summa cum laude, WHEN?

[Piyush]

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How does your school give Latin honors on your degrees? Does it give it to people ranked from the top, regardless of GPA, or does it have GPA cutoffs for each of the Latin honors? or is there a system in between?

Also, how do you mention your Latin honor in your AMSAS app? The degrees earned area sure does not have room for Latin honors. Anyone have any experience of this?


Cheers
Piyush

 

[ShipsDr]

I'm pretty sure this varies school to school. At my school, qualifying for latin honors depends on your major too. For example, if you're a bio major in the college of liberal arts and sciences, you have to write a thesis to be considered for magna or summa. As far as GPA goes, we have a cutoff for each, not a ranking system.
I would send them an update email with latin honors if there's nowhere to put it in the AMCAS app.

 

[nevercold]

At my undergrad University, it was set by college (College of Life Sciences, College of Engineering, etc.) based on the current class, probably to have some percentage. For my college, the cutoff was like 3.96 or 3.97 for summa cum laude.

 

[Piyush]

maybe I should have asked how much GPA was required for different Latin honors at your school?

Cheers
Piyush

 

[186321]

For my school it was a standard cut off:

Summa: 4.0
Magna: 3.7-3.99
Cum Laude: 3.5 - 3.7

 

[kronickm]

You don't get latin honors until you graduate, so unless you graduate early, there isn't much point to updating the schools on it in June. Also, the schools see your GPA already, they know the cut offs and what not, so I cannot imagine that a 4.0, and a 4.0 summa cum laude look any different at all to a school.

 

[ChristianJames1]

You don't get latin honors until you graduate, so unless you graduate early, there isn't much point to updating the schools on it in June. Also, the schools see your GPA already, they know the cut offs and what not, so I cannot imagine that a 4.0, and a 4.0 summa cum laude look any different at all to a school.

I am pretty sure they do NOT know the cutoffs. It would be silly for them to waste time checking into every single college in the nation to find out what the GPA cutoffs for latin honors are. Plus, often they reflect some sort of percentile or class rank so they change from year to year. There is an awards section of the AMCAS activities section. I put latin honors in there.

I think it is a nice thing to have in your app. If for nothing else, it gives the adcom a reference point for what your GPA means at YOUR school.

 

[dd128]

For my school it was a standard cut off:

Summa: 4.0
Magna: 3.7-3.99
Cum Laude: 3.5 - 3.7

This was the same for mine.

 

[DoctorDreamer]

At my school it was a standard cut-off, regardless of degree, and it was like 3.9+ was summa, 3.7+ magna, etc. I simply put "academic honors" as one of my awards, and listed "summa cum lade honors graduate with distinction" (we had an honor's college, too, and I graduated from it with distinction) as one under that heading, lumped with dean's and president's lists, honor socities, etc.

 

[patzan]

For my school it was a standard cut off:

Summa: 4.0
Magna: 3.7-3.99
Cum Laude: 3.5 - 3.7

Ours was based on percentage. Top 1% get summa, top 2.5 get magna, and top 4.5%. Also broken down by school.

http://www.sa.utah.edu/regist/pages/FinalizedHonors0708.htm

 

[bcat85]

Mine is very similar to the above posts:

Summa 3.95-4.0
Magna: 3.75-3.94
Cum: 3.5-3.74

 

[crazy4clana]

I would be happy to get any laude. 😳

 

[Deac27]

My undergrad was a cutoff, but different numbers than already listed. Cum Laude was 3.4, Magna 3.6, Summa 3.8. I guess Wake didn't feel like being as strict in its latin honors, or just graded hard to balance. I know about 50 people (6%) got Summa.

 

[XerxesMD]

Summa- 3.95+
Magna- 3.75+
Cum Laude- 3.5+

 

[Doublecortin]

How does your school give Latin honors on your degrees? Does it give it to people ranked from the top, regardless of GPA, or does it have GPA cutoffs for each of the Latin honors? or is there a system in between?

Also, how do you mention your Latin honor in your AMSAS app? The degrees earned area sure does not have room for Latin honors. Anyone have any experience of this?


Cheers
Piyush

top 1% in the school of bio sci, at the school of phys sci, top grades plus lots of research plus stellar faculty recs

 

[hum3a]

here at mizzou its:

3.9-4.0 summa
3.8-3.9 magna
3.7-3.8 cum laude

i was on track to get cum laude up until last semester when i bombed with a 3.4

i've taken 105 credit hours so far, so with the 15 i'm taking this semester i could only afford two A minuses. doesn't seem worth it to me

 

[rohit4562001]

Does Latin Honor only depends on your GPA or school also sees your academic record if you have repeated some of the classes?