For colleges that offer Greek honors, are the GPA requirements set up so that a similar proportion of each year’s classes graduate with Greek honors? I’ve seen at least one college indicate roughly 1/3 of each class receives honors and I’m curious if that 1/3 fraction is a somewhat universal target. Any insights here?
It is different from college to college. Some have stated GPA cutoffs for Greek honors (and the GPA required can vary from school to school) and others use percentage cutoffs.
I’ve noted that at least one college increased the minimum GPA thresholds for each award a few years back which I assumed was done to combat grade inflation. Would you think the new minimums were chosen to achieve a rough % outcome for students who get Greek honors?
“Cum laude” and its variants are expressed in Latin, not Greek. And are often referred to as “Latin honors.” (I have never heard of “Greek honors.” However, “Phi Beta Kappa” is a set of Greek letters. It’s an honorary fraternity admission to which is based on academic achievement.)
What the Latin honors mean varies considerably from college to college. At my college, in my day, they were based exclusively on cumulative GPA and percentage cut-offs – top 10%, 20%, 40%. At its closest rival, they were essentially a grade on your senior thesis, although I think there may have been minimum GPA standards for each level as well. At my children’s college, there was only one honors level, it was not expressed in Latin, and it was based on a fixed cumulative GPA level, without regard to how large or small a percentage of the class achieved that.
OMG, I cannot believe I typed Greek honors. I want to crawl under a rock. @JHS you were kind to not rip me a new one. X_X
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In my day at my college to get summa cum laude you had to be recommended by your department (summa on your thesis or if the department didn’t require one some sort of A average), you had to have a certain GPA AND you had to have an A in a full year course in Social Science, Humanities AND a Natural Science. I came up one A short. There was no percentage limit, but I’d guess less than 50 students got summa cum laude. It took up a few lines on the program. There was a slightly smaller group of “magna cum laude with highest honors in their department” , a big group of magnas, and a very big group of cums which I believe required a B average.
The system is similar now - English honors determined by department Latin honors include the rest of your coursework, but Latin honors are now capped by percentage. 5% for summa, the next 15% for magna, then the next 20% can get cum laude.
I liked the fixed GPA better as you knew exactly what you had to do to get an A. I still kind of regret I didn’t take the extra Social Science course senior year. Though it would not have changed my life in any way except I’d know more about Japan the course I was thinking about taking. (I’d done very well in the China half of the course, so I’m pretty sure I’d have gotten the missing A.)
The short answer to your question is that 50% of the class at Harvard gets honors. I think that’s more than when I attended, but less than it had crept up to being before they put percentage limits on it.
Some schools require research or other honors coursework in order for students to be eligible for some or any honors. GPA alone doesn’t always cut it. (As a Psychology major, I was not eligible for anything beyond cum laude since I did not do a thesis, even though my GPA alone would have gotten me summa at, say, Penn.)
Mistyped up there the next 30% can get cum laude - so it adds up to 50%.
When I graduated Summa Cum Laude, the only requirement was a 4.0 GPA. There were very few of us. I have no idea if it’s changed, but it might be worth a google.
It was very bad at Harvard around the millennium. In 2001 91 percent of Harvard students graduated summa, magna, or cum laud. They’ve tightened it up a bit now.
For those really interested in Harvard here’s a nice little summary: https://www.quora.com/How-have-Harvards-Latin-honors-changed-over-time
At my school, students in the top 35% get Latin honors. They publish GPA cutoffs every year based on how the graduating class has performed. Right now, the lowest GPA you can have is 3.636.
At my alma mater, Latin honors have hard GPA cutoffs. Summa cum laude is a 3.8 or higher; magna cum lauda is a 3.6 or higher and cum laude is a 3.4 or higher. My college doesn’t practice grade inflation so the percentage of students who get Latin honors is smaller than 50%, although I’m not exactly sure what it is.
Other requirements were for departmental honors, not Latin honors at my alma mater. You could get departmental honors if you took the honors seminar and wrote a senior honors thesis, but that wouldn’t affect whether or not you got Latin honors.
My school dropped those eons ago, before even my time. They are pretty unfair if you have people gunning for a gpa instead of stretching themselves to explore fields they may not get top grades in. Better to have Honors program designations that reflect having taken top courses and/or done extras beyond the regular degree.
At my DDs’ school cum laude is straight GPA (I think 3.5 but not sure). Magna requires GPA around 3.7 and As in a certain number of courses in the major. Summa requires at least 3.8 GPA, plus As in required classes in the major and at some As in distribution requirements outside the major, plus a vote by the department faculty. Not really possible to get on grades alone.
“They are pretty unfair if you have people gunning for a gpa”
I see what you mean, but I don’t know of any employers or graduate schools that focus on the honor on the diploma rather than looking at the transcript. Even with law schools, which are overly focused on the GPA number, don’t seem to care whether the college considers a particular number laude-worthy.
Hanna, I think you need to look past grad school or early employers. Later in one’s career, GPA’s start to look silly on a resume and no one requests transcripts. However, I included my undergrad honors status on my resume for my entire career because it was part of my degree description. It was always “XYZ College, B.A. Basketweaving, magna cum laude”. Those magic Latin words were a nice shorthand way to show I had a good undergrad record, and some employers even mentioned the honor during interviews. You just never know what’s going to catch someone’s eye. I didn’t grade grub to achieve honors status, but it was nice to have.
At my son’s school, Latin Honors came from an honors thesis and not GPA. I suspect that less than half the class does an honors thesis and I think he was one of a small number of summas in the graduating class. There was a “with distinction” and a Phi Beta Kappa that were done by grades, I think. My daughter’s school did Latin Honors solely by GPA but they also had a Phi Beta Kappa-equivalent that was just by GPA. I don’t know how much the sizes of each honors grouping varied year to year.
To @MommaJ’s point, GPAs will drop off the resume but being able to say, BA Summa Cum Laude will probably be meaningful for the kinds of employers like i-bankers and consulting firms that current care about GPAs.
So when the college states “students whose cumulative GPAs are in the top five percent of their readcollegename College graduating class”, may be naive question,
Does it mean everyone from 3.95 to 4 GPA or if the graduating class is 1000 students, top 50 students receive that honor irrespective of GPA.
Shoot after posting realized invoked 4 years old mummy. When I read previous post was Dec’16 and I read at 16th December… 
Closing thread for reasons noted above