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To qualify for departmental honors, students must apply by the end of their seventh semester and meet the GPA requirement of 3.5 or higher at the time of application and maintain it through graduation
Students intending to pursue honors must complete the following coursework in addition to their IS major courses:
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Three additional credit hours of IS course work at or above the 5000* level; (graded courses only; no one or two credit seminar or two-credit project courses)
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Six credit hours of INFO 4900 Independent Study and Research with one or more IS faculty members, spread over at least two semesters and with grades of A- or better (except that for courses taken in the Spring 2020 semester, a B+ (but not an S) will satisfy this requirement); it is expected that the INFO 4900 research will result in a project report.
Note: The 9 credit hours of additional work for departmental honors cannot be counted towards any other major requirement.
Confirming honors research: To have research honors confirmed with the Information Science advising office, the faculty member overseeing the research must email ISAdvising@cornell.edu no later than the final grades deadline at the end of the student's final undergraduate semester. The email must include a copy of the student's project/report and confirmation that the student met the research requirements as defined for INFO 4900.
Latin designations** (appended to the degree) are based on final cumulative GPA, as follows:
- cum laude, 3.50 or above
- magna cum laude, 3.75 or above
- summa cum laude, 4.00 or above
*When registering for dually numbered courses (e.g. 3000/5000 or 4000/6000 level), undergraduate students must enroll for the 3000 or 4000 level option. As a result, dually numbered courses will not count towards fulfillment of the 5000 or 6000 level requirement. Please submit a ticket to the Bowers CIS Enrollment team to request to be switched into the 5000- or 6000-level version of a course.
For information about applying for honors, email the Undergraduate Coordinator.
**A note for December 2026 graduates and beyond: Beginning with the December 2026 conferral date, Cornell University will institute a standardized Latin Honors system based solely on final cumulative undergraduate GPA. The Latin Honors categories include: Summa Cum Laude (top 5%), Magna Cum Laude (next 10%), and Cum Laude (next 15%). The student’s cumulative undergraduate GPA percentile at the time of degree conferral will be computed with respect to the student’s particular college/school degree program (e.g., B.S. in CALS, B.A. in A&S, B.S. in ILR, B.F.A. in AAP). Existing college/school-specific Latin Honors systems not based upon the new standardized criteria will be discontinued at the end of Summer 2026.