There is no national standard, and the numbers move
Cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude are conferred by institutions under their own regulations. Around 3.5, 3.7 and 3.9 are common landmarks, and plenty of schools sit above or below them. Some set the bar noticeably higher for particular colleges within the same university.
So the only figure that matters to you is in your own catalog, under your own degree level, in the edition in force when you graduate. Anything you read elsewhere, including here, is describing a pattern rather than your rule.
Fixed threshold or class percentile
Two systems are in common use and they behave completely differently. A fixed threshold says 3.7 and means it: everybody who reaches it gets the classification, however many that is.
A percentile system awards honors to the top share of a graduating class — the top ten percent, say — which means the effective cutoff moves every year and you cannot know it in advance. Under a percentile rule, a 3.85 might be comfortably enough one year and short the next. If your institution uses one, planning to a number is not possible and planning to be clearly above the range is.
The residency rule catches transfer students
Most institutions require a minimum number of credits earned there before honors are considered, and frequently only those resident credits are counted in the average being assessed. For anybody who transferred in a significant block, this is the single most consequential sentence in the catalog.
It cuts both ways. If your transferred work was weaker than your recent work, exclusion helps you and the average under assessment is better than the one on your transcript. If your best grades came from the institution you left, the reverse applies and the figure you have been tracking is not the figure being judged.
- Find your own catalog page, for your own degree level
- Establish whether it is a fixed threshold or a class percentile
- Find the residency requirement and count your resident credits
- Check whether any single low grade disqualifies regardless of average
- Check whether honors apply at graduate level at all — often they do not
Graduate degrees frequently have no honors at all
A great many institutions confer Latin honors only on bachelor's degrees. Master's and doctoral programs may offer a distinction of some other kind, a thesis award, or nothing.
This surprises people midway through an MSN or an MBA who have been carefully protecting an average toward a classification their program does not award. It is a five-minute thing to check and it changes what you should be optimising for.
What this means for planning
If honors matter to you, the useful sequence is: read the rule, count your resident credits, work out the best average those credits can still reach, and compare. That produces one of three answers and each implies a different year.
It is also worth being honest about why. Employers rarely ask; graduate admissions sometimes do; and for many people the real reason is personal, which is a perfectly good reason and worth naming rather than dressing up. If it is the goal, the arithmetic of whether it is reachable is worth doing early, because it is the sort of target that becomes unreachable quietly.
Questions this raises.
Do employers care about Latin honors?
Some do, most do not, and it varies enormously by field. Graduate admissions and a handful of competitive graduate schemes look at it; the majority of employers hiring experienced professionals are far more interested in what you have done since. That is worth weighing before reorganising a year around it.
Can honors be lost after they are calculated?
The classification is normally determined at graduation using the final cumulative average, so a poor last term can move it. Some institutions calculate using grades available at the point programs are printed and adjust afterwards, which occasionally produces the awkward situation of a ceremony and a transcript disagreeing.
My school uses percentiles. How do I plan?
You cannot plan to a number, because the cutoff is set by the class you happen to graduate with. What you can do is aim clearly above where the range has historically fallen, which your registrar may be willing to tell you. It also makes the marginal case genuinely unpredictable, which is worth knowing before you organise a year around it.
Declan Moore
EdD · education bench. Writes for The Ring on what actually moves marks in this subject, and coaches the students who bring it to us. The rest of the bench.
Where to go next.
Start your first ring.
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