<p>Since all of you are my unofficial Smith sources . . . </p>
<p>I'm curious about Latin Honors. I thought that to qualify, a student had only to fulfill the distribution requirements and maintain a high GPA. My D said that an honors thesis is also required. Is that true?</p>
<p>Nope. </p>
<p>In order to get departmental honors you need to write a thesis. In order to get Latin Honors, you need to complete the distribution requirements and get a high GPA. </p>
<p>Some graduate with one or the other, and others graduate with both.</p>
<p>Thanks! (10 char.)</p>
<p>Added datum: the cut-off for Cum Laude is apparently around 3.7x, varying from year to year. Have no idea what the cut-offs for Magna & Summa are.</p>
<p>That cut-off indicates grade <em>inflation</em>, not deflation. Of course, for Latin Honors, they don't count first year grades, so that may also make the GPA artificially high.</p>
<p>I don't know. I think the average (median) Smith GPA is around 3.3.<br>
And you're right about the effect of first-year grades not being counted skewing the distribution.</p>
<p>Have no idea how this compares with other schools. Suffice to say, it wasn't on my radar screen when I was at UC.</p>
<p>I suppose that median may be about what it is on colleges across the country, although I don't know. I <em>do</em> know that these days a B is considered "average" instead of a C, as it was when I went to college. I did not have a GPA above 3.7 in college and yet I still was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa (which was based on the top X percent.)</p>
<p>Most schools use the cumulative GPA, from matriculation to graduation, when bestowing the various honors. Smith's negating the first year when it comes to Latin Honors shows the institution's sensitivity to its low-income students and to those who come from less than rigorous educational backgrounds. It gives them a year to catch up to their better prepared peers. Those who do well from the start are rewarded with better overall GPAs, of course.</p>
<p>Fwiw, as a datum on the high side, there's an award for highest GPA for first-years. D's first, there were only three 4.0's.</p>
<p>The figure itself might seem average, but I would argue that their are probably fewer cum laude's at smith, where i find the grades to be rather deflated, than there are at Amherst, where (IMO) the grades are inflated.</p>
<p>Is there an equivalent at Smith of the Dean's list, or whatever it may be called, at the end of each semester or year?</p>
<p>Yes, there's a Dean's List at the end of each year. I can't remember the GPA cut-off, however. The Dean's List students receive a letter over the summer informing them of the honor, although anyone who knows the cut-off obviously knows it beforehand.</p>
<p>Maybe one of the current students can chime in here with the specifics.</p>
<p>I believe that dean's list is a gpa for the year of 3.33 or above.</p>
<p>There's also First Group Scholars, who must take at least 28 credits at Smith (or one of the other 4 colleges) and get no grades below an A- for the year. This generally equates to about the top 10% of the class (and if you get this consistently and take classes in each of the 7 areas, you're a good bet for Phi Beta Kappa and Latin Honors, though there's not a 100% correlation).</p>