New HLS Grading System Reduces Honors Graduates By More Than Half

Graduating from Harvard Law School (HLS) with honors is significantly more of an honor this year.

New rules limiting the number of magna cum laude and cum laude graduates to the top 40 percent of the class mean that 36 percent fewer students than last year will receive honors, according to an HLS news release yesterday.

The HLS faculty approved the new system for calculating honors four years ago, but this year's graduating class is the first one to which it applies.

HLS News Officer Michael J. Chmura said the new policy benefits students who receive honors as well as those who do not.

"[The change] is to give honors the respect that it is due and also to avoid stigmatizing the students that don't make honors," he said.

In the old system, honors were determined based on a student's General Average, a number indicating a student's overall academic performance based on a grade scale ranging from 0 to 8.

Students with a General Average of 7.20 or higher were designated as summa cum laude, while a 5.8 and a 4.85 was necessary to receive magna cum laude and cum laude honors respectively.

In the new system, only the top 10 percent of students-- excluding summa cum laude recipients--can be designated as magna cum laude, and only the next 30 percent as cum laude.

Summa cum laude is still determined the same way as before, though only two students since 1982--one this year and one the year before--have had the necessary 7.2 General Average.

Julian W. Poon is the only student this year to graduate summa cum laude, and is the recipient of the Fay Diploma for having the highest General Average in his class.

Before the new system was implemented, grade inflation in the past three decades had resulted in the number of students receiving honors more than doubling.

In 1972 about 35 percent of the graduating class received honors. By last year, that number had climbed to 76 percent, according to Williams Professor of Criminal Justice Richard D. Parker, who chaired the faculty committee that recommended the changes.

"The idea of honors had been drained of any real meaning," he said.

Parker said tougher requirements for honors would not result in increased competition among HLS students. Grades in classes are already scaled and the "competition factor is inherent," he said.

The tougher honors requirements also should not be especially detrimental to students' job prospects, since most students already have jobs before they find out whether they have honors, Parker said.

In the College, the percentage of students receiving honors is even higher than the percentage at HLS last year. A total of 1,396 students, or 89.5 percent of the graduating senior class, is receiving some form of honorary degree.

HLS Registrar Stephen M. Kane said the new honors system is a step in the right direction.

"I think [the system] puts it all in proportion, which I think is a good thing," he said.