<p>I don’t know what the new diploma would look like, but Shelby County, Memphis, TN students who take rigorous courses throughout their four years of high school could graduate with a special “Honors Diploma.” This initiative’s aim is to motivate students to take more AP and honors classes which makes them more attractive to universities:</p>
<p>This sounds similar to other “graduate with honors” diplomas - for example, my law school diploma lists my “magna cum laude” designation. I think this is a great idea.</p>
<p>Chedva, I agree that it makes good sense to motivate students with meaningful academic accolade on their diplomas. I thought the practice was fairly widespread - at my sister’s kids’ hs students can graduate with the formal designation of honors or high honors based on weighted GPA calculated at the end of the first semester of the senior year. My kids’ hs doesn’t use a weighted grade scale and doesn’t offer an honors diploma either. Once in a while, a student taking almost all slower tracked sections winds up with the highest GPA and wins special mention and an award for best scholar at graduation. Quite a few feathers get ruffled when this happens but still no one wants to change the system here so I just wondered if the issue whether to have or not to have a honors diploma option was considered to be at all controversial. I also was wondering just how colleges look at honors diplomas since one of the aims of the proposal in TN is to make hs graduates more attractive to universities - isn’t all this information available on the student’s transcript?</p>
<p>My kids’ high school goes this one better. Under its charter, which dates back to the 1820s, it is authorized to award any degree awarded by the University of Pennsylvania. So for kids who meet specified criteria, it awards an actual B.A. degree and diploma. About a third of the class qualifies each year. It’s pretty cute.</p>
<p>Growing up in upstate NY, in my day hs’s offered a Regents diploma for those students passing the state Regent’s exams and a local diploma for those students who did not take a Regents diploma schedule.</p>
<p>An aside. In Latin the Regents exam was given at the end of Latin 3 which I did not want to take. Not enough students enrolled in Latin 3 to justify the class(at least that is what my Latin teacher told me) and she promised that I would pass the Regents exam if I took the class. Well, after some more arm twisting I enrolled in the class and PASSED the Regents exam. I have always wondered how leniently she graded my exam!</p>