NARIC guide on Higher Education Systems in the European Union

Esami di profitto, i.e. the examinations related to individual subjects, are meant to ascertain the intellectual maturity of the
candidate and his or her fundamental knowledge of the discipline; this implies that examinees may be asked questions which
are not exclusively limited to the syllabuses dealt with by the teachers during the corresponding courses. Usually, these
examinations take place in two sessioni ordinarie (ordinary sessions), held in summer and autumn as well as in the so-called
sessione straordinaria (special session) in the month of February.
In the case of esami di profitto, the commissione di esami (examiners’ board) is appointed by the preside di facoltà (faculty
dean) and consists of three members: the full professor of the subject (president of the board), a professor of a related
discipline and a cultore (estimator) of the subject itself, who is usually a university researcher.
Each member may award 10 points (0-10, 6 being the minimum passing mark); the final mark attributed to a candidate results
from the sum of the examiners’ points and may therefore vary between 0 and 30:
18/30 is the minimum pass grade;
27/30, corresponding to 9/10ths of all available points, means promotion by pieni voti legali (legal full marks);
30/30, which implies the attainment of the total number of available points, determines approbation by pieni voti assoluti
(absolutely full marks). A distinction (lode) may be added to the maximum grade of 30 as a mention of special merit.
To be awarded the final laurea degrees — once all the examinations on their curricula have been completed — individual
students have to carry out a research work or project (tesi di laurea) under the supervision of a university teacher. The
research activities and the drawing up of the final report may take from a minimum of six months up to two years. The final
written report must be submitted well in advance of the degree examination. Theses often differ remarkably from each other,
since no official rules exist fixing exact times of preparation and determining the nature of the research work. So, a thesis
might simply consist of a reasonable compilation from various sources, involving only a few meetings with the supervisor, or
it may be based on very in-depth inquiries into possible theories, supported by detailed logic demonstrations; finally, it may
include a series of individual experiments, implying regular laboratory work for a very long period. Normally, it takes a
minimum of six months to draw up an acceptable thesis, whereas research work based on laboratory experiments may require
up to two years.
On the occasion of the final examination, each candidate has to defend his or her dissertation in front of an examiners’ board
made up of 11 members.
No uniform procedure is laid down for the candidate’s overall assessment, i.e. how the marks obtained in individual subject
exams should combine with the evaluation of the quality of the thesis and its defence in the degree examination. When
deciding the final grade, examiners generally take as a starting point the examinee’s media universitaria (average of the
grades obtained by the candidate in the previous subject examinations); then they lower or raise that figure according to their
evaluation of the dissertation. A customary rule, almost always observed, is not to increase the average grade by more than 10
points on account of the thesis.
Each examiner evaluates both the written work and the related discussion according to a 0-10 scale; the final grade consists of
the sum of all the 11 partial marks and therefore may range from 0 to 110:
66 is the minimum pass grade (it consists of 6/10 of the total which may be attributed by the board);
99 means that the student is approved by legal full marks, obtaining 9/10 of the available points;
110 indicates promotion by absolutely full marks: this is the case when the board may also grant a lode, provided it is
unanimously determined.
No grades appear on the diploma: only the lode is mentioned, if applicable. However, on written request by the individual
laureato, the university concerned can issue a certificate quoting either the final grade only or including the marks obtained in
all subject examinations. The topic of the final thesis may be mentioned as well.
On passing the final laurea examination the candidate is awarded the title of dottore/dottoressa, abbreviated to dott./Dott.ssa
in front of the surname ( 1 ).