What is considered honors, highest honors, etc. when graduating?

Colleges & Universities The University of Texas at Austin
1

<p>For engineering in particular…</p>

<p>I’ve been to graduations and some graduates are announced with highest honors, etc…</p>

2

<p>well from what i’ve been reading, there are three diferent types of honors:</p>

<p>-University honors, based on your GPA:
Honors Rank: top 20%
High Honors Rank: top 10%
Highest Honors Rank: top 4%
[UT</a> College of Liberal Arts](<a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/cola/student-affairs/Academic-Planning/Graduation/Honors.php]UT”>http://www.utexas.edu/cola/student-affairs/Academic-Planning/Graduation/Honors.php)</p>

<p>-particular College honors, for example college of liberal arts honors, each college has specific reqs, for info about the honors programs for the eng. college:
[Engineering</a> Honors Program](<a href=“Undergraduate Education”>Undergraduate Education)</p>

<p>-and department honors, for example government: [UT</a> College of Liberal Arts](<a href=“Government | Liberal Arts | UT - Austin”>Government | Liberal Arts | UT - Austin)</p>

<p>you can graduate with all of them at the same time!</p>

3

<p>magna cum laude ???</p>

4

<p>Gpa wise…</p>

5

<p>It all depends on how bright the graduating class is. For one class a 3.6 might be the cutoff for top 20%. For another, it might be a 3.8. So we really couldn’t tell you an exact GPA.</p>

6

<p>The +/- grading will bring the GPAs for high GPA students down a bit as time passes.</p>

7

<p>+/-? what is that?</p>

8

<p>this is a chart with the honors GPAs for the classes of 03-09</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/cola/student-affairs/Academic-Planning/Graduation/Honors.php[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/cola/student-affairs/Academic-Planning/Graduation/Honors.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

9

<p>^ that’s for liberal arts…but thanks though…</p>

<p>+/- is the new grading system…A (94-100) is 4.0, A- (90-93) is a 3.67, B+ is a 3.33…etc.</p>

10

<p>nop thats not for liberal arts honors thats for the whole university honors</p>

11

<p>Does anyone know the reasoning behind UT using Honors, high honors, and highest honors instead of the Latin words, Cum Laude (honor), Magna Cum Laude (great honor), Summa Cum Laude (highest honor)?</p>

12

<p>I thought this might be a “state of Texas” characteristic, but I see that TAMU uses the Latin names.
[Texas</a> A&M Graduation - Graduating with Honors](<a href=“http://graduation.tamu.edu/honors.html]Texas”>http://graduation.tamu.edu/honors.html)</p>

13

<p>ohh…so the honors/high honors/highest honors are out of the entire 2010 class? not just your department?</p>

14

<p>I believe it is by college(department).</p>

15

<p>correct, and then each college (liberal arts, etc) have their own honor programs in which there isn’t a limit of people who can get it as long as you meet the reqs (GPA, upper division classes, etc) and then each department (government, psycho, etc) have their own honor thingy too</p>

16

<p>I too have wondered about the lack of use of the traditional Latin, especially when I noticed awhile back that the Latin terms are used for the various levels of the Dean’s List in COLA:</p>

<p>[UT</a> College of Liberal Arts](<a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/cola/_faq/detail.php?q=22]UT”>http://www.utexas.edu/cola/_faq/detail.php?q=22)</p>

17

<p>The actual diplomas have English names for the honors, but they are understood to be magna/maxima/summa cum laude.</p>

18

<p>Spring 2013 Engineering Graduation honor cuts off for University of Texas at Austin</p>

<p>Highest Honors 4.00 – 3.94
High Honors 3.94 – 3.88
Honors 3.88 – 3.76</p>

<p>for anyone else ever looking for the information, just emailed the SAO.</p>