Academic Honors

Departmental Honors

Departmental Honors are given to graduating seniors who complete the Senior Honors seminar. Seniors who have a 3.5 GPA or higher will be invited to attend an honors information session in the Spring of their Junior Year. Interested students can then submit an application to be reviewed to participate in the year-long Senior Honors Seminars. 

Dean’s List

The Dean's List is an academic honor awarded to undergraduate students achieving high scholarship each academic year.

Effective beginning in the academic year 2013-2014

• The Dean’s List will be compiled at the end of each academic year (not individual terms), and students will be informed of this achievement by email.

• The Dean's List excludes courses taken in the January term and Summer term.

• Students whose degrees will be conferred in January will be eligible for the Dean’s List at the end of the Fall term.

• All other students must meet the requirements below in both the Fall and Spring term to be eligible for the Dean’s List.

Requirements:

• Students must be matriculated undergraduates

• Must achieve a GPA of 3.7 or higher in each term (GPA will not be averaged for the year)

• Completed at least 12 graded units in each term

• No missing or N grades at the time the term criteria is evaluated

• No grades of IP, IF or I grades at the time the term criteria is evaluated. (The Dean's List criteria will be evaluated during the second week of February for the Fall term and during the first week of July for the Spring term.)

• Students who elect to take a course Pass/Fail in either Fall or Spring term are ineligible for the Dean's List.

Note: The GPA is calculated to two decimal places but is not rounded up. See here for information on the Steinhardt Dean's List. 

Graduation with Latin Honors

Undergraduate students meeting the requirement of having completed at least 64 points toward the degree (in weighted grades) in residence in the Steinhardt School will be eligible to be considered for Latin Honors. Latin Honors will be determined by GPA distribution, so that:

• Summa cum laude is limited to the top 5% of the graduating class

• Magna cum laude is limited to the next 10% of the graduating class

• Cum laude is limited to the next 15% of the graduating class

Information on Latin Honors GPA cutoffs can be found here.

Founders Day Honors

• As a Commencement honor, top-ranking Baccalaureate candidates and graduates are named University Honors Scholars, earning them the NYU Founders’ Day Award. Recipients receive a gold tassel that they can wear during Commencement, as well as a personalized certificate.

• Baccalaureate candidates and graduates earn the award by obtaining a cumulative GPA that places them within the top 40 percent of their school’s graduating class.

• Awardees will be notified via email on Founders' Day (April 21). Those awardees attending Commencement will be able to collect their gold tassel along with their Commencement attire. The Founders' Day Certificate is mailed in mid-summer to the recipient’s permanent address.

• Graduates who obtain the minimum GPA after degree conferral (i.e., based on their spring semester grades) will be retroactively awarded the honor, and will receive their tassel and certificate after Commencement.

• The University Honors Scholar/Founders' Day Award is separate and distinct from Latin Honors, with different criteria. Eligibility for one does not necessarily constitute eligibility for the other.