am a parent, but still care. In addition, I think an architecture or engineering student could write a thesis. (:</p>
<p>Actually, in Engineering, we have two honors programs.</p>
<p>One is the Latin Honors which is solely based on GPA. (cum laude 3.5+, magna cum laude 3.75+ and summa cum laude 4.0+)</p>
<p>We also have the Honors program which does require us to take at least 9 extra technical credits and write a thesis with a grade of an A.
In engineering it’s possible to be magna cum laude and with honors.</p>
<p>I think I understand what you’re saying. When I was entering ILR, I read that virtually everyone at Harvard and some other universities were awarded honors-- some high grades of latin honors (e.g. magna and summa cum laude). Since we’ve been trained that such honors mean something, by putting two and two together some jealousy is understandable. </p>
<p>But take it from Cayuga and myself, who’ve been there and done that-- the “with honors” hasn’t really affected us. Ultimately, it’s the research project, the faculty recommendations, and the grades that send the signal. More importantly, the research experience itself helps prepare you for graduate school more than any symbolic honor. </p>
<p>To be specific, PhD programs are very careful about the final cut of students they take, and my impression is that the distinction of graduating “with honors” or with latin honors is immaterial. They’ll look at your son or daughter’s GPA, rank if supplied, the grades in rigorous classes, and the faculty recommender’s comments on your thesis (and whatever your write about it in your essay). They’ll try to get an impression of whether this individual will make an intellectual contribution to the department. I do believe that someone with a 3.8/top 10th percentile GPA, and a thesis that is lauded by faculty recommenders is little served by the language in which their honors are presented. </p>
<p>On another note, ILR is “allowed” to offer latin honors, but the ILR faculty voted against it.</p>