How much does Graduation Honor mean to you guys?

[yancantcook]

I'm talking about graduation honors such as the cum laude, summa, and magna, etc.

Do these things have much meaning after college or personally to people usually?

I got into med school already but I'm doing horrible in my classes and might drop from one of the honors (the one with the 3.60 minimum).

When hunting for jobs, do employers/schools care about these honors?

sorry if this is a stupid question but I just want to know what other people think about these things

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Larsitron]

It depends on what you mean by important. Insofar as your medical career I don't think so. So long as you graduate, you're in, and you're done. I don't think residencies take into consideration your undergrad GPA and, after all, your GPA is what determines these honors. So it shouldn't matter right? That said, I have nothing to base this opinion on other than wild speculation and some thought.

 

[yancantcook]

I am just wondering how much "personal" value other students have toward these things?

Particularly from people that graduated college already, are you proud that you have a magna cum laude, etc?

 

[Larsitron]

Yeah, I'm proud of my honors status. It represents the hard work I put into things. I mean, it shows a constant commitment to academics. But that's just my opinion.

 

[blingblah]

it probably matters more if you wanna do some sort of academic medicine or administrative positions such as a DEan or Provost or run for government positions such as a senator or state rep blah blah.

It might not matter if you wanna be a doc, but if you wanna be a head of some dept blah blah, it can only help.

 

[Avenue Q]

we don't have them at my school. we don't have a deans list either. yay for top 15 schools that try to be non-competitive!

 

[Buckeye(OH)]

From personal experience. When I graduated in 03 I was fired the **** up because I missed graduating with honors by .03pts and my at the time gf was going to graduate with honors (ok, thats what actually pissed me off).

Two years later, I could give two ****s. No one has ever asked me if I graduated with honors and it would appear as if no one else cares either.

 

[Law2Doc]

I'm talking about graduation honors such as the cum laude, summa, and magna, etc.

Do these things have much meaning after college or personally to people usually?

I got into med school already but I'm doing horrible in my classes and might drop from one of the honors (the one with the 3.60 minimum).

When hunting for jobs, do employers/schools care about these honors?

sorry if this is a stupid question but I just want to know what other people think about these things

It probably won't matter if you go into medicine, as medicine reportedly has the culture that you are "only as good as the last place you've been". (Meaning, when applying to residency they look at your med school stats, when applying for a fellowship they look primarilly at where you did your residency, and so on...) If, however, you ultimately decide not to pursue medicine for whatever reason, and have to seek a job in eg. business, or if you decide to pursue another form of grad school, it would be certainly help to have academic honors on your resume - in that circumstance anything you can add to your credentials to look more impressive helps.
As for the impact on one personally, I doubt if anyone actually thinks about it much after he/she leaves school. If you some day hang up your degrees in your doctors office and the honor is on there, I suppose it could instill some additional confidence in patients who see it, but probably not a big deal.

 

[Psycho Doctor]

Yeah, I'm proud of my honors status. It represents the hard work I put into things. I mean, it shows a constant commitment to academics. But that's just my opinion.

but all schools have different criteria for their honors designations

what is yours anyway?

 

[Will Ferrell]

Graduation honors, dean's list, HS honor rolls & the National Honor Society exist just to please parents - they're not worth $hit.

 

[Larsitron]

but all schools have different criteria for their honors designations

what is yours anyway?

Mine is summa cum laude with honors which is the highest tier at my University. I'm in the honors college here, so that's why the "with honors" is at the end. Ours range from summa cum laude at 3.9 and above, magna at 3.7 to 3.89, and then cum laude at 3.5-3.69. So, after four years, if you've attained these GPAs, I think its worth noting directly on the diploma via these honors designations. But you're right, it depends on how the college we're talking about determines these things that varies.

 

[crys20]

Yeah it doesn't really matter to me. Really, it sucks but I sort of view undergrad as just a stepping stone for me. What matters more for me is that my GPA is competitive enough to land me some sort of an acceptance. I'm also proud of the way I brought my GPA up from a 2.5 to a 3.5+...But yeah, honors, I don't know. I don't even know what the cutoffs are where I'm at. I guess it would make mom & dad proud at the graduation ceremony to hear it but other than that not a huge deal 🙂

 

[ramblinwreckie]

highest honors at my school is 3.55. does anyone else find that ridiculous?

 

[Machination]

It depends on your school and major. Here, you need a certain gpa and a peer-reviewed senior thesis (written after a year of directed research). I don't think I'd be doing honors if it only meant I needed to keep a certain GPA.

 

[Larsitron]

Oh thank Jebus that I don't have to submit my thesis for honors to peer review. Unless peer review means professors, I really don't think that I'd like to see my peers in charge of checking my work. Not that they couldn't, but more that I'd like people with authority to do it.

 

[KiKat37]

1) It doesn't matter if you are going into medicine. Nobody ever asked me anything about honors since I graduated last year - not for med schools, not for job applications, not for grad school.

2) I think the "value" itself depends on the range of GPAs that they use at your school. It basically shows how hard you worked. For ex, at my undergraduate school:
Summa: 4.000 - 3.968
Magna: 3.967 - 3.897
Cum Laude: 3.896 - 3.796

I remember I was pissed off last year because I ended up with 3.786... missed the "cum laude" by 0.01 point. And, I couldn't believe that - at other schools - people could get "cum laude" with a 3.4 !!

But, now, a year later, I couldn't care less. Just chill and enjoy your graduation. 🙂

 

[deuist]

we don't have them at my school. we don't have a deans list either. yay for top 15 schools that try to be non-competitive!

How do you separate the mediocre students from the better ones?

 

[deuist]

Graduation honors, dean's list, HS honor rolls & the National Honor Society exist just to please parents - they're not worth $hit.

I doubt it. Graduating with high honors meant a lot more to me than it did to my parents. While some honor sociaties are shams (Golden Key, Alpha Lambda Delta, Who's Who, et al.), graduating with one of the cum laudes is quite an accomplishment.

 

[RaaMD]

I look at these honors with a sentimental vibe. The honors for me represent years of hard work (sleepless nights, sacrifice of time, and determination). So yeh, its important to me.

 

[tigress]

Well I was really pissed because at my school cum laude is 3.5-3.7, magna is 3.7-3.85, and summa is above 3.85. I was so upset because in my senior year I got a C in a 5 credit physics course (my only grade below B ever), so I ended up graduating with a 3.69. The whole thing is a long story, but if I had just turned in this one extra lab report I would have gotten a C+ in the course and graduated with a 3.7, and thus magna cum laude. I will always be upset over that. It's on my diploma. The only consolation is the honors program designation also on my program, which at my school is hard to get.

Does it matter in the long run? Practically no, emotionally yes. My mother graduated from Johns Hopkins a few years after her brother. My uncle had graduated summa cum laude and has some sort of red ribbon or something on his diploma. My mother graduated magna, and she is still bothered by it. Maybe this sounds like overkill; my mother is in no way a gunner-type or anything. But obviously I know the story (and my husband has heard it), so it means enough to her still to tell it. It hasn't affected her life to any great degree and she doesn't think about it on a daily basis, but even now, as a successful lawyer 30 years later, it bothers her. I suspect mine will bother me my whole life as well.

On the other hand, I've grown up since I was in college, and I am really hoping I can do well enough in med school to redeem myself (to myself).

 

[gh9967]

Its the only reason why I'm typing this paper right now!!!

Seriously though, I don't think it matters that much in terms of helping you later in life. If you already got into med school, what matters in the future is your performance there. For me, graduation honors is important because it is evidence of my hard work these past four years. Although I may not get into the school I want, I know that at least somebody else out there recognizes my efforts.

I'm talking about graduation honors such as the cum laude, summa, and magna, etc.

Do these things have much meaning after college or personally to people usually?

I got into med school already but I'm doing horrible in my classes and might drop from one of the honors (the one with the 3.60 minimum).

When hunting for jobs, do employers/schools care about these honors?

sorry if this is a stupid question but I just want to know what other people think about these things

 

[Avenue Q]

How do you separate the mediocre students from the better ones?

why is it necessary to point out to anyone in a public forum how students are doing in their classes? Why is it useful to point out that one person is better than or worse than others?

One of the main reasons I like my school is that we are anti-competitive. everyone wants everyone to succeed, and we would never do anything that could compromise other's grades. I don't know any of my friends GPA's - it's actually extremely UNCOOL here to talk about a grade you got on anything specificly, you can say you were disappointed, or excited or whatever, but I never hear people talking about grades when papers or tests are given back, and we never mention specific grades.

 

[deuist]

why is it necessary to point out to anyone in a public forum how students are doing in their classes? Why is it useful to point out that one person is better than or worse than others?

Ask the recruiters who come from various companies looking for the top students to come work for them. Ask medical schools who are trying to separate applicants on something more than GPA inflation.

 

[Doc.Holliday]

complaining about the requirements for honors at other colleges is silly. the cut offs are placed so that only a small percentage of the student body achieve them, so if at one school summa is a 3.9 and another its a 3.8, that simply means that its more common to have a higher gpa at the former. what that translates into is questionable... easy professors, hard professors, grade inflation/deflation, lazy students, stupid students, competitiveness etc all affect those values.

anyway, ive been really thinking about whether or not its worth it to graduate with honors... write a 50+ page research paper and be able to brag to ummm.... wait, who's gonna care besides my mom? or i could just take it easy. it doesnt seem that this will have any effect on how i fair in admissions, though i suppose i could talk about my research in interviews etc, but i'll still be doing the research i would be writing my thesis on, so hmmm... i still have a good bit of time to decide.

 

[deuist]

if I had just turned in this one extra lab report I would have gotten a C+ in the course and graduated with a 3.7, and thus magna cum laude. I will always be upset over that.

I think that anyone here can point to a class where he/she earned a lower letter grade by missing only one question --- I had three classes like that. My GPA would be much higher if had gotten those questions right. The point is that there is no reason to still be upset over something that's in the past. I say that now you're in medical school, you have a clean slate and can be a 4.0 student if you want.

 

[blue2000]

I served on an admissions committee for a med school for a year, and if people had graduated when we reviewed their application, honors were an easy way to sum up their accomplishments -- shorthand if you will. Did missing honors by 0.02 Grade Points really keep anyone out of med school? Probably not. But it does carry a certain weight, representing the time and effort honors takes to make. That's my two cents.

And yes, I'm hella proud of the honors I received in college. Do I think it really factored in? Unlikely. But I'm still proud of being recognized for my hard work and achievement.

 

[Avenue Q]

Ask the recruiters who come from various companies looking for the top students to come work for them. Ask medical schools who are trying to separate applicants on something more than GPA inflation.

My school has an 85% acceptance rate to medical school with an average accepted GPA of 3.45.

any admissions staff member knows my school does not have grade inflation (relative to others, not to history).

and top employeers? generally we aren't seekng jobs with them.

we do not rank. we do not have honors. We're doing just fine without them.

But that's not the bigger question - is it worth creating an environment at a college or university that promotes competition at the expense of education in order to help out potential employers? If you don't have ranking or honors, they cannot use them to evalute you - so they find something else.

 

[deuist]

is it worth creating an environment at a college or university that promotes competition at the expense of education in order to help out potential employers?

While B.F. Skinner may have shown that all students can learn the same material given enough time and enough positive reinforcement, I think that your post does not give credit to the really competitive students who worked at a level above everyone else.

 

[RayhanS1282]

My honors reflects the astounding amount of grade inflation that runs rampant in my undergraduate institution. It shows that by piss poor work in the first three semesters and the last two semesters, one can still graduate with honors 😛 .

 

[Avenue Q]

While B.F. Skinner may have shown that all students can learn the same material given enough time and enough positive reinforcement, I think that your post does not give credit to the really competitive students who worked at a level above everyone else.

There is a difference between self-actualizing competitive personalities and a competitive environment. Extreme type A's are going to be just that wherever they are, and when you have a school full of them, there is no point in making the environment one where people feel as though they have to do well at the expense of others.

I am not saying, at all, that schools should function in order to accommodate the lowest common denominator (as an aside, i think that schools should cater to subsets of students so that students are in a place they most feel suits their learning style). I am saying that schools should not be places where success is measured by how well you did relative to others, or how well you do in terms of grades. Schools should be places that foster learning, not competition.

I have felt extremely privileged to attend an extremely well regarded academic institution where students do not need to compete with each other. Everyone is there to succeed. End of story. That attitude allows for a far richer atmosphere than one where students are more concerned about how they may be perceived than what they learn.

 

[MSc44]

There is a difference between self-actualizing competitive personalities and a competitive environment. Extreme type A's are going to be just that wherever they are, and when you have a school full of them, there is no point in making the environment one where people feel as though they have to do well at the expense of others.

I am not saying, at all, that schools should function in order to accommodate the lowest common denominator (as an aside, i think that schools should cater to subsets of students so that students are in a place they most feel suits their learning style). I am saying that schools should not be places where success is measured by how well you did relative to others, or how well you do in terms of grades. Schools should be places that foster learning, not competition.

I have felt extremely privileged to attend an extremely well regarded academic institution where students do not need to compete with each other. Everyone is there to succeed. End of story. That attitude allows for a far richer atmosphere than one where students are more concerned about how they may be perceived than what they learn.[/QUO




I take pride in it I geaduated magna cum laude, and with departmental honors which requires a year of research and a thesis and i think it makes a differance when admin. people see it It does show commitment to school work. actually all the people who graduated magna cum laude and higher from my school who wanted to go to med school got accepted