Best Honor Programs at Public Universities (Updated)

College Search & Selection
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<p>Disclaimer: These are the differences that I perceive, having devoted several years to research from the perspective of a self-proclaimed LAC lover who nonetheless desperately wanted to find financial safeties. (I ended up having only one financial safety, my non-LAC state U, although I did have several matches and low matches that met full need.) I’m going to use Swarthmore for my “LAC” examples since it’s the school that I actually attend.</p>

<p>o A First-Year Seminar at Swarthmore is capped at 12 students; many comparable seminars at larger schools I’ve seen are capped around 18-25. At least for English/humanities-type discussion seminars, I’ve been in classes of both sizes (the larger one being team-taught, both high quality) and size does make a difference. Actually, I would say that the optimum seminar size is 8 people, such as some (though not all) of Swarthmore’s upper-level honors seminars.</p>

<p>To use direct examples from my own courses this semester and next, here’s the distribution:</p>

<p>FALL 2010
8 people - intermediate/advanced French language course (just before lit)
8 people - no-prereq elective, workshop in literary translation
12 people - capped first-year seminar in English lit
26 people - usual 2nd CS course, balance of majors and non-majors</p>

<p>SPRING 2011
8 people - first French literature course (upper-level)
10 people - selective application-only writing workshop (capped at 12)
<11 people - 2nd-year Chinese language drill (audit, may be broken into 2 sections due to size)
12 people - single-credit linguistics seminar</p>

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<p>Maybe it’s presumptuous to think that I couldn’t take this many small classes in my first year (7/9 courses with <=12 people) at a state university, even one with an excellent honors program. I would welcome direct examples to the contrary. I think it’s also worth noting that Intro Psych, usually the largest or second-largest course at Swarthmore (enrollment tops out around 150 students), breaks out into all professor-led “attachment” sections.</p>

<p>o At an LAC, the majority of courses–let’s say 75%–will be like your given example of an honors course: <25 students, discussion-based, accessible professors, no TAs. But an honors student at almost any larger university will only be taking 50% honors courses, if they really try (and many of my friends only take 1 honors course a semester out of 5 courses total). Many honors colleges focus on offering rigorous alternatives to general education courses, rather than introductory major courses–and rightly so, since GE courses will appeal to the broadest population. </p>

<p>o Then there’s the matter of honors contracts, which I perceive as being certainly more rigorous than the regular course alone, but nonetheless attaches a misleading “honors” label to a regular course with all the associated disadvantages of that course. If the honors college is promoting all these great LAC-like characteristics, then it’s not unreasonable to assume that the same characteristics are more difficult to find/less easily accessible among general non-honors course offerings. An honors contract creates more rigor and access to professors, but the class dynamic is still substantively the same as it would be for non-honors.</p>

<p>o Oftentimes, the “LAC-like” label is used to sell public honors programs to students looking for not just the academic aspects, but also the social aspects of a private LAC. I believe strongly in the virtues of an honors program for students who want the rah-rah atmosphere and excitement of a large university, but also want a smaller support group of academic-minded friends. I believe equally strongly that it’s misleading and wrong to tell students who want the social intimacy of a small LAC–where, after one semester, it’s rare for me to walk across campus and not encounter someone I know well enough to greet by name–that a public honors program is going to satisfy that desire.</p>

<p>o What schools are truly LAC-like, in my opinion? William & Mary, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, University of Minnesota - Morris, University of North Carolina - Asheville, New College of Florida–all to varying degrees, and of greatly varying selectivity.</p>

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<p>@tomslawsky – Unlike my kids, I was born without a left brain, so I have no earthly clue what you’re talking about. Sounds good, though!</p>

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<p>@keilexandra – well, UNC Asheville actully <em>is</em> an LAC – a public one, but nonetheless an LAC – so I can see how it might resemble one. :)</p>

<p>BTW, I graduated from New College back when it was still private (but when it was right about to become public). I’ve never attended an honors college at a large public university, so I have no firsthand knowledge how such an experience might differ from my experience at New College.</p>

<p>Again, though, that isn’t what this thread is about. Aren’t we discussing best honors programs at public universities? I for one am very interested in that topic, because my husband and I can’t afford to send our kids to private LACs. It’s not even an option.</p>

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<p>Speaking of New College: I took a history course there focusing on the 12th century. (If you’ve ever taken medieval history, you know that the 12th century is kind of special – google Charles Homer Haskins, <em>The Renaissance of the 12th Century,</em> or the term “the medievalist revolt.”) Well, anyway, this course was a tutorial consisting of two people: the professor and moi. I enjoyed it so much that, the following trimester, I said to my professor / adviser, “Let’s do the 13th century.” It just seemed like the natural sequel to the 12th century. So we did a tutorial on the 13th century. It was great. Later my adviser said, “You know, it’s very unusual to do an entire course on the 13th century.” LOL, I had no idea. I guess the 13th century wasn’t considered as earth-shattering, in terms of its impact on cultural and intellectual history, as the 12th. Even though it was the century of Thomas Aquinas and Gothic architecture. Go figure. But, anway, you had that kind of flexibility at New College. You could study almost anything you wanted, as long as you could talk your adviser into it. I have no idea whether that’s typical at other LACs.</p>

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<p>@tomslawsky – just re-read your comment (re taking SAT 15 times), and now I get it. I’m like Bertie trying to grasp what Jeeves just said: Sometimes I don’t get it right off the bat…</p>

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<p>@mom2collegekids – tried to PM you but it wouldn’t go through. OK if I post it here? Here goes:</p>

<p>Hi again, mom2collegekids!</p>

<p>Son received notification today that he has been accepted at University of Alabama. Woooo-hooooo! No word about merit aid or honors college, though…I guess that comes later. But, being the worrywart that I am, I immediately started to worry: Were we supposed to designate UA as our first choice on the National Merit app? Or does that come later, at finalist stage?</p>

<p>It’s all so complicated—gaaa! I keep fearing that we’ll forget something…so many loose ends.</p>

<p>Thanks!!</p>

<p>Diane</p>

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<p>I’m glad I’m Hispanic. I get all the Merit Finalist benefits without having to designate one school :D</p>

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<p>Hi, Jason! I’m glad for you, too. :slight_smile: But that doesn’t answer my question.</p>

<p>Does anyone know whether it’s too late to designate a school for National Merit? I’m thinking it’s not too late…I seem to remember that there was something in our packet to the effect that we should hang on to the list of schools, so DS can do the designation when he finds out whether he’s a finalist.</p>

<p>I guess I should check the packet…I think I just answered my own question!</p>

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<p>Schedule specific to college-sponsored awards:
March 1 through May 31, 2011: A Finalist who has reported a sponsor college as first choice by March 1 will be included in the first group referred to that institution for scholarship consideration. Periodically NMSC will notify sponsors of additional Finalists who have reported (by May 31) the college or university as their first choice.
April 27, 2011: NMSC will begin mailing college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offers.
NOTE: If NMSC receives notification of a change in college choice from a Finalist after mailing a college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offer to that student, the Finalist cannot be offered another college-sponsored Merit Scholarship award. This applies even if the new choice of college is one that also sponsors Merit Scholarship awards. Therefore, a Finalist who has previously reported a sponsor college as first choice but is uncertain about it may choose to notify NMSC that he/she is now “undecided”; such notification must be received at NMSC, via mail or by fax to (847) 866-5113, before April 27. The Finalist can subse- quently report a firm college choice that NMSC receives by May 31.
May 31, 2011: Deadline date for NMSC to receive reports of a sponsor college as first choice. Because it is necessary to end the competition in a timely manner, only college choice reports that NMSC receives by May 31 will be used to identify the final group of candidates to a college or university that sponsors awards.</p>

<p>This applies to the NM scholarship itself. You should check with UA whether they have earlier requirements in order to qualify for other scholarships or the Honors college.</p>

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<p>Bama sends its scholarships in another letter since scholarships come from another dept.</p>

<p>It is not too late to name a #1 choice for your NMF school.</p>

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<p>THANK YOU, mom2cdollegekids and cltdad!</p>

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<p>The original point of this thread, I think, was to identify honors colleges at public institutions that were comparable to elite universities. A lot of hyperbole was thrown around. E.g. State U. Honors College does this and that and is great because of this and that so it is the best in the nation and is just like an Ivy League! Little actual comparison was done so I decided to give it a quick look.</p>

<p>For this comparison, I assumed most would agree that the Ivy League constitutes “elite” schools. Much data is also readily available from their Common Data Sets. I then compared their admissions data to public honors compiled on the list way back in post #53. However, the honors colleges do not present all of their admissions data consistently, or at all. Some may just be located in obscure reaches of the universities website, but I used only what I could find. The schools I compared to the eight Ivies are:</p>

<p>Arizona State Barrett
Central Florida Honors
Florida Sate Honors
Georgia Honors
Indiana University-Bloomington Honors
Maryland-College Park Honors
North Carolina-Chapel Hill Honors
Ohio State Honors
Penn State-Schreyers
Pitt Honors College
South Carolina Honors
Vermont Honors
Virginia-Echols
Washington Honors</p>

<p>Again, this list is nothing but a cross sample based on the list compiled previously in this thread. Some schools that had programs split for different majors were just too structurally different to compare (e.g. Alabama).</p>

<p>mikemac brought up some interesting issues regarding the difference between “elites” and public honors. Particularly the quality of peer students and how the size of the honors college may affect both the amount of honors level classes that can be offered and the how many of those peer honors students may populate those upper division or honors classes (or the university in general). Mom2collegekids countered that upper division classes have typically already weeded out weaker students. It is impossible to compare an upper division class at elite school #1 to public U #2. Presumably, they should cover similar information, as the same bodies accredit them all. Therefore, it would be complicated and difficult to compare them, if they could be at all. However, you can compare entrance SATs and size. </p>

<p>Below is the rank order of the Ivies and honors colleges according to their average Reading plus Math SAT scores (the least common denominator to get a consistent comparison) of the schools that had relatively easily accessible information (i.e. not all of those listed above). Only freshman admission statistics were used, as schools vary in the numbers and availability of entry of other students into honors later in their academic career. The list of schools below is sorted by Reading+Math SAT average (in some cases extrapolated from the 50% range). That score is followed by the enrolled freshman class size for the school (Ivies) or honors college/program and the % of admits for the entire freshman class of the school. Hence, for the Ivies (in bold), the statistics for the overall school was used, as those schools are assumed to be “elite” in total.</p>

<ol>
<li> Yale 1490 CR+M….1,307 students (100% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li> Princeton 1485 CR+M….1,320 students (100% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li> Virginia-Echols 1477….105 students (3.2% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li> Harvard 1475….1,663 students (100% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li> Georgia Honors 1471….525 students (11.2% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li> Pitt Honors 1457….712 students (19% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li> Columbia 1455….1,366 students (100% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li> Dartmouth 1445….1,094 students (100% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li> Penn 1440….2,475 students (100% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li>Brown 1425….1,494 students (100% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li>South Carolina 1404….321 students (8.2% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li>Cornell 1395….3,181 students (100% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li>Penn State-Schreyers 1390….300 students (4.6% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li>Indiana Honors 1347….989 students (13.8% of freshman enrollment)</li>
<li>ASU Barrett 1314….~782 students (8.2% of freshman enrollment)</li>
</ol>

<p>I could not find freshman honors-specific SAT data for Maryland, Ohio State, UCF, and UWash. Class sizes, but no SAT data were available for:
UNC honors ~300 students (7.6% of freshman enrollment)
Vermont honors 160 students (6.1% of freshman enrollment)</p>

<p>Looking at this data, from the set of honors colleges with freshman SAT statistics available from their websites, Virginia-Echols, Georgia, Pitt, and South Carolina all fall within the SAT average range of the Ivies (e.g. at or better than Cornell, which has the lowest SAT range). </p>

<p>For the argument about the number of such students being important, it is worth noting that the largest honors colleges by freshman admissions numbers are Indiana, ASU-Barrett, and Pitt, and each of these all had class sizes roughly within 50% of the Ivies total freshman enrollment. </p>

<p>Particularly, Georgia’s and Pitt’s honors college seems to stand out in being both in the range of SATs of other Ivies (between Harvard and Columbia) but still having a relative large freshman class size comprising 19% (Pitt) and 11.2% (Georgia) of its total freshman enrollment of the university. Those honors populations represent a freshman student population of 65% (Pitt) and 48% (Georgia) of the smallest Ivy freshman class at Dartmouth. </p>

<p>Another metric with which one could evaluate honors colleges, and compare them to Ivies, is to look at their productivity at producing highly competitive national scholarship winners. This assumes that the winners from the above schools are products of their honors colleges, but I think that is a fairly safe assumption. For this exercise, I selected three of the most prestigious scholarships that conveniently also have their winners listed for the past decade on their respective websites: Rhodes, Marshalls, and Trumans. </p>

<p>The following is an evaluation of the number of Rhodes, Marshalls and Truman scholarship winners from 2001-2010. Because those scholarships vary in the numbers awarded, both year-to-year, and from each other, rank order for the numbers of each scholarship for each school was established and then averaged. Here are the results, again compared to the Ivies (in bold), followed by the average rank of the school for the number of winners of the three scholarships in the last decade.</p>

<ol>
<li> Harvard 1.7</li>
<li> Yale 1.7</li>
<li> Brown 3.7</li>
<li> Princeton 4</li>
<li> Penn 6.3</li>
<li> Columbia 6.6</li>
<li> Dartmouth 8</li>
<li> Georgia Honors 8.7</li>
<li> North Carolina-CH Honors 8.7</li>
<li> Pitt Honors 9.3</li>
<li>Washington Honors 9.3</li>
<li> Cornell 9.6</li>
<li>Virginia-Echols 10.3</li>
<li>Arizona State-Barretts 10.7</li>
<li> Penn State-Schreyers 14.6</li>
<li> Indiana Honors 15</li>
<li>Florida State Honors 15.3</li>
<li>South Carolina Honors 16.3</li>
<li>Ohio State Honors 16.6</li>
<li>Maryland Honors 17.6</li>
<li>Central Florida Honors 18.3</li>
<li>Vermont Honors 19.6</li>
</ol>

<p>Here, the Ivies clearly dominate, with seven of the eight producing more scholarship winners than the first public, perhaps as an artifact of the size and quality of their student classes. However, Georgia, UNC-CH, Pitt, and Washington all had produced average more scholarship winners than Cornell.</p>

<p>Combining the results of SAT scores, size of the classes, and scholarship productivity, Georgia and Pitt seem to have honors colleges that could be deemed to best approach the “experience” of elite (Ivy) colleges based on the above criteria. Data for UNC and UWash are incomplete, as their admissions scores were not readily available, although UNC class size was less than 10% of its total freshman enrollment.</p>

<p>In any case, take the above for what you will.</p>

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<p>Good info…</p>

<p>The original point of this thread, I think, was to identify honors colleges at public institutions that were comparable to elite universities.</p>

<p>That may have been the wording of the original post, but I don’t think it should have been the intent of the original post. I think the point should have been to identify honors colleges at public universities that will provide a high quality “private-school-like” or “LAC-like” education. </p>

<p>When you include words (like “elite”) that suggest that public honors colleges provide an education that is comparable to Top 20 schools, then the discussion devolves into the same mess you get when you start arguing public K-12 education vs private…or home-schooling vs traditional schooling, or other touchy subjects where both sides can offer meaningful points. </p>

<p>Instead, I think the purpose of this thread should be to indentify various publics with strong honors colleges, detail what those honors colleges offer, and offer why they are beneficial to a high stats student.</p>

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<p>I would also offer that giving the avg SAT of an honors college may not tell the whole story. Some schools do not have competitive admissions for honors…they admit all who apply who have a minimum set of required stats. Frankly, I like that criteria. I don’t really care for a honors college system where you can have the stats, but still not get “selected.”</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>So to address this specifically at Penn State, it is actually interesting, because they have a “Gateway” program where students start after their first semester or transfer into Schreyers from their branch campuses which have significantly lower admissions statistics than University Park (main campus). Schreyers limits its incoming freshmen enrollment into Schreyers to 300. However, out of the total 1,827 honors students in Schreyers, 168 entered the program from its 19 branch campuses in either their sophomore or junior years; and an additional 519 enter from the main campus their sophomore or junior years. That is at ~38% of their total honors students that are not entering through the “selective” first-year admissions process.</p>

<p>Furthermore, discussing the transferring up or down, obviously the retention statistics (which according to their 2010-11 CDS is 92.5%) indicate that 7.5% of their students transfer or drop out from the main campus. However, Penn State also reports that up to 60% of the system total graduates start at one of its branches, which again, have sometimes very low admissions statistics. So, it seems, for Penn State’s system, the quality of students may actually be getting lower as you progress through the years at University Park, at least judging by admissions statistics and inward transfer rates. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Penn State does not publish, nor does any similar system, the SAT or other averages for their entire student body at any particular campus.</p>

<p>Not to pick on Penn State, but they have the (mis)fortune of having many of their statistics readily available on their website. Just a word of caution about statistics published in brochures and websites (and even Common Data Sets), without looking more closely at any particular school’s actual additional policies.</p>

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<p>^^^^^I would beg to differ with the assertion that “the quality of students may actually be getting lower as you progress through the years at University Park.” In general, the Gateway students being accepted into the PSU Schreyer Honors College are those college students who have proven to be able to handle college courses with a high level GPA. I know of no statistics available, but the general comment from upper-class students in Schreyer, is that one essentially needs a 4.0 to enter under the Gateway program. These Gateway scholars may not have the same gaudy high-school statistics as the freshman admits, but their performance at the college level should not be questioned.</p>

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<p>Regarding the term “elite”, it is completely subjective. There is no cutoff, only perception. I think, for this purpose, there is a fairly universal popular perception that Ivy League schools would be considered “elite”, although this in no way implies they have an exclusive claim to such. There are certainly others, e.g. Stanford, MIT, CalTech, etc. Heck, State U. could be considered elite compared to the Major City Community College. It’s all a matter of perspective.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Honors colleges/programs are so different from one school to another that there aren’t many criteria that can be used to compare them directly. SATs are one of the few least common denominators, or at least an easily accessible standardized tools for comparison that can be utilized (at least between some schools). But in any case, that is why I also included major scholar productivity and class size. While perhaps providing some guidance, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt, as should any ranking. Nothing does a greater disservice than relying solely on a ranking like above or, for example, a single methodology like US News.</p>

<p>

That is the exact policy of the University of Pittsburgh’s honors college. For that particular example, when you are admitting close to 20% of your total incoming freshman class (and 65% of Dartmouth’s incoming class) into your honors college, and still have average SAT scores higher than some Ivies and many other honors colleges that are admitting only a handful of students, that warrants a favorable impression by comparison, at least IMO.</p>

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<p>Very interesting analysis, thank you, Pennquack. One minor quibble–you compare the honors population of state universities to the entire populations of Ivies. This means that recruited athletes and development admits, for instance, are included in the average number. I am far from a statistician, even an amateur one, but I wonder whether the analysis would make more sense in comparing percentages (e.g. top 20% of Pitt vs. top 20% of Penn). I admit that this obviously biases toward the elites. It just seems problematic that we are comparing Honors College enrollment with entire small universities, and I don’t know that this is representative of student experiences at the respective schools.</p>

<p>

QFT.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>The premise (or I guess hypothesis) of the question was are (and which) public honors colleges/programs (not the state universities as a whole) similar to “elite” colleges, with the Ivies used as the comparative control for what “elite” generally means. Therefore, only the population of the state honors colleges were compared to the “elite” (Ivy) colleges. The remainder of the state schools were not part of the question, as I guess it could already be assumed they are not “elite”. In any case, as you could see above, the percentages of each state university’s honors college admissions to its total admissions varies greatly from one school to the next, so it makes such comparison unpractical. There simply aren’t such breakdowns of top 3%, 8%, 11%, 19%, etc, available for all these schools’ and Ivies’ SAT scores. </p>

<p>Again, the question wasn’t one of whether the top x% of State U. is similar to the top x% of Harvard, but rather how just a State U. Honors College compares to an elite colleges (the Ivies) in general. Also, the rank is also certainly not to suggest that, for instance, State U. Honors is superior, to say, Cornell.</p>

<p>The issue of whether the % of State U’s honors being a small overall % of the universities total population, as mikemac brought up, is open to debate and interpretation, so those % were included in the list for comparison.</p>

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<p>I just skimmed the twelve pages of posts and did not see anything about Clemson’s Calhoun Honors College. If I missed something, my apologies. The statistics suggest that Calhoun is excellent:</p>

<p>QUESTION #3 FROM THIS YEAR’S APPLICATION FOR INCOMING FRESHMEN:</p>

<p>“A typical applicant accepted to the Calhoun Honors College in 2010 presented an SAT of 1430 or ACT of 32, a weighted high school GPA of 4.53, compelling letters of recommendation, and a diversity of meaningful involvement, service and leadership activities. What do you want the selection committee to know about you and your experiences that would distinguish you as a candidate to join this dynamic intellectual community?”</p>

<p>FROM THE WEBSITE: </p>

<p>“To be considered for admission to the Honors College, applicants must have a combined critical reading and math SAT score of at least 1320 or an ACT score of 30. In exceptional situations we will consider applications from students who do not fully meet these qualifications. However, please keep in mind that admission to the Honors College is highly selective, with SAT scores historically averaging 1400 or higher and applicants typically ranking in the top three percent of their high school class. Freshman enrollment in the Honors College is limited to approximately 250, or less than ten percent of the freshman class.”</p>

<p>[Clemson</a> University : Calhoun Honors College : Incoming Freshmen](<a href=“http://www.clemson.edu/cuhonors/prospectivestudents/incoming.html]Clemson”>http://www.clemson.edu/cuhonors/prospectivestudents/incoming.html)</p>

<p>Does anyone have any information on Calhoun? Our son has applied from out of state. We have not visited yet, but will so if he is accepted. A family member told me several days ago that Clemson is a beautiful school. I know for sure that the weather is a whole lot nicer than the up-North Ivies during the school year. I should know because I attended Brown, where the primary color during the winter months is gray :-)</p>