# Graduating from Hogwarts **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 24, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175 "2011-07-24T14:50:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/1 "2011-07-24T14:50:45Z")
Is there a ceremony of some kind? Are diplomas presented? Do family and friends gather to cheer the graduates? I don’t remember any of that being mentioned in Rowling’s books. I’d have thought Harry, Ron and/or Hermione would’ve attended at least one such ceremony for an upperclass friend in seven years. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/2 "2011-07-24T14:55:44Z")
I don’t remember any such thing , either. Only a mention here and there of someone who had graduated. Oliver Wood, for one. Picked up as a reserve for a pro Quidditch team. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/3 "2011-07-24T15:17:05Z")
Harry and Ron’s graduation was the Battle of Hogwarts. Hermione did per Rowling return the next year and complete her seventh. I do suppose that the end of year feast counted; perhaps they congratualted the leavimg 7th years. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/4 "2011-07-24T15:20:59Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Is there a ceremony of some kind? Are diplomas presented? Do family and friends gather to cheer the graduates? I don’t remember any of that being mentioned in Rowling’s books. I’d have thought Harry, Ron and/or Hermione would’ve attended at least one such ceremony for an upperclass friend in seven years. Graduating from a school, in the American sense, is not common in the UK. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/5 "2011-07-24T15:29:09Z")
Are you under the impression that Hogwarts is run like an American High School? ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/6 "2011-07-24T15:54:09Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Graduating from a school, in the American sense, is not common in the UK. So your class your final year just gets smaller and smaller as other students… what? Age out? Complete some form of exit exam? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/7 "2011-07-24T17:57:59Z")
Please, some Brits correct me if I misunderstand this, but what happens is that you take the GCSE exams (formerly called the O-levels) in various academic courses when you are 15 or more likely 16. You then take the A-level exams in various academic courses when you are 17 or more likely 18. Doing well on these exams **is** graduation in the U.K. Universities don’t have a Grade Point Average to look at, nor do they have an equivalent to the SAT or the ACT. Other than that, you stay in secondary school (i.e., high school) until you quit or until you are finished with year 13 (at which point you are 17 or more likely 18). You can’t quit school below some minimum age. There’s no equivalent to graduating from high school in the U.S. > **[General Certificate of Secondary Education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCSE)** > > The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of particular subjects, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private schools in Scotland may choose to use GCSEs from England. > Each GCSE qualification is offered in a specific school subject (English literature, English language, mathematics, science, history, geography, art and design, design and technology, busi... > **[A-level](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-levels)** > > The A-level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational authorities of British Crown dependencies to students completing secondary or pre-university education. They were introduced in England and Wales in 1951 to replace the Higher School Certificate. The A-level permits students to have potential access to univer > **[Education in England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_England)** > > Education in England is overseen by the United Kingdom's Department for Education. Local government authorities are responsible for implementing policy for public education and state-funded schools at a local level. > England also has a tradition of private schools (some of which call themselves public schools) and home education: legally, parents may choose to educate their children by any permitted means. State-funded schools may be selective grammar schools or non-selective comprehensive sc... There are points in the Harry Potter books where it’s explained what the equivalent of the O-levels and A-levels are at Hogwarts. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/8 "2011-07-24T18:34:26Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Please, some Brits correct me if I misunderstand this, but what happens is that you take the GCSE exams (formerly called the O-levels) in various academic courses when you are 15 or more likely 16. You then take the A-level exams in various academic courses when you are 17 or more likely 18. Doing well on these exams **is** graduation in the U.K. Universities don’t have a Grade Point Average to look at, nor do they have an equivalent to the SAT or the ACT. Other than that, you stay in secondary school (i.e., high school) until you quit or until you are finished with year 13 (at which point you are 17 or more likely 18). You can’t quit school below some minimum age. There’s no equivalent to graduating from high school in the U.S. > > [GCSE - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCSE) > > [A-level - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-levels) > > [Education in England - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_England) > > There are points in the Harry Potter books where it’s explained what the equivalent of the O-levels and A-levels are at Hogwarts. That’s pretty much it, yes. Things have changed slightly since my time but, and this isn’t the standard everywhere it is what they do at “some schools”, including mine, what I had was at the age of sixteen I took my GCSEs. This was done at the end of the school year and I got my grades at some point in the middle of the summer. Some people leave school at this point and that was simply what we called it, “leaving school”. A similar sort of thing happened with my A-Levels, that I took when I was eighteen. Again, the exams were at the end of the school year and I got my grades in the middle of my summer holiday. For university, I applied to certain places and supplied them with my list of grades so far, records and suchlike. They then gave me a list of grades I had to achieve to get into that university. As I didn’t receive my grades until the middle of summer, when I left to school at the age of eighteen my future was still undecided. If you don’t make the grade you can plead with them or go through “clearing” where you simply ring around, try to get on other courses and whatnot. Now, the bit that my school did but not all do. We had a “speech day” where all sorts of awards for certain things were handed out. Sports trophies, internal (to the school) academic achievements and public examinations. This happened in the middle of the autumn term after I had left school. This was when I was handed by certificates, but it was just one part of a larger day. And there were no robes, no hats, no speeches made by the head boy for that year speaking directly to us. We just, at some point in the day, went up and got our certificates. As far as I am aware, many schools just send them to you in the post or you go and pick them up at school. I’m not expert in the US system, but going by those documentaries known as “US TV and Cinema” the only thing I have ever had that got close to what a High-School Graduation is in the US was when I graduated from University. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/9 "2011-07-24T18:38:20Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > So your class your final year just gets smaller and smaller as other students… what? Age out? Complete some form of exit exam? As I said in another roost, but I’ll be polite and answer this too, generally speaking we all do exams at the same time at the end of the year. In my school, we were allowed to stop turning up to school about two weeks before the exams started, so we could study at home, so I had effectively left school before my exams. I don’t know how common this is. I did exams in nine different subjects at GCSE level. Not everyone did the same courses. I did four A-Levels, but it was more common to do three. Again, not everyone does the same courses. In ye olde days not everyone even bothered doing the exams you do at 16. They weren’t forced upon you. You just left school with pretty much nothing to show for it. These days though I feel that is uncommon. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/10 "2011-07-24T20:13:15Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > There are points in the Harry Potter books where it’s explained what the equivalent of the O-levels and A-levels are at Hogwarts. I’m pretty sure that the O-levels are OWLs (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) and the A-levels are NEWTs (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests). The OWLs are taken at the end of the fifth year, and not everyone returns to Hogwarts the next year. The Weasley twins do, partly to make their mother happy, but also because they are biding their time until they turn 17, at which point they reach their majority, and they intend to open their own joke shop. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/11 "2011-07-25T03:15:38Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > Are you under the impression that Hogwarts is run like an American High School? No, and why the snark? I just asked a question. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/12 "2011-07-25T04:49:08Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > So your class your final year just gets smaller and smaller as other students… what? Age out? Complete some form of exit exam? Basically, the course comes to an end, the students take their final exams, then go home and wait several weeks to get the results through the post. Most schools don’t hold any kind of graduation ceremony. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/13 "2011-07-26T00:59:03Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Most schools don’t hold any kind of graduation ceremony. Do UK High Schools have prizegiving ceremonies? NZ too doesn’t do graduation from High Schools (not in the way we see on US movies / TV) but the closest thing that comes to my mind were the prizegivings at the end of the year – e.g. The student who scored highest in, say, English for the 7th Form year might receive a book of poetry or somesuch. Typically held on an evening, parents and students got a bit dressed up, students were called up to receive prizes and applauded. (My wife has a recipe book in the cupboard with a bookplate marking it as a prize for Art History). ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/14 "2011-07-26T01:40:33Z")
Awards evenings are common in US high schools too, in addition to the commencement ceremony and all the related parties. Just walking away from school and your classmates after all those years seems a little sad, frankly. We have similar ceremonies for finishing middle school, elementary school, even nursery school. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/15 "2011-07-26T01:49:43Z")
They could lock them in the great hall with a bunch of Dementors, Dragons and Werewolves. Those who can apparate, survive. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/16 "2011-07-26T10:31:46Z")
If Hogwarts follows the pattern of British “Public” schools my guess would be that they have a Speech Day towards the end of the School Year with prizes but no diplomas. As others have pointed out OWLs and NEWTs take the place of GCSEs and A Levels (or Ordinary Grades and Highers as Hogwarts seems to be in Scotland!) and the results won’t come through till during the summer holidays. If Hogwarts has a Speech Day I would expect proud parents to attend and a distinguished former pupil to make a speech before the prizes are handed out but there is no mention I can remember of anything like this. I wonder if the end of year feast takes its place without friends and family? Certainly it is at the end of year feast the inter-house competition is settled which is just the sort of thing that would normally be announced at the Speech Day. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/17 "2011-07-26T10:46:33Z")
ElvisL1ves writes: \> Just walking away from school and your classmates after all those years seems \> a little sad, frankly. We have similar ceremonies for finishing middle school, \> elementary school, even nursery school. Graduation ceremonies for middle school, elementary school, and nursery school are fairly recent things. Certainly when I graduated from high school in 1970 (in a not particularly well-off area), there were no ceremonies for anything below high school that I had ever heard of. And for what it’s worth, I find the notion of ceremonies and certificates for lower grades horrifying. But if we want to argue about whether it’s a good thing to have ceremonies and certificates for those grades, that should really be a new thread. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/18 "2011-07-26T11:15:09Z")
Pakistan (and rest of South Asia’s I presume) system was a lot like the British system; you had exams end of the year (late may early to mid june) and then that was it. You may have a farewell party for the departing class sometime after the exams; but that was dependant on the individual school. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/19 "2011-07-26T12:44:19Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > Are you under the impression that Hogwarts is run like an American High School? Instead of being snarky you could have just answered the question. We don’t kknow. Everyone else, thank you for the answers - it’s a good question and I wasn’t aware of how your schools worked. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175/20 "2011-07-26T12:58:13Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > ElvisL1ves writes: > > \> Just walking away from school and your classmates after all those years seems > \> a little sad, frankly. We have similar ceremonies for finishing middle school, > \> elementary school, even nursery school. > > Graduation ceremonies for middle school, elementary school, and nursery school are fairly recent things. Certainly when I graduated from high school in 1970 (in a not particularly well-off area), there were no ceremonies for anything below high school that I had ever heard of. And for what it’s worth, I find the notion of ceremonies and certificates for lower grades horrifying. But if we want to argue about whether it’s a good thing to have ceremonies and certificates for those grades, that should really be a new thread. Hell, when I graduated from high school in 1991, there was none of that nonsense like elementary school or middle school graduation, probably because it means exactly nothing, since there are no requirements to graduate and you still have to go on to middle or high school. Would anyone bother with lower graduations if K-12 was all in the same school? For that matter, high school graduation didn’t mean much to me either; I had 4-5 more years of college left to go! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/graduating-from-hogwarts/590175.md?page=2)