What was Barack Obama's class rank at Harvard?

Answer 1

His grades have not been released (and they are protected by federal privacy laws; he is under no obligation to release them). But professors who taught him remembered him as an excellent student, and we do know that he graduated magna cum laude (with academic honors) from Harvard Law School, placing him in the top 10% of his class.

Answer 2

Answer

First, it should be noted that few modern presidents have released their transcripts, nor are they under any obligation to do so, since these records are protected by federal privacy laws. Not releasing them does not mean the person has something to hide. Second, many conspiracy theories have been found on the internet about Mr. Obama, but there is no proof to any of them. Regarding his college grades, there is something that we do know: his grades from Harvard Law School. It is public record, and was reported in the press of that time (1991) that he graduated in the top 10% of his class and received academic honors (magna cum laude). It should be noted though that the highest honors are summa cum laude which precedes magna cum laude and over 30% of his classmate graduated summa cum laude which makes the "top 10% of his class" statement questionable.

Harvard has since changed its requirements for these two honors. 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. This system pretty much ensured that every individual graduated with a minimum of a cum laude.

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. Under the new system Obama would not even have made the cum laude list.

It is further mistakenly assumed that the Editor of the Harvard Law review during Obama's time was chosen according to academic prowess.

Until the 1970's the editors were picked on the basis of grades, and the president of the Law Review was the student with the highest academic rank. Among these were Elliot L. Richardson, the former Attorney General, and Irwin Griswold, a dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor General under Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.

That system came under attack in the 1970's and was replaced by a program in which about half the editors are chosen for their grades and the other half are chosen by fellow students after a special writing competition. The new system, disputed when it began, was meant to help insure that minority students became editors of The Law Review.

The transfer class that entered Columbia College in the fall of 1981 with Obama was one of the worst in recent memory, according to Columbia officials at the time. A Nov. 18, 1981 article in the Columbia Spectator, "Tight Housing Discourages Transfer Applications to CC," and quoting admissions officials, reported: "On paper at least, the quality of the students accepted [as transfers] has declined along with the number of applicants, the officials say. "Among accepted transfer students, the average combined math and verbal score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test is a 1,100 and their grade-point average at their former schools is about 3.0, Boatti said.

There were 67 transfer students with an average SAT score of 1,100. Guess what that equals on the SAT to IQ conversion chart? It's between 115.51 and 116.55, depending upon whether one uses an SD of 15 or 16. Now, this isn't absolute and conclusive proof that Obama's IQ is 116, as it could well be a little bit higher or a little bit lower. But not much higher, because if he scored even 100 points more on the SAT, he wouldn't have had to go to Occidental in the first place. In fact, based on his transfer class scores, it's probable that 116 is slightly overestimating Obama's IQ. This is because the range from which that average SAT score was calculated was the 67 selected from the 450 who applied. That average was also 100 SAT points lower than the average Columbia freshman score of 1200. So, one would assume that the absolute low end SAT that Columbia accepted for transfers was probably half that gap, or 1050, which equates to a 111 IQ. So, we can reasonably conclude that Obama's IQ is probably somewhere between 110 and 118.

Answer 3

Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. At Harvard, this kind of academic honor (magna cum laude is Latin for "with high praise") is currently awarded to students who are in the top 10% of a graduating class. We also know he performed with distinction because he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, and only the best students are eligible for that honor. But rumors that he was valedictorian or that he was in the top 5% of his class are not accurate.

Answer 4

Obama must have had very average grades in high school, since he only ended up at the moderately competitive Occidental College. With affirmative action, even an average set of grades would have gotten him into a more competitive undergraduate institution. This is no surprise since he admits to cutting class and doing drugs for most of his time in high school. It's also hard to gauge his academic turnaround since no one at Columbia University seems to have known him and both Obama and Columbia refuse to release his transcripts, compared with say, George Bush, whose undergraduate transcript you can see here. http://www.americanpolitics.com/bushtranscript.html.

OTHER answer: fs and gs

Answer 5

Barack Obama seems to have had very average grades in high school; in fact, according to his own writings, he only did well in subjects he was interested in, such as history and anything related to current events. This was a time when he was being somewhat rebellious and was hanging around with a group of young men who used drugs (mostly marijuana). As a result, he first attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, since he seems to have been unable to get into a better-known university. But at some point while there, he decided to get serious about his education, and biographers note that his grade improved greatly. He also stopped using drugs and focused on his future: as a result, he was able to transfer to Columbia University in New York, where he finished his undergraduate education.

Answer 6

His grades have not been released to the public, nor do they have to be, since all grades of living individuals are protected by Federal privacy laws. But in this case, we know Mr. Obama was in the top ten percent of his class, and he graduated with academic honors (magna cum laude) in 1991.

Answer 7

Like most presidents (including President Bush, President Clinton, and others), President Obama has not released all of his grades, nor is he under any obligation to do so. Several of his professors at Columbia have said they gave him A's (especially in Political Science), and he must have done okay there because he was accepted to Harvard Law School. But we know more about Mr. Obama's Harvard grades-- he was in the top 10% of his class.

Answer 8

While we do not know his exact GPA, we do know he graduated in 1991 with academic honors ("Magna Cum Laude"), and that his grades placed him in the top 10% of his class.

Answer 9

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