Bachelor's degrees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
The degrees awarded carry a designation related to the broad subject area such as BA, BSc, BEng etc. The majority of Bachelor's degrees are now honours degrees. Prior to the mid 20th century all candidates would take an Ordinary degree, and then be selected to go on for a final year for the Honours degree. Now this may be reduced to two either by direct second year entry (for people who have done foundation degrees or changed subject or similar) or by doing compressed courses (which are being piloted by several newer universities). For funding reasons (funding for undergraduate programs is automatic, funding for postgraduate programs is not) it is becoming increasingly common to skip the Bachelor's stage entirely and go straight to Masters level on a four year (five year if with industrial experience) course (which often shares the first two years with the equivalent Bachelor's course).Honours degrees are of a superior academic standard. However the practice of writing 'Hons' as part of the degree designation is untraditional and some consider it to be an affectation. An Honours degree is always awarded in one of four classes depending upon the marks gained in the final assessments and examinations. The top students are awarded a first class degree, the next best, an upper second class degree (usually referred to as a 2:1), the next a lower second class degree (usually referred to as a 2:2), and those with the lowest marks gain a third class degree. An Ordinary or unclassified degree (which does not give the graduate the right to add '(Hons)') may be awarded if a student has completed the full honours degree course but hasn't obtained the total required passes sufficient to merit a third-class honours degree. Alternatively a degree may be denied honours if the student has had to retake courses. An ordinary degree usually requires 300 CATS points whereas an honours degree requires 360 CATS points. It is possible to be awarded an ordinary degree with distinction if the average of the 300 CATS points is 70%+.
Ordinary degrees are unclassified degrees awarded to all students who have completed the course and obtained sufficient marks to pass the final assessments and examinations. Ordinary degree courses usually have lower entry requirements than Honours degree courses. Although Ordinary degree courses are often considered to be easier than Honours degree courses, this is not always the case, and much depends on the university attended and the subject being studied. Some modern universities offer the opportunity for Ordinary degree students to transfer to an Honours degree course in the same subject if an acceptable standard is reached after the first or second year of study.
Today, the most common undergraduate degrees given are the Bachelor of Arts (Artium Baccalaureus) (BA, AB) and the Bachelor of Science (Scientiæ Baccalaureus) (BS, BSc, SB, ScB). Originally, in the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Trinity College Dublin, all undergraduate degrees were in the Faculty of Arts, hence the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Since the late 19th century, most universities in the English-speaking world have followed the practice of the University of London in dividing undergraduate degree subjects into the two broad categories of arts and sciences, awarding the degree of Bachelor of Science to students of the latter category of subjects.