But while students must complete a thesis to be eligible for Latin honors, only students with a grade point average (GPA) in the top 25 percent of their class are eligible for the magna and summa honors. In addition, students may graduate with English honors, also known as graduating with distinction, if their GPA falls in their class's top 25 percent.
The class of 2007 is the first to spend all four years at the College under the current honors system. The classes of 1997-2003 operated under a different criteria which allowed for Latin honors and departmental honors. At that time, a student could be nominated by his or her department for the degree high distinction or simply distinction. According to the College Handbook, high distinction represented work of "summa cum laude quality," while distinction denoted work of "honors quality." During the 1997-2003 era, Latin honors were conferred using GPAs in conjunction with departmental honors. For example, eligibility for degree summa cum laude required a minimum grade point average of 12.00 (i.e., an A- average) and a departmental recommendation of high distinction.
Meetings of the faculty in 2001-02 treated the issues of honors and grade inflation as deeply connected-many faculty members felt that because so many students' GPAs were within the range of Latin honors, the honors themselves lost much of their distinction.
Registrar Gerald Mager has been at the College for over 30 years, seeing grades inflate firsthand. "When I started the average GPA was probably a B," said Mager. "Now it's an A-." Although grade inflation is an issue at most institutions of higher learning, Mager says that grades at the College are especially lofty. "From the studies I've seen of comparable institutions-and I'm not talking about universities but small colleges-Amherst's grades are at or near the top," said Mager.
The impact of such dramatic grade inflation on the awarding of honors led the Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) to rethink the College's honors system in 2001, as earlier that year 73.6 percent of the class of 2001 graduated with some level of honors. CEP member Adam Kaufman '02 explained his committee's motivation for change. "Honors are supposed to be special," he told The Student in 2001. "If the number of students graduating with honors is a majority, it cheapens the value of their recognition."
The College is not alone in its recent attempts to combat of grade and honors inflation. Until 2005, Harvard University distributed Latin honors based purely on GPA cutoffs, which resulted in 90 percent of students leaving with some form of Latin designation. Two years ago, however, Harvard changed its requirements so only 60 percent of students can receive honors. Each level of Latin distinction is now tied to a GPA percentile-for example, five percent of students graduate summa cum laude.
If the CEP aimed to diminish the number of honorees, the current system succeeds where its predecessors could not. Similar to the current system, the rules prior to 1997 required students to complete a thesis in order to become eligible for Latin honors, but the GPA cutoff was relatively low due to grade inflation. The change in honors requirements from the class of 1996 to the class of 1997 is reflected in the numbers of theses written during the two years. In 1996, when a thesis was necessary for Latin honors, 60 percent of graduates (239 of 398) completed a thesis. The very next year, only 41 percent of graduates (175 of 428) wrote theses-15 percentage points lower than any previous class in the 1990s. Since 1997, no more than 46 percent of any class has consisted of thesis writers. But this change did not have a significant impact on the percentage of honors recipients-1997 saw more students graduate with honors than in the previous year (59.8 percent in 1996 versus 66.7 percent in 1997).
The percentage of students graduating with honors decreased significantly following the changes starting with the class of 2004. Of the 414 graduates in the class of 2003, 73.4 percent left the College with some sort of honor distinction. The next year-the first under the current system-only 39.7 percent received Latin honors of some kind. Surprisingly, the renewal of the thesis requirement for Latin honors did not signal a rebound in thesis writing. In fact, slightly fewer students wrote thesis in the class of 2004 compared to 2003. "With a GPA in the top 25 percent now required for summa or magna, many students may see that as beyond their grasp and therefore decide not to write a thesis 'just for cum.'" Mager speculated. "Some departments seem to be limiting the number of students permitted to write theses. Some faculty were concerned at the time of the vote for the latest change that some students write theses for the wrong reasons, and those faculty may discourage some students from undertaking a thesis project. The bottom line is that I do not know for sure why more students are not writing theses, but I suspect there are numerous reasons."
While the latest version of the Latin honors system has significantly decreased the number of honorees, the "value of recognition" the CEP hoped for was not necessarily regained. Of the 200 students who wrote theses last year, 198 were granted Latin honors of some kind, and in both 2004 and 2005, every thesis writer was designated with some sort of honor. To some students and professors, this statistic illustrates the biggest flaw in the current system: Theses recommended for summa or magna cum laude written by students not within the top 25 percent of their class's GPA are given cum laude by default. "Professors will often give students cum laude almost as a pity honor," admitted a professor who spoke under condition of anonymity. "Therefore, students who do amazing thesis work end up receiving the same distinction as students who have written poor theses."
This possibility does not escape many students whose GPA is near the top 25 percent of their class. "It's frustrating to work so hard on a thesis and be an A- or two away from the cutoff only to be grouped in with thesis writers that didn't work so hard," said Emily Silberstein '06. "I understand the GPA requirement because summa should be reserved for the best overall students, but maybe there should be different standards for magna and cum."
Although the distinction between cum laude and summa cum laude might be as insignificant as the difference between a B+ and an A- in one's first-year seminar, many students worry that the effects could be far reaching as they apply for jobs and admission to graduate schools.
But while Latin honors inspire faculty meeting debates and discussions among students at the College, an expert on law school admissions suggests the impact of such distinctions is less significant than one might imagine. "Law school admissions deans are remarkably sophisticated about these things and what has meaning and what doesn't," assures University of Southern California Law School Professor Susan Estrich, author of How to Get Into Law School. "Basically, they care about your GPA. For better or for worse. The rest doesn't matter very much. Sadly, if it doesn't affect their ratings, it doesn't figure very highly in the calculations."