Graduating with Honors

The University Honors designations recognize the top 20% of the graduating class. Honors designations are determined by GPA cutoffs

General Information

  • No more than 20% of the May graduating class may receive honors, high honors and highest honors.
  • No more than 10% of the May graduating class may receive high honors and highest honors.
  • No more than 4% of the May graduating class may receive highest honors.

The College of Natural Sciences awards Highest Honors to the top 4% of the graduating class. The following 6% of the graduating class receives High Honors. The following 10% of the graduating class receives Honors. Due to the strong academic performance of graduates from the College of Natural Sciences, the honors cutoffs are typically much higher than the minimum in residence GPA listed for each designation by the university.

Honors are recalculated for the spring graduating class each May. The GPA cutoffs calculated for the May graduating class is used for the subsequent summer and fall graduating classes.

The honors GPA cutoffs for the May 2023 graduating class were what is listed below. These cutoffs will be used to award university honors to August and December 2023 graduates and to announce potential university honors designations during the May 2024 graduation ceremonies.

May 2023 honors GPA cutoffs

  • Highest Honors: 4.0000 – 4.0000
  • High Honors: 3.9736 – 3.9999
  • Honors: 3.9290 – 3.9735

Newly calculated honors GPA cutoffs will be determined for the May 2024 graduating class based on the students certified for graduation. Certification occurs during the week following the May ceremony.

To be eligible to graduate with honors, an undergraduate must have completed at least 60 semester hours in residence at The University of Texas at Austin. Courses taken pass/fail are counted in the 60-hour minimum, but only letter grades are used to determine the grade point average.

May 2024 honors GPA cutoffs

Official honors designations are determined and added to transcripts after all grades are submitted at the end of the graduating semester. This process takes place after the graduation ceremonies.

The honors designations used for the May 2024 ceremony are estimates based on the GPA cutoffs from the previous Spring semester. The designations used at the ceremony will change once certification of graduates has concluded.