I will be attending the admitted student day and scholar social this Friday and Saturday. My choices are down to UVA and USC Honors anyone else facing similar dilemmas
We are also heading down for Saturday’s admitted student day after visiting Clemson on Friday. Hopefully a decision will be made. D narrowed it down to those two and the Ohio State University.
UVA or USC are great choices, but different feeling schools to me, I will be interested in which way you go.
We are registered to go to USC Friday but daughter is almost over USC, she wants to stay on NC, she was at UNC (again) on Monday.
@ITBgirl I got a $32,000 scholarship and am in honors Carolina at Chapel Hill but when I visited I just didn’t feel at home or felt comfortable with the people and administration
@ivyhopeful97 my daughter isn’t getting a good vibe from UNC either, despite being at tarheel fan all her life. They saw you have to trust your gut, and I hope that is true because her gut is not leading her to my first or second choice.
@ITBgirl where is she feeling
Ivyhopeful - just another perspective… For D, it really came down to visiting campus, the quality of the Honors College and people she met, both staff and the current plus other prospective students, and of course, the merit scholarship (Cooper). In addition, in her view USC’s Honors College appears much more established, organized and overall, more beneficial than Honors program/college offered in other schools. By comparison, she had applied and received honors invites with (OOS merit aid) to Pitt, UCONN and UMASS.
In my view as a parent, USC, like many of the SEC schools (Alabama, LSU, and Kentucky come to mind because of their similar structure in offering substantial merit aid), are making steady and consistent gains in pulling students away from the more traditional elites, whether it be some of the ACC schools you are considering or even some of the top notch privates located throughout Northeast – whether in Boston, NY, DC or Philadelphia.
With many of these “elite” schools focusing solely on need based aid, countless numbers of top notch students coming from families who earn just enough not to qualify for financial aid are turning away from the elites due to the insane $40, $50 or even $60K plus per year bill. For these reasons, I think USC and its Honors College, along with similar programs at Alabama, LSU, etc. are rapidly rising its academic stature to match the well known excellence in athletics.
D is beyond excited for USC and already counting down days until move in. Campus is awesome (aside from historic horseshoe, check out the honors dorm and close by fitness center!), but like with many schools, just outside the campus are some really bad areas. Even for this family, somewhat familiar with the rough areas around NYC, Philly or even one of the worst in US - Camden, NJ, for a small southern city, quite surprisingly and relatively speaking, Columbia has more than its share of problems – especially during late night hours.
To me, that’s the only blemish on USC, but at the same time If you’re aware of these issues coming in and learn what areas to avoid and make it a point to avoid being off campus during late night hours, travel about at night in groups, etc. - you shouldn’t have too much to worry about. That’s probably the most important tip I picked up from others on this site.
@SECfan1234 Yeah the cost of USC is less than UVA would be for me and the honors college is awesome especially since im guaranteed admission into the International business program. I’m just hoping if I choose USC there is still room in the honors dorms since im making a decision much later than most
@ivyhopeful97 Housing is based on application date, not decision date.
USC 2019 
So USC won out! That is great, we didn’t go down there but I am sure it was a great weekend.
I took my son to both events in the hopes of him deciding between UNC and USC HC. I must say that USC really has their act together. Both events were very organized and well-attended. On Saturday morning, my son told me that he has decided to go to USC. I’m very happy with his decision.
My d just attended the scholar social and admitted students weekend and we were very impressed. Final decision to be made this week between USC and some smaller liberal arts colleges. One question I had is that we had some conflicting information given during our tour of honors college dorm. My d is premed (bio or biochem) and we were led to believe awhile back that class sizes are small for the honors college classes but our tour guide said that bio is taken with all other college students but “discussion group” is small. Another student at honors dorm disagreed stating bio classes are honors only and size is at most 40 students. Does anyone have further info on class sizes for honors college students going premed route??
Call honors and ask to be sure. D’s experience was with physics but hers was honors only - lecture and lab. Can also look at class list on honors site. If it is honors section of regular class it will say something like honors:MATH 122. Other classes are unique to honors and have SCHC prefix regardless of subject.
Looking at fall list there are honors class and lab sections of bio and chemistry. Non-honor students can not sign up for these. Look on honors page under academic then class list. If you look on master schedule you can click on course title and see class limits.
^^to add: for D, some upper level courses (500+) that were labeled honors did allow non-honors as space allowed. These were upperclass students and classes were still small. Mostly happened for classes that were not offered every year/semester. Possibly might also happen in upper level chem or bio at some point, but honestly when you get that far into major, many classes are small anyway and the honors advantage isn’t as big.
My D is a sophomore in honors pre pharmacy (will start pharmacy in the fall). Her honors Biology class has about 30 students. Try to get your D to orientation early so she can get all honors sections. Sometimes they don’t fit I your schedule. My D had to take one semester of regular biology because of scheduling conflicts. This was the only class her freshman year she did yet get honors though. She had some classes with 10-14 kids!!!
About how many kids are in the HC each year?
Around 400 students in each class. So around 1600 students total. Per Honors website.
@ivyhopeful97 Congrats on your decision! You will really enjoy the Honors College and the International Business program is fantastic. My S is a sophomore International Business major and could not be happier.