She says she lost her summa candidacy when she had to face an hour-long oral exam.

"It was kind of strange, because they were trying to do it like a thesis defense," recounts Chen, whose thesis consisted of original poetry. Of her three oral graders, only one had read Chen's work.

"I don't think it would have helped if they had read it," says Chen. "They weren't experts in contemporary American poetry. I think it would have been more helpful if I'd had a more general oral."

Faculty Evaluation

After the evaluations are made within departments, recommendations for "highest honors" are passed on to the Faculty at a degree meeting, which takes place three times a year.

This year's final degree meeting took place on Monday, June 3. According to John B. Fox Jr. '59, secretary to the Faculty, there are usually about 45 faculty members, mostly head tutors and department chairs, at the meetings.

These meetings are usually run by the head of a docket committee of three people. This year's committee consists of Gray Professor of Systematic Botany Donald H. Pfister, the master of Kirkland House; Associate Professor of History Ellen Fitzpatrick; and Professor of English and American Literature and Language Daniel G. Donaghue, the docket committee's chair.

Faculty members evaluate all of the departments' recommended candidates and then inspect transcripts which contain records of all grades, not only those in concentration courses. They also discuss such factors as grade point average cutoff, a salient issue since mean grades can sometimes vary from department to department.

Fox says the meetings are often mere formalities.

"The only thing that happens is the department recommends someone who is numerically ineligible [overall]," Fox says. "There's no other way for someone who's recommended not to get a summa. Barring some conversation about something, [meetings] can be over in 15 minutes."

Most candidates with excellent grades (in the 14-plus range on Harvard's 15-point scale) in their concentration courses have little trouble with the rest of their Core classes and electives.

According to Fox, most of the nominees who do not receive summa degrees do not have high enough grades overall.

Today, 115 of the 160 summa nominees will receive highest honors, according to Associate Registrar Thurston A. Smith. He would not disclose the names of this year's winners or the departmental breakdown.

"Sometimes there are issues," says Fox. "Sometimes a department will say there's a particular reason that a rule shouldn't apply to a student of theirs because of some circumstance. You listen to the arguments, and you can accept it or not."

"You really have to do pretty well," says Professor of Astronomy Robert P. Kirshner '70, who is the chair of his department. "As generous and warm-hearted as the Faculty is, they're usually not willing to move the line that hundredth of a point that would make a difference."