In one of the linked YDN articles, they say that they changed the way they did honors qualifications in 1988 to be a percentage of the class, 5%, 15% and 30%. But I swear that when I graduated in 1990, I was told they did honors based on the number of As/A-s, so to get summa you needed essentially all As, to get cum laude, you needed half or something (I don’t remember the actual numbers)…maybe that was what it was before 1988? Or maybe they changed the rules in 1988 but they were actually effective until the class that entered that year was graduating…I remember John Blum (history teacher) saying that grade inflation (the “gentleman’s C”) started during the Vietnam War era bc if students didn’t get a C, they would lose their deferment? Hence more As and Bs at that time – no idea if this is really true, maybe he was wrong, or maybe my memory fails me…