top 2 percent typically
Considering that Summa Cum Laude is a higher honor than Magna Cum Laude, I beg to differ with your assessment. I don't know the correct answer, but I do know that yours is incorrect.
Nowadays, only 10% of students graduate magna cum laude or higher. It was substantially easier to get magna a few years ago.
At most colleges and universities, students can graduate with Latin honors. Cum laude, Summa cum laude, and Magna cum laude are the honors distinction.
The GPA requirement to graduate Magna Cum Laude for an under-graduate degree from UNC at Chapel Hill is 3.75. Students must also have earned a total of 75 semester hours to earn Latin honors from the University.
The Graduate degree AB magna cum laude is an honors degree. It is in the area of Arts and Sciences.
zero ... magna cum laude is an honor to designate college graduates, not high school
The phrase magna cum laude is Latin and means essentially "with great praise/honor". Exactly what is required for this depends on the school, but it's often a cumulative GPA of, say, 3.75 (on a 4.0 scale) or higher. Students who do significantly better than average but do not quite meet the requirements for magna cum laude may receive the designation cum laude(usually translated as "with honors") instead, and there may be ranks of honors above magna cum laude as well ... summa cum laude, "with highest honors", is the most common, but others are occasionally used.
Cum laude means 'with honor', magna cum laude is 'with high honor', and summa cum laude means 'with the greatest honor'. These designations are granted to every graduate who meets a required grade-point average, so several students in a class, or even an entire class, could graduate cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude. The valedictorian is the student with the highest academic rank in the class, so you would expect he would at least be a cum laude graduate. But if you have a class where no one has over a B average, there will still be a valedictorian but he will not be graduated with honors.
It is an honor awarded to college and university students who display academic excellence. There are three levels of honors as follows from lowest to highest. * Cum Laude * Magna Cum Laude * Summa Cum Laude (highest level).
They rank them via summa cum laude, magna cum laude, and cum laude. Usually summa is reserved for students with exceptionally high GPAs, magna is the top 10% and cum laude is the next 30%. Many schools do not rank students beyond this point, so there are no individual rankings. Some law schools, such as Yale, Harvard, and Stanford. do not have grades.
It depends on the specific college or university. However, many institutions start a cum laude honor at a 3.45. Once again, there is no standard and can only be understood by inquiring about the policies particular to the school.
honors
The highest level of honors is Summa Cum Laude, then comes Magna Cum Laude, and then Cum Laude. Thus, a grade point average (GPA) of 4.0 is Summa Cum Laude. Acutally, Summa Cum Laude starts at a 3.85 GPA. Still, different institutions have different requirements.