Early Cum Laude Recognizes 15 Seniors

Fifteen seniors were inducted early into the 2014-2015 Cum Laude Society for maintaining a cumulative GPA that represented the top five percent of their class. The induction ceremony and dinner will take place either on November 9 or 16 and will feature a speech from religion instructor Thomas Simpson.

Regarding the system of electing students, mathematics instructor Jeffrey Ibbotson, the president of the Academy’s chapter of the society, said that although the system is imperfect, it still succeeded in honoring those who received the top five percent GPA of their class.

"The system of electing seniors is based on cumulative GPA. Is it a good system? I guess no system is perfect and sometimes the differences in GPA are tiny, but to produce a different system would be a major change from both our tradition and those of the larger Cum Laude Society," Ibbotson said. "The students selected this year are certainly a great group, so in that sense it has worked."

Each year, Phillips Exeter’s chapter of the honor society discusses the students qualified for induction. After the committee reviews the students eligible, it makes a final decision, in which it can deny the admittance of those who the committee believes should not be inducted.

Ibbotson added that this year, eighty percent of the seniors who were inducted were girls.

"The only odd feature of this year's selection is that the overwhelming majority (80 percent) are girls. Interesting but since the sample size is small, I would be hesitant to draw any conclusions from that," he said.

Regardless of the anomaly, all selected seniors were honored to join the Cum Laude Society early.

"Receiving early cum means a lot to me —it helps validate the choice for me to come here as a two-year senior," senior Sachin Holdheim said. "I was really unsure when I was in India if spending just two years in a school was the best decision to make—I think that this helps to validate that not just socially and culturally, but also academically that this was the right place for me."

Senior Natasha Lim, who obtained "less than stellar SAT results, received a bad grade for [an economics class], and bombed a math test," was notified of her selection while she was attending a piano concert this past Tuesday night.

"I tried to contain my excitement as the performer, Sean Chen, was in the middle of a piece," Lim said.

Despite the excitement, Lim felt that the society fails to honor those who work equally as hard as the students who are inducted early. She emphasized that just because a student’s GPA is lower than those selected early, does not mean that he or she did not excel academically or endeavor to do well.

"I feel that although the early cum tradition does reward students for academic excellence, it fails to account for varying difficulties of classes," Lim said. "I know so many students who are far smarter than I am but do not receive the grades they would like. Early cum also gives the false impression that certain students have worked harder or are better which is not the case at all."

Senior Dana Tung, who was also an early cum inductee, said, "We should be aware that there is so much more than GPA that defines our Exeter experience and success in high school."

Senior Ruby Malusa shared a similar outlook on the effects of early cum. "There is an unfortunate idea of GPA as an evaluation of worth in the Academy community, which fails to take into account people’s individual circumstances and other talents," she said.

Nevertheless, many inductees still found the convention of early cum to be beneficial to the Academy. Senior Jeanne Olivier believed that rather than diminishing a group of students, early cum simply recognizes the efforts of certain scholars.

"In my experience, Exonians are happy to congratulate their peers when they receive any honor, academic or other," Olivier said. "When I received the email listing the other recipients of the award, I was glad to see that most laureates were not the typical ‘Harkness warrior.’ It was great to see that a variety of people can thrive at Exeter."2014-2015 Cum Laude SocietyJanice ChungNicole DonMirella Gruesser-SmithSachin HoldheimJay LeeJing Cheng LeiNatasha LimMadeline LoganRuby MalusaKelly McCarthyJeanne OliverDana TungElizabeth WeiEllen XiangGrace Yin