<p>I’m very happy with the system our school has. They name summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cum laude based on weighted grade point averages. I think this is fair. The number of students named summa cum laude + magna cum laude would have constituted the top 10% had enrollment remained at freshman levels. We saw a drop of about 75 students from 7th semester to graduation, so some kids (8? about 1.7%) would have been hurt by this fact had the school used the top 10% rather than grades to determine summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cum laude.
They post photos of the summa cum laude students (about the top 5%) in the foyer, and do not name sal and val.
Student speakers at graduation are chosen after an audition. They ended up being top students anyway (the very top? I don’t know).
Our school does rank, weighted and unweighted, on every semester report card, so you know where you stand. But the info isn’t public. Having followed these rank numbers for 8 semesters now, the numerical difference between weighted and unweighted rank for my kid was about 10 places. To me, this means that about 10 kids benefited from good grades in non-honors classes. But they used weighted grades for the final honors designations.
I’m happy with this system because top kids aren’t hurt by dropouts, and the incentive to do well in classes exists. If the top 20% of kids earned grades > the summa cutoff, they’ll be named.</p>