With only a few exceptions, concentrations have stuck to their old habits, recommending just as many students for honors as in past years. While a recommendation easily translated to a Latin designation in the past, there is no longer any such guarantee.

The physics concentration is recommending a large number of students—86 percent of its seniors—for honors, according to Howard Georgi ’68, director of undergraduate studies in physics.

And though the policy change has made the “honors-only” concentration something of a misnomer, some of these concentrations are still maintaining—or even increasing—the number of recommendations they make.

“We have a tremendous class this year and we’re actually recommending more students for Latin honors,” says Anya Bernstein, director of undergraduate studies for social studies.

Social Studies has recommended 89 out of the 90 graduating seniors in the concentration for some form of honors—73 percent of those for either of the two highest honors, summa or magna, according to Bernstein.

“Our understanding is that this is the College saving us from ourselves and imposing a cap on the number of honors being given out College-wide,” Bernstein says. “We really don’t expect to be doing anything differently.”

And Bernstein sees nothing wrong with sticking to the old pattern of recommendation. She says that she thinks social studies concentrators—since they must write theses—are stronger candidates on the whole, a justification for recommending all but one of her students for honors.

But the once honors-only concentration will face unprecedented rejection this year. The Dean’s Office has said, according to Bernstein, that about one-third of social studies students will likely be denied any Latin honor.

Out of all the honors candidates in the graduating class, GPA will be the factor that determines the cutoff points. The top 5 percent of recommended students will be awarded summa, the next 15 percent awarded magna, and the next 30 percent awarded cum. The College has allotted that an additional 10 percent of the class may receive honors due to their high GPAs, even without receiving a departmental recommendation.

Because the new policy increases the competition for students vying for top spots, students are opting out of the traditional thesis-writing route towards receiving honors.

“The one interesting trend that we noticed was that we think that more of our students decided to [go for] non-thesis honors, calculating that whatever the department did, the number of magnas was going to be cut at the College level,” says Elisa New, director of undergraduate studies for English and American Literature and Language. “Unless they really wanted to write a thesis, they may as well take two courses which would make them eligible for cum either way.”

Government concentrator T. Sean McKean ’05, who recently learned he is receiving some form of Latin honors, says the prospect of strong competition within his department nearly discouraged him from writing a thesis.

“In the Government Department, the people who are writing a thesis are good students—it made me kind of consider ‘is this worth it?’” says McKean, who ended up writing a thesis. “If you’re right on the cusp there, it’s really difficult to get it, and all that hard work makes it a lot less appealing.”

Many students still express the sentiment that the thesis-writing process is arduous and should guarantee a Latin flourish.

For students like Leyla R. Bravo ’05, the fact that it doesn’t has been discouraging.