How to interpret Italian grades for a grad school application I am trying to help assess grad school applications this year but have little experience.  In most cases I can work out a rough ranking but I find Italian university grades very hard to understand. For example, we have one candidate with


Master degree in Information Technology (Date) University of Catania
Grade: 1st (Italian grade: 110/110 cum laude)
Bachelor degree in Information Technology (Date) University of
Catania Grade: 2.1 (Italian grade: 110/110)


Does this rank the student as being the top of their year or do many people get 100% in an Italian university?
Does this rank the student as being the top of their year or do many people get 100% in an Italian university?


110/110 cum laude is the maximum obtainable result for a graduation in Italy. To achieve this result a student should pass most of the exams with a grade equivalent to that of US A/A+ and produce a very good dissertation. Take into account that in Italy, typically, exams are not graded on a curve.

More specifically, exam pass grades in Italy range from 18 to 30. To have the possibility to get a final grade of 110/110, a student should typically average about 28 or more along the 3 years of the BsC degree or along the 2 years of the MsC degree.

However, the relative number of students who achieve this result can depend on the field and can vary between universities (this is a major source of problems when comparing grades). Unfortunately statistical data about grades are not easily found on universities web sites (e.g. I couldn't find these data for my university). Maybe the consortium Alma Laurea might provide general statistical information. 



Edit I: I've found some statistical data: this pdf file from Alma Laurea contains a report on the 2013 graduates (unfortunately, it is in Italian only). On p. 120 there is a graph which shows grade classes vs field. For the engineering field (ingegneria), 16% of the students achieved the maximum result of 110/110 cum laude.



Edit II: As Aubrey noted in his answer, the Alma Laurea web site contains also a searchable database of graduates' profiles. For example, for the year 2013, for the Department of Electric, Electronic and Computer Engineering (Information Technology probably belongs to that Department) at the University of Catania, the database reports these data. The average grade for the MsC degree is 107.5/110 (110/110 cum laude is considered as 113/110 for the calculation of the average).

For comparison, and to show that there can be a large spread on the averages, for the same year and the same kind of Department, graduates from the Politecnico di Torino (my university) have an average grade of 99.6/110 and those from the University of Rome an average grade of 101.8.



Edit III: Last but not least, students can ask to their universities the so called Diploma Supplement, a document which should help the international recognition of the qualifications. This document provides information on the Italian grading system and reports the corresponding student's grades in the ECTS grading scale. So, in case of doubts, better ask foreigner students to attach this document to the application documentation.