Cum Laude GPA

The three terms we read above are Latin phrases and they are used along with the academic degrees received to depict the level of distinction. Educational institutes in Indonesia, Philippines, the United States and countries in continental Europe make use of these phrases while some institutes prefer using translations rather than the Latin terms.

The uses of these phrases are different from a Dean’s List. The latter is given honorary to students who excel in an academic term or year. The former is given when the achievement is for all the four years of academics.

• Cum Laude: Cum Laude can be defined or translated as "With Praise". When someone is said to have graduated with honors, Cum Laude honors, graduation honors or graduate cum laude, it means they have graduated with a high GPA or Cum Laude GPA.

• Magna Cum Laude: This term can be defined as "With Great Honor", while some scholars define it as "with great praise". This phrase is used when the person has second best grades during the four years of academics. It is frequently misspelt as magnum cum laude, graduated cum laude, magna cum laud, magna cun laude, magna cumme laude or magma cum laude which means hot honors.

• Summa Cum Laude: Summa Cum Laude can be defined as "With Highest Praise" or "With Highest Honor" and is given to someone who gets the highest grades. It is commonly misspelt as suma cum laude, sigma cum laude, cuma sum laude, summa cumme laude, sum cum laude or sum laude.

Colleges or Universities set definite criteria which have to be met by students before being given the honors distinction. Each university will have different criteria. Usually, a student should achieve a certain grade point average (GPA) before submitting honors thesis to get evaluated.

Since all universities have a different standard, there will be a lot of variation when the Latin honors are conferred. For example:

• ŸFor Harvard University in 2014, the Cum Laude GPA cut-off was 3.511 and Magna Cum Laude GPA cut-off was 3.769 for Economics Department. Click here to get more details.

• ŸUniversity of Central Florida set the cut-off GPAs as the following in 2014 for the Arts & humanities department: Cum Laude GPA cut-off was 3.769, Magna Cum Laude GPA cut-off was 3.871 and Summa Cum Laude GPA cut-off was 3.932.

• ŸPratt School of engineering of Duke University set the GPA cut-off as 3.697 for Cum Laude, 3.803 for Magna Cum Laude and 3.942 for Summa Cum Laude in the year of 2013.

The GPA range is between 0.0 and 4.0

The formula for calculating Grade Point Average (GPA) is clearly showed below; follow the steps to get your GPA:

Example:

Student Transcript Example:

GPA = Total Grade Points/Total Credit Hours

39/13 = 3.0

Note: Different universities have different standards of the grade and its point; surf the internet or ask your teachers directly to know your university's.