Degree ... Ist Class Honours

[yelenots]

To get this do you have to get all top marks in everything throughout the 3 years?

[DTCwordfan]

Nope

[mike11111]

At traditional universities you needed to average 70%.

[craft1948]

I think to get a double first you need top marks in your first and last year......

[DTCwordfan]

major exams, term papers, assessments etc, (and especially any end course research projects) then the majority you need to as in scoring A or alpa and we used to have A+ A++ and A+++ as marking levels, and those certainly helped.

I also suspect that there is a perception angle as well that matters, so if you are scoring well, that will have impact on term papers. On exams, no influence though as ours were done anonymously.

[yelenots]

Ok thanks for your help ...... my daughter gets her results next and she's convinced she's not going to do well! We'll just have to wait and see ..... :)

[sophie_1003]

I got mostly A-s and believe I am on track for a first; hope so anyway!

[sophie_1003]

Also; in my course (and I believe in many others) the marks from the first year don't count towards the final classification. We were also told to 'discount' our four worst grades from the second year. Although I know different universities do it differently.

[ChocolatChip]

At my university, similarly to sophie, they discount your first year. Then they see whether just counting your third year or counting your second and third year will give the best outcome.

[factor-fiction]

When I was at university (a long time ago) fewer than 10% of finalists were given First class honours. Around 25% received a 2:1 and 50% got a 2:2. The remaining 15% or so got 3rds or ordinary degrees.
A 2:2 was considered respectable, a 2:1 was seen as an achievement, and a First was seen as being only for outstanding students.
The distributions were different at top universities such as Oxford/Cambridge where Firsts were much more common.

The distributions seems to have changed and now higher proportions achieve a First. Nevertheless, a First is still a great achievement and your daughter should not regard anything less as 'not doing well'.

[yelenots]

Thanks for your replies.....my daughter has worked really hard the past 3 years at uni and on hospital placement...cant wait until next Friday!!

[JonnyBoy12]

Pardon my ignorance, but is there anything lower than a 3rd class degree, but still a pass? Can you fail a degree as well? Sorry to have to ask this, but have never been to university, I am afraid.

[DTCwordfan]

Can get a 4th at Oxford......usually 3rd and then below that it becomes an ordinary degree, certainly in Scotland. Yes, you can fail but usually most are thrown out before hand.

Also can fail at Masters level too

[mike11111]

I don't know about now but when I was at university 40 years ago you could do a general arts degree which was awarded without honours. This involved studying three subjects to a lower level than that required for honours. At Durham anyone who failed first year honours was put on the general degree course. Having passed first year honours it was considered impossible to leave without a degree, the worst candidates being awarded a pass degree. However a friend of mine bucked the trend by doing no work at all since the first year and performed so abysmally in his finals that they couldn't even award him a pass degree. He is the only person I know who went the full distance, sat his finals and left with nothing. Failing the general degree was slightly more common but those who did so were allowed to return the next summer to resit their finals. This option was not open to honours students.