FAQ
What is a cum laude GPA?
Latin honors are thresholds set by each college—there is no universal GPA.
Institution-specific cutoffs
Cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude are normally defined as percentiles or GPA minimums that your registrar publishes.
Programs may use cumulative GPA in major courses only, exclude pass/fail classes, or round differently—read the catalog carefully.
Typical ranges (never universal)
Many U.S. colleges place cum laude near the top 20–30% of a graduating class, magna higher, and summa at the very top—sometimes as GPA floors such as 3.5 / 3.7 / 3.9. Those numbers are examples only; another campus may use class rank instead of GPA.
If honors matter for your résumé, ask the registrar which GPA line counts (overall vs major) and whether the threshold is recalculated after transfer credits. Then check the math in our cumulative GPA calculator before you assume you are close.