<p>Hi everyone, I’m a high school senior from central NJ and I plan on applying to AU and the AU Honors Program. Since there doesn’t seem to be a thread on the new Honors program on the AU message board yet, I thought I’d go and start it.<br>
I’d like to hear from other Honors applicants, especially on the supplement essay (Creating a new Honors course). While I have a proposed course, I’m having trouble with coming up with a good introduction (something other than “I would like to propose…” or “My proposed course is…”). Has anyone completed the supplement and has any suggestions? </p>
<p>Hi - sent you a private message.</p>
<p>My son applied to American using the common app. He stated on the application that he was interested in applying to the honor’s program and the FDDS programs. He completed the two supplemental essays, but he just noticed on the American website that there is a separate application for the Honor’s Program and it’s a different question than what was on the common app. Does he need to complete this separate honor’s program application too? Does it need to be completed to be competitive for the FDDS?</p>
<p>@davenmame, if your son is interested in the honors program, he will need to complete that application; the FDDS also has another seperate application-note that these both have a priority deadline of Dec. 15, so if he could he should get both in ASAP. However I can’t imagine why the application to one program wouldn’t affect your chances of gaining acceptance to another</p>
<p>On this board last year, at least one applicant reported being accepted to the Honors program without having applied. Since it was the first year of the new program, I am guessing that AU was not entirely satisfied with the applicant pool and looked at additional sources to base their decision. However, if your son is interested in the program, he should apply directly for it and not count on AU looking at his FDDS application to base their decision. </p>
<p>I’m in the same boat. I didn’t notice until yesterday that the app had to be sent in by tomorrow so I have a course, but no idea how to structure the essay at all.</p>
<p>Would it be better to send in my application by the priority deadline (tomorrow) and not have it be my best work or wait a little bit longer so that I can put more time and effort into it?</p>
<p>I can’t tell you for sure which is better, but I also didn’t have time to write the essay and I decided to give it quality time and actually produce a well-written essay rather than hand in a subpar one just to make the priority deadline. I feel like a poor-quality essay will get me a rejection no matter what, so I might as well just write a really good essay and send it in in a week or so and risk them looking unfavorably upon it for being late.a</p>
Does anybody know the general details about the second round of AU’s Honors application process? How many essays are involved, the word limits, the type of prompts?
Does anyone know when the deadline is for the honors program? I’m guessing it would be the same time as regular decision deadline.
@ThePhilosopherTV It’s tomorrow!
Ouch! Just saw on the AU website that 1850 students applied for 45 spots in AU Honors! Next round notifications are by Feb 6. Good luck everyone, not many slots out there!!
Wow, where was that on the site? Off to go check it out…because that will somehow help lol 
Does anyone know if students who don’t get into honors will be automatically considered for Scholars instead, or do you have to specifically apply?
Honestly I get a little confused about all that AU offers, with University College, etc. Of course it is more confusing because we are researching more than one school…but AU is at the very top of my D’s list.
It’s on the Honors Program page under “Applied to AU Honors?”
Wow that makes me a lot less confident about my application. I wonder what percentage of applicants will be advanced to the second round. I thought I wrote a good essay, but in the top 2.5%?? February 6 is going to be a long wait.
@PneumaticCow it was a bit of a shock how many applied. The good news is that there is plenty of other merit aid at AU outside of Honors, as well as other similar things (Scholars, LLCs, etc) that can still provide a different experience from the masses. I do know that AU is huge on showing interest so my guess is that you will need the stats, the essay, plus have shown significant interest to make it to the next round.
I’m definitely surprised with how many people applied for Honors. Definitely going to at least outline my essays just in case I advance to round 2. Do you think that if we make it into round 2 it’s safe to assume we’re admitted to AU in general, or will they notify us then?
Wait, isn’t yield taken in consideration? I’m sure if the honors program has a target of 45 students then it must accept well over 100.
I’m sure yield will be taken into account, but the yield for honors will likely be much higher than the university as a whole, given the $20K/yr scholarship and American’s yield oriented predisposition.
I still that doubt that yield will be that high. I remember reading on the Duke thread that even about ~40% of the people turn down Duke’s full tuition scholarship. I’m sure there are many kids who would prefer going to a top 20 school over a 20k scholarship at American.