GPA requirements for Summa/Magna/Cum Laude

[octupus]

Does adcom take your undergraduate institution's grade in/deflation into consideration when evaluating your GPA? I know someone's going to mention that's why there's the MCAT, but hey, the difference between a 3.4 and a 3.8 is still huge!

Requirement for Summa, Magna, and Cum Laude
My undergrad: 3.8, 3.5, 3.3
Similarly, Middlebury: 3.8, 3.6, and 3.4
Texas A&M, Florida State, Davidson and USC: 3.9, 3.7, 3.5
University of Central Florida and University of Miami it's 3.9, 3.8, 3.7 (???- my goodness!)

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[Tots]

Does adcom take your undergraduate institution's grade in/deflation into consideration when evaluating your GPA? I know someone's going to mention that's why there's the MCAT, but hey, the difference between a 3.4 and a 3.8 is still huge!

Requirement for Summa, Magna, and Cum Laude
My undergrad: 3.8, 3.5, 3.3
Similarly, Middlebury: 3.8, 3.6, and 3.4
Texas A&M, Florida State, Davidson and USC: 3.9, 3.7, 3.5
University of Central Florida and University of Miami it's 3.9, 3.8, 3.7 (???- my goodness!)

Does your school only give latin honors to a certain percent? Or anyone above 3.3..3.5 and such?


My school is
Summa Cum Laude 3.959 – 4.00
Magna Cum Laude 3.87 – 3.958
Cum Laude 3.725 – 3.86

1% -- 2% -- 9%

 

[octupus]

Does your school only give latin honors to a certain percent? Or anyone above 3.3..3.5 and such?


My school is
Summa Cum Laude 3.959 – 4.00
Magna Cum Laude 3.87 – 3.958
Cum Laude 3.725 – 3.86

1% -- 2% -- 9%

My school does it by GPA and not by percent of the class. I wonder if it's because it's a small class. We have ~600 students per year, meaning if it's only top 1%, there would be 6 students graduating Summa Cum Laude. It's unlikely that anyone who majored in a science there would be 1 of the 6

 

[kpcrew]

My school does it by GPA and not by percent of the class. I wonder if it's because it's a small class. We have ~600 students per year, meaning if it's only top 1%, there would be 6 students graduating Summa Cum Laude. It's unlikely that anyone who majored in a science there would be 1 of the 6

This is so true. So many English and Communications majors at the top of the list at my school but ours was done by percentage. Only the real geniuses in the hard sciences got any recognition.

 

[notbobtrustme]

I believe it was 3.6, 3.8 and 4.0 at my school, Loyola University Chicago. I know that I graduated with latin honors at cum laude with a 3.6.

 

[Big Dog]

...why would you think a professional school would care about latin honors? (Latin honors is college-designed & limited. It wasn't too long ago that 85% of Harvard grads were latin honorees -- H just defined 'honors' as a low B.)

 

[tiedyeddog]

Schools don't care about them.

 

[Slowpoke]

Does your school only give latin honors to a certain percent? Or anyone above 3.3..3.5 and such?


My school is
Summa Cum Laude 3.959 – 4.00
Magna Cum Laude 3.87 – 3.958
Cum Laude 3.725 – 3.86

1% -- 2% -- 9%

UCI?

 

[Camy99]

UCI?

Beat me to it, zot (;

 

[Tots]

UCI?

Yeah

My school does it by GPA and not by percent of the class. I wonder if it's because it's a small class. We have ~600 students per year, meaning if it's only top 1%, there would be 6 students graduating Summa Cum Laude. It's unlikely that anyone who majored in a science there would be 1 of the 6

Ah its not 1% of the university but 1% of our school(all the bio sci majors and other bio-ish majors). This is about 10 people a year. We have School of Bio Sci, School of Social Sci, Physical Sci, Humanities...amd etc. Each school awards the latin honors separately. Our PBK is like 1% of the university for junior induction and 5% for senior induction and there were plenty of science majors there. I don't think most science majors have it as bad as people make it seem, at least not Bio Majors.

 

[Slowpoke]

Yeah



Ah its not 1% of the university but 1% of our school(all the bio sci majors and other bio-ish majors). This is about 10 people a year. We have School of Bio Sci, School of Social Sci, Physical Sci, Humanities...amd etc. Each school awards the latin honors separately. Our PBK is like 1% of the university for junior induction and 5% for senior induction and there were plenty of science majors there. I don't think most science majors have it as bad as people make it seem, at least not Bio Majors.

I graduated this past June. If I remember correctly, four people were Summa.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

I think my university breaks it down by department, so the top 9% of every department gets honors.

 

[Tots]

I graduated this past June. If I remember correctly, four people were Summa.

Ouch. How is that 1%.

 

[DVolle]

SIUC uses:

Summa Cum Laude - 3.9
Magna Cum Laude - 3.75
Cum Laude - 3.50

 

[ISUBird100]

Illinois State had:

Cum Laude: 3.65-3.74
Magna Cum Laude: 3.75-3.89
Summa Cum Laude: 3.90-4.0

 

[SBR249]

My school does it by percentages based on cumulative GPAs of the previous year's graduating class. Top 5% is summa, next 10% down is magna, and next 10% down is cum laude. This comes out to 25% of the class receiving Latin honor. The rankings are further broken down by schools. The two undergrad schools (art & sciences and engineering) have separate GPA rankings though it seems that the engineering school generally had higher GPA cutoffs in the past.

For the current academic year, the formula calculated the following GPA cutoffs:

Engineering:
Summa = 3.935
Magna = 3.806
Cum Laude = 3.708

A&S:
Summa = 3.915
Magna = 3.816
Cum Laude = 3.732

 

[Osakhomen]

My school you had to be in the Honors program with a GPA of (I think) 3.75 or high to be Summa or Magna... if you weren't in the honors program and you got a 3.93 (ME!) the most you could get was Cum Laude... which is really annoying.

 

[octupus]

Yeah



Ah its not 1% of the university but 1% of our school(all the bio sci majors and other bio-ish majors). This is about 10 people a year. We have School of Bio Sci, School of Social Sci, Physical Sci, Humanities...amd etc. Each school awards the latin honors separately. Our PBK is like 1% of the university for junior induction and 5% for senior induction and there were plenty of science majors there. I don't think most science majors have it as bad as people make it seem, at least not Bio Majors.

I see what you mean. My entire graduating class, all majors included, is about 600 students. We do not separate by School of X Y Z because we do not have different schools within the university.

I guess a better question is do adcoms weigh in grade inflation and deflation of the undergrad? If so, how do they do it? (assuming they don't don't use the latin honors as a way of gauging)

Let's say,
majority of school A's applicants have ~3.8 GPA but mid-low 30s MCAT vs
majority of school B's applicants who have ~3.5 GPA but still mid-low 30s MCAT

Do schools take that into account when looking at GPAs or are numbers just numbers?

I'm just asking out of curiosity as I've already graduated, so there isn't anything I can do at this point. This is just a trend I've noticed in most of my undergrad applicants' stats.

 

[Classof2013PreM]

I see what you mean. My entire graduating class, all majors included, is about 600 students. We do not separate by School of X Y Z because we do not have different schools within the university.

I guess a better question is do adcoms weigh in grade inflation and deflation of the undergrad? If so, how do they do it? (assuming they don't don't use the latin honors as a way of gauging)

Let's say,
majority of school A's applicants have ~3.8 GPA but mid-low 30s MCAT vs
majority of school B's applicants who have ~3.5 GPA but still mid-low 30s MCAT

Do schools take that into account when looking at GPAs or are numbers just numbers?

I'm just asking out of curiosity as I've already graduated, so there isn't anything I can do at this point. This is just a trend I've noticed in most of my undergrad applicants' stats.

Short answer: yes, they do weigh the grade inflation/deflation (but not with any quantitative formula). adcoms know the level of rigor of different schools, and factor that into their decisionmaking in a holistic manner (this is my impression, at least)

 

[NickNaylor]

I guess a better question is do adcoms weigh in grade inflation and deflation of the undergrad? If so, how do they do it? (assuming they don't don't use the latin honors as a way of gauging)

Let's say,
majority of school A's applicants have ~3.8 GPA but mid-low 30s MCAT vs
majority of school B's applicants who have ~3.5 GPA but still mid-low 30s MCAT

Do schools take that into account when looking at GPAs or are numbers just numbers?

I'm just asking out of curiosity as I've already graduated, so there isn't anything I can do at this point. This is just a trend I've noticed in most of my undergrad applicants' stats.

This has been discussed ad nauseum. Short answer: yes, they take into this account, but the a bad GPA from a school known to deflate isn't necessarily going to fly.

 

[dreamweaver1988]

Does adcom take your undergraduate institution's grade in/deflation into consideration when evaluating your GPA? I know someone's going to mention that's why there's the MCAT, but hey, the difference between a 3.4 and a 3.8 is still huge!

Requirement for Summa, Magna, and Cum Laude
My undergrad: 3.8, 3.5, 3.3
Similarly, Middlebury: 3.8, 3.6, and 3.4
Texas A&M, Florida State, Davidson and USC: 3.9, 3.7, 3.5
University of Central Florida and University of Miami it's 3.9, 3.8, 3.7 (???- my goodness!)

You're joking, right?


xxx

 

[xXIDaShizIXx]

At my school the awards for the a 4.0 are always given to a business, english, or communications major. It just makes me angry. But for mine its 4.0, 3.7, 3.5 . I'm not really sure why they don't have them spaced more evenly.

 

[NickNaylor]

At my school the awards for the a 4.0 are always given to a business, english, or communications major. It just makes me angry. But for mine its 4.0, 3.7, 3.5 . I'm not really sure why they don't have them spaced more evenly.

At our graduation this past year (~3000 students) we had ~40 people graduate with 4.0s. Obviously some of them were in fields that might be considered "less rigorous," but there was at least one person that was a biochem major, and I'm sure there were others in the sciences as well.

No engineering or CS majors as far as I know, though.

 

[zwitterion34]

Perhaps these distinctions should be awarded to each majors separately. Then the coursework will be similar and a correct juxtaposition will be accomplished.

 

[xXIDaShizIXx]

Let me just put it this way, where I am from, the stereotypes about Alabama are unfortunately true! Our school doesn't even offer biochemistry as a major lol.

 

[zwitterion34]

Let me just put it this way, where I am from, the stereotypes about Alabama are unfortunately true! Our school doesn't even offer biochemistry as a major lol.

haha

 

[FlowRate]

My undergrad: Completion of honors program (with A's on both thesis semesters) + 3.9, 3.7, 3.5