Current Seniors & Honors Diploma

The students in the Class of 2025 (seniors) are the last group with the current honors diploma requirements.  I will talk more about the updated honors diploma requirements for students in the Classes of 2026 and beyond in a future post.

But, I wanted to draw seniors attention to the honors diploma requirements because I know that heading into your 2nd semester of senior year it can be tempting to request to drop classes in favor of an easier final semester of high school.  Before you make that decision you should keep in mind all of your other goals - and if honors diploma is one of those goals, then you will want to be sure that dropping classes won't change your eligibility status.

For some students, earning an Honors Diploma is an important goal. I have to be honest, this is not a factor for the colleges because the honors diploma recognition isn't granted until you graduate so colleges are not considering it when making their admissions decisions. The requirements for the honors diploma listed below are established by the state department of education.

To receive an honors diploma current seniors need to fulfill 6 of the following 7 criteria:

• Math: 4 units (CCSS Math 3 and another higher level course)
• Science: 4 units (including two advanced level sciences)
• Social Studies: 4 units
• Foreign Language: 3 units (including at least 2 units in each language studied)
• Fine Arts: 1 unit (during high school)
• Unweighted Grade Point Average: 3.5 on a 4.0 scale
• ACT/ SAT Score: 27 ACT/ 1280 SAT

One of the areas that I have noticed as a trend of some students falling short of meeting the honors diploma requirements is in Social Studies since only 3 credits are required for graduation so students won't take the full 4th credit needed. The other area where students frequently don't meet the designated standard is with the 1 credit of Fine Art.  This is because many students rely on the fine art courses they took during middle school for their graduation requirements, but those courses do not equal high school credits.  (They count for graduation, but aren't actual credits earned.)  So students who want to have that requirement met for the honors diploma would need to complete the 1 credit of fine art during the high school years. 

Don't forget, it would still be possible to earn an honors diploma if you were missing one of these, but you will need to make sure you fulfill all of the remaining criterion.

Also, I wanted to point out that these are the requirements for the most common pathway to the honors diploma, but there are also honors diploma pathways for students participating in the IB diploma program or in a Career Tech program at the Delaware Area Career Center and the state of Ohio also has additional pathways such as STEM, Arts, and Social Science & Civic Engagement pathways.  You can check them all out here.

Remember, you don't earn the honors diploma until graduation so obviously this doesn't matter to colleges when they are evaluating your application for admission, but if it is a personal goal you have set for yourself then you want to make sure you end your high school career strong so that you reach that goal.