I've heard of honors like "Cum laude." How are these honors designated? I'm graduating in the top 10% of my college senior class ... am I eligible to have some honor designation mentioned on my commencement announcement?

The gpa thresholds for cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude should be in your college catalogue...if not, get in touch with the registrar's office.

It varies from school to school, so you'll have to check with your registrar or college catalogue(as juan said), but they are generally something like 3.4 for cum laude, 3.6 for summa cum laude, and 3.8 for magna cum laude. There is also generally a required number of courses taken at that particular school (as opposed to transfer credits).

After reading your post in ic's DR thread, I gather that you're back in school finishing up your degree, and you started it 20 years ago. At most schools, this will mean that they will only take the grades from the courses that you take at your current college into account. With your 4.0 (nice job), the only thing that might prevent you from getting magna cum laude is the number of credits that you take at your current college. Usually, the last 2 years worth of credit needs to be at the degree-granting college.

hey methos, I think you got two of those backwards. Summa cum Laude is always the highest honor from the root Latin word for summit meaning pinnacle. Magna is second and cum Laude is last.

whoops... yeah, sorry for the typo.

From the back of my college transcript:

Cum laude = 3.25 - 3.49

Magna Cum laude= 3.50 - 3.74

Summa cum laude= 3.75 - 4.0