Do most people not graduate college with honors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many elite schools intentionally discourage commuter students because they take longer to graduate and often struggle to fit in socially with the more affluent students. They also tend to be older.

I would think that it isn't the schools themselves making a conscious decision - it's all about money. Commuters cannot generally afford the "elite schools" - they just can't.

I don't think any of the Ivies have commuter students anymore. They require all undergraduates to live in dorms for at least freshman year and they give enough financial aid to make that possible. Exceptions are usually limited to highly religious families that require their daughters to live at home. But, they do have alternative full and part-time programs (i.e., Harvard Extension, Columbia General Studies. Penn LPS) for non-traditional students, like a veteran or other serviceman/woman, who has a break of more than a year in their education. Same diploma, only slightly different experience, much simpler admission.

[Anonymous]

Honors at College Park:
http://registrar.umd.edu/current/Policies/latinhonors.html
It doesn't seem that easy to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many elite schools intentionally discourage commuter students because they take longer to graduate and often struggle to fit in socially with the more affluent students. They also tend to be older.

I would think that it isn't the schools themselves making a conscious decision - it's all about money. Commuters cannot generally afford the "elite schools" - they just can't.

I don't think any of the Ivies have commuter students anymore. They require all undergraduates to live in dorms for at least freshman year and they give enough financial aid to make that possible. Exceptions are usually limited to highly religious families that require their daughters to live at home. But, they do have alternative full and part-time programs (i.e., Harvard Extension, Columbia General Studies. Penn LPS) for non-traditional students, like a veteran or other serviceman/woman, who has a break of more than a year in their education. Same diploma, only slightly different experience, much simpler admission.


For your information, I'm a commuter student, I go to a state, and I will be graduating college at 22, only a couple years older than most students. So I'm not really "older". Secondly, plenty of affluent students are commuter students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was in school, you needed a 3.5 or above to graduate with honors. Plenty made the cut, for sure, but most did not. (I barely made it.) I've known plenty of people who didn't even achieve a 3.0 upon graduation. They're fine, but not everyone is a superstar.

yeah, we had 3 levels. One started at 3.0, the next at 3.5, the last was maybe 3.8? I was in the lower level somewhere. I don't remember what my GPA was in college anymore. I didn't work incredibly hard there, but still made Dean's List most semesters.

Where does 3.0 get you honors?! At my old school, cum laude is 3.5, summa cum laude is 3.75, and magna cum laude is 3.95. I can't tell you how excited I was to achieve a 3.52 on my final transcript. (I had to pull a 4.0 my last semester to pull it off.)

It must be a crappy school if they don't know that summa is a higher honor than magna.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought Harvard was/is PASS or FAIL???????

Lots of experience with top schools, huh? For the record, the percentage of "Latin honors" magna, summa, cum laude at Harvard is capped at 60% of the class, lower than the percentage 50 years ago. Before the cap was instituted, the percentage had risen to over 90% in the mid 1990s.

Why is it surprising that a school full of entrants with perfect SAT scores, 4.5 high school GPAs and awesome extracurriculars and want to go to grad school would study hard and learn the materials for their classes in college? Except in classes designed to cull students like organic chemistry, there is no real need for forced curves. Professors set a standard and smart, hard charging student work hard to meet it. Harvard isn't full of students like those at a state college that need six years to graduate.

Many people going to state school worked their way through college, a concept that your snide comment indicates that you are unfamiliar with.

PP who's graduating a semester early. I forgot to mention that I also work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is so bad these days that you have to be a real fuckup not to receive some kind of "honors".

My ex went to Harvard and pretty much everyone graduates with honors. No one gets less than a B+.

Not true. At Harvard, the total getting summa is capped at 4 to 5 percent, and the total getting magna and summa is capped at 20 percent. The total getting any sort of honors is capped at the top half of the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who graduated FROM college, let alone with honors, shouldn't say "graduated college."

That's totally acceptable, especially if one is Canadian.

Kind of how nowadays, people go to prom and then go to university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought Harvard was/is PASS or FAIL???????

Lots of experience with top schools, huh? For the record, the percentage of "Latin honors" magna, summa, cum laude at Harvard is capped at 60% of the class, lower than the percentage 50 years ago. Before the cap was instituted, the percentage had risen to over 90% in the mid 1990s.

Why is it surprising that a school full of entrants with perfect SAT scores, 4.5 high school GPAs and awesome extracurriculars and want to go to grad school would study hard and learn the materials for their classes in college? Except in classes designed to cull students like organic chemistry, there is no real need for forced curves. Professors set a standard and smart, hard charging student work hard to meet it. Harvard isn't full of students like those at a state college that need six years to graduate.

Who the hell are you?! I turned down Harvard, Brown, and plenty of other "prestigious" schools to attend University of Maryland because staying as close as possible to my family was important. (My mom had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor) I graduated, with honors, in 4 years, and I received not one, but two degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many elite schools intentionally discourage commuter students because they take longer to graduate and often struggle to fit in socially with the more affluent students. They also tend to be older.

I would think that it isn't the schools themselves making a conscious decision - it's all about money. Commuters cannot generally afford the "elite schools" - they just can't.

I don't think any of the Ivies have commuter students anymore. They require all undergraduates to live in dorms for at least freshman year and they give enough financial aid to make that possible. Exceptions are usually limited to highly religious families that require their daughters to live at home. But, they do have alternative full and part-time programs (i.e., Harvard Extension, Columbia General Studies. Penn LPS) for non-traditional students, like a veteran or other serviceman/woman, who has a break of more than a year in their education. Same diploma, only slightly different experience, much simpler admission.

For your information, I'm a commuter student, I go to a state, and I will be graduating college at 22, only a couple years older than most students. So I'm not really "older". Secondly, plenty of affluent students are commuter students.

How so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many elite schools intentionally discourage commuter students because they take longer to graduate and often struggle to fit in socially with the more affluent students. They also tend to be older.

I would think that it isn't the schools themselves making a conscious decision - it's all about money. Commuters cannot generally afford the "elite schools" - they just can't.

I don't think any of the Ivies have commuter students anymore. They require all undergraduates to live in dorms for at least freshman year and they give enough financial aid to make that possible. Exceptions are usually limited to highly religious families that require their daughters to live at home. But, they do have alternative full and part-time programs (i.e., Harvard Extension, Columbia General Studies. Penn LPS) for non-traditional students, like a veteran or other serviceman/woman, who has a break of more than a year in their education. Same diploma, only slightly different experience, much simpler admission.

For your information, I'm a commuter student, I go to a state, and I will be graduating college at 22, only a couple years older than most students. So I'm not really "older". Secondly, plenty of affluent students are commuter students.

How so?

Well, is 2 years really that big of a deal? I don't think so. Your early 20s is your early 20s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many elite schools intentionally discourage commuter students because they take longer to graduate and often struggle to fit in socially with the more affluent students. They also tend to be older.

I would think that it isn't the schools themselves making a conscious decision - it's all about money. Commuters cannot generally afford the "elite schools" - they just can't.

I don't think any of the Ivies have commuter students anymore. They require all undergraduates to live in dorms for at least freshman year and they give enough financial aid to make that possible. Exceptions are usually limited to highly religious families that require their daughters to live at home. But, they do have alternative full and part-time programs (i.e., Harvard Extension, Columbia General Studies. Penn LPS) for non-traditional students, like a veteran or other serviceman/woman, who has a break of more than a year in their education. Same diploma, only slightly different experience, much simpler admission.

For your information, I'm a commuter student, I go to a state, and I will be graduating college at 22, only a couple years older than most students. So I'm not really "older". Secondly, plenty of affluent students are commuter students.

How so?

Well, is 2 years really that big of a deal? I don't think so. Your early 20s is your early 20s.

I was asking about "simpler admissions" in alternative programs in Ivies. That's why I highlighted those parts so the PP could respond.

[Anonymous]

Honors not my program was top 5/10/15%. So no, 85% of students didn't graduate with honors.

[Anonymous]

Cum Laude in high school and law school. Went astray in college, I'm afraid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is so bad these days that you have to be a real fuckup not to receive some kind of "honors".

My ex went to Harvard and pretty much everyone graduates with honors. No one gets less than a B+.

Not true. At Harvard, the total getting summa is capped at 4 to 5 percent, and the total getting magna and summa is capped at 20 percent. The total getting any sort of honors is capped at the top half of the class.

I dont' think this is exactly right, at Harvard's law school the top for summa was set - it wasn't made every year. My year had no summas (I graduated cum). About every ten yeras someone would make summa. When the first woman made summa (long after I left), it was a big deal. The Harvard literature says now that the set GPA for summa is set at exactly 4.75 (4.0 was the max. when I attended), so if no one in the class hits that then there are not summas that year.

[Anonymous]

Graduating with honors from college is a joke.

Being an honor student in high school is a joke.

The inevitable result from the "every kid gets a trophy" mentality.