Latin honors

Generally, a college or university's regulations set out definite criteria a student must meet to obtain a given honor.

Latin honors are often conferred upon law school students graduating as a Juris Doctor or J.D., in which case they are generally based upon class rank or grade point average.

In the UK, the Latin cum laude is used in commemorative Latin versions of degree certificates sold by a few universities (e.g. the University of Edinburgh) to denote a bachelor's degree with honours, but the honours classification is stated as in English, e.g. primi ordinis for first class rather than summa cum laude, etc.

[5] For undergraduate degrees, Latin honors are used in only a few countries such as Israel, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, one university in Singapore and Canada.

In Austria, the only Latin honor in use is sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae ("under the auspices of the president of the republic") for doctoral degrees.

Candidates must have consistently excellent grades throughout high school and university, making it very difficult to attain: only about 20 out of a total of 2,500 doctoral graduates per year (i.e. 0.8%) achieve a sub auspiciis degree.

The Federal University of Ceará awards the magna cum laude honor for undergraduates who have never failed a course, achieved an average grade from 8.5 (out of 10.0) and have received a fellowship of both Academic Extension and Teaching Initiation.

In the Czech Republic, universities usually award the summa cum laude distinction to its best graduates in bachelors and masters study programmes.

In Italy, the cum laude notation (con lode being the equivalent in Italian) is used as an increasing level of the highest grade for both exams (30/30) and degrees (110/110), in all its levels; Passing an exam cum laude (30 e lode) has usually only an honorific meaning, but sometimes it influences the average grade and can be useful to the student so honored (usually weighting 31/30).

Up to 3 bonus points can be awarded for merits, e.g. having an average exams score greater than 28.5/30 (95% equivalent), excellent final project or for graduating on time.

More notations include: bacio e abbraccio accademico ("academic kiss and embrace"), menzione d'onore ("honor mention"), and dignità di stampa ("dignity of printing"), and were given based on various university-specific requirements, but without a legal value.

In Mexico, cum laude (also known as mención honorífica in Spanish) is used, by the major universities, to recognize an outstanding dissertation for bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees.

Also different awards on public and private universities are given to the student with the highest final grade average (i.e. Presea Lázaro Cárdenas [es] or Gabino Barreda Medal) and a diploma is given as a form of cum laude.

Typically these distinctions are reserved to mark exceptional achievement above a high minimum grade point average.

In view of the difficulty and subjectivity of determining this, some universities and fields of study very seldom award doctorates cum laude.

Students who achieve a final grade average of 90-94 are awarded the title May Karangalan (with honors) and will receive a bronze medal with the DepEd seal.

Those who have a final grade average of 95–97 receive the title of May Mataas na Karangalan (with high honors) and a silver medal with the same seal.

Students with a final grade average of 98-100 shall be awarded the title of May Pinakamataas na Karangalan (with highest honors) and a gold medal with the same specification.

In military schools, a "red diploma" may be accompanied by a gold medal (summa cum laude) for outstanding performance.

A silver medal is awarded to high school students who have one or two grades of 4 (Russian: хорошо horosho, "good", being second highest grade) on their final exams or other subjects as listed in the high school diploma (аттестат о (полном) среднем образовании attestat o (polnom) srednem obrazovanii).

Obtaining the qualification of doctorate summa cum laude requires the unanimity of the members of the examining board (between 3 and 5 experts, depending on the university).