Cum Laude - FAQs

In order to recognise their exceptional achievement, students in the top 10% of their cohort will be awarded a Cum Laude epithet with their degree.

It is Latin for ‘with honour’ and is primarily used in the USA and Canada where it is awarded to students whose performance in their degree programme has been exceptional.

Your Cum Laude award will indicate that you have performed exceptionally in your degree and that you are in the top 10% of your cohort. Your Cum Laude award and your GPA are more easily recognised by international employers and overseas institutions, thus providing you with more mobility and graduate employment opportunities overseas.

If you are graduating from July 2019 onwards with a classified Bachelor’s or Undergraduate Master’s degree, you will be eligible for receive a GPA score and Cum Laude award (if applicable).

Please note Cum Laude was not awarded to any students who completed in 2020, 2021 or 2022, due to the changes made to assessment during the coronavirus pandemic.

No, your Cum Laude award will not appear on your transcript or degree certificate. If you are awarded a Cum Laude epithet with your degree, it will be provided on your GPA Certificate, along with your GPA score and your overall weighted mean mark.

You can order your GPA Certificate via our Secure Documents website (Verify) and this should take 5 – 7 working days to process (please allow extra time for delivery). You will be able to order your GPA Certificate following the official release of your marks and degree classification.

A Cum Laude cohort is a group of students who will be considered together for a Cum Laude award based on their overall weighted mean mark and their rank in the cohort. In most cases, the cohort will be the School and will include all the students on classified Bachelor’s and Undergraduate Master’s programmes in that School.

No, some cohorts consist of a single programme or a group of programmes. This is the case for programmes in the College of Medical and Dental Sciences and some programmes in the College of Social Sciences. This is because some programmes have much earlier or later Exam Boards and so need to be considered for Cum Laude awards separately or because the School cohort would be much larger than other School cohorts.

The College of EPS cohorts are split into two cohorts per School, one for Bachelor’s programmes and one for Undergraduate Master’s programmes.

Each student in a cohort will be assigned a rank based on their Overall Weighted Mean mark and Cum Laude will be awarded to approximately the top 10% of students in the cohort. A Cum Laude Threshold mark will be calculated and any student whose Overall Weighted Mean mark is equal to or higher than this mark will be awarded Cum Laude.

The Cum Laude calculation process will calculate an index for approximately the top 10% of marks. If the cohort size is 25, the index will be 0.1 x 25 = 2.5 This will be rounded down to the nearest whole number to give an index of 2. Therefore, in a cohort of 25 students, 2 students will be eligible for Cum Laude.

If you defer some of your exams or you have some first sits in the Supplementary exam period, your Cum Laude award (if applicable) will be calculated in the Supplementary period. The calculation process in the Supplementary period is slightly different due to the much smaller numbers of students being considered for Cum Laude. You will not be assigned a rank, but if your Overall Weighted Mean mark is equal to or higher than the Cum Laude Threshold mark that was calculated in the Main Summer period you will be awarded Cum Laude.

Your cohort size is 100 and this number represents the total number of students who are being considered for a Cum Laude award, based on Cum Laude threshold mark for their cohort. If all the students in a cohort of 100 have an overall weighted mean mark and a rank, 10 students in the cohort will be awarded Cum Laude.

However, there may be some students in the cohort whose overall weighted mean mark hasn’t been calculated because they haven’t achieved enough credits to be awarded a classified Bachelor’s or Undergraduate Master’s degree so they cannot be assigned a rank. As the top 10% of students can only be selected from the list of students with an overall weighted mean mark and a rank, if the number of students in the cohort whose overall weighted mean mark and rank have been calculated is 80, eight students will be awarded Cum Laude.

The rank is out of the number of students in the cohort rather than the number of students whose rank has been calculated as this is fairer to the students with lower rankings and a more accurate reflection of their academic performance within their cohort.

You can update your information sharing preferences in Online Results to confirm that you are happy to share your GPA information with third parties and to have it included in references.

This means that you are giving us permission to share your Overall Weighted Mean mark, your GPA score, your Cum Laude award (if applicable) and your rank in the cohort.

 If you can no longer access Online Results after you have left the University and you want to update your information sharing preferences, you can send an email to gpa@contacts.bham.ac.uk and we will do this for you.

We will also provide verification of your GPA information to a third party if you have provided them with a copy of your GPA Certificate and written consent that allows them to contact the University to verify this document.

 If your degree classification is raised due to extenuating circumstances, your marks will not change so your Overall Weighted Mean mark and your GPA score will not change either. So unless you were previously eligible for a Cum Laude award, you will still not be eligible for a Cum Laude award, even if your degree classification has been raised.

If the outcome of your appeal is that you are permitted further sits in some of your modules, your marks will change so your GPA score may change and you may now be eligible for a Cum Laude award.

No, the Code of Practice on Academic Appeals states that Registered Students cannot appeal the overall weighted mean mark, GPA score, or award of Cum Laude.