Other Honors Requirements

Summa inflation was not the only concern of the Faculty. Others have also noted a concomitant rise in the number of students who get magna cum laude and cum laude.

Graduating with honors has now become the norm rather than the exception, says former Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell.

"This is perhaps due more to the quality of students rather than inflation," Buell says. "I think anybody that is smart enough to get into Harvard certainly is potentially honorable."

Buell says, with a few exceptions, the honors track has not changed over the years.

"The rigor of honors track stipulations has not changed over time except very locally like economics going the way of not making cums do theses," Buell says.

In response, Metrick says that the change in the economics department did not contribute to honors inflation.

"We made the decision [to establish the separate track] completely independent of honors inflation," Metrick says. "Every single one of [the people who got honors under the new track] are people who would have gotten honors anyway."

Summa nominee in economics Davis J. Wang '97 agrees that the new track permits more flexibility in a plan of study.

The track helps "seniors who choose other options to pursue different visions of a liberal arts experience, taking graduate level courses for example," he adds.

"Those people who could easily attain magna or summa need to be recognized for high level achievements," Wang says. "Cum is the minimum they should receive."

Wang also notes that very few ambitious thesis writers want to take the non-thesis writing track, because there is no possibility of magna or summa.

"Most certainly write the thesis wanting to learn something from the experience," he says. "Those who write it for honors are most often hoping for honors above the cum laude level."

The Value of a Summa

The impressive aura of a summa rating still has not been tarnished, Purdy says.

"I think the summa still carries a certain cache," says the social studies concentrator.

Other students say they feel that being awarded a summa is not very important.

"Certainly, it's a high honor within academia for excellent work," Wang says. "Outside of academia, we need to prove our worth again and any sort of honor or achievement we have is not something we should sit back on."

In fact, most of the Faculty and students agree that the differentiation in honors levels does not matter much outside of academia.

"In the world at large, that doesn't matter," Buell says. "The Harvard degree matters. [And] the Harvard name still means what it once did."