<p>Are you interested in earning a major scholarship during or after undergrad (Marshall, Truman, Gates-Cambridge, Fulbright, Rhodes)? If so, check out University of Georgia's Honors College - it's a scholarship machine, especially for Rhodes. The Rhodes Foundation eats up those kids...</p>
<p>anyone know anything about the U of Minnesota Twin Cities honors program?</p>
<p>UConn Honors has an SAT average of 1398 – pretty strong (UConn as a whole is about 1192).</p>
<p>UT Austin has a great honors program with benefits such as smaller classes, top profs, honors housing and undergraduate research opportunities. Two exceptional programs are the engineering honors program and Plan II Honors, which is the liberal arts honors program. UT Austin offers generous scholarships to National Merit Scholars and the School of Engineering awards significant scholarships to top students. Texas universities provide out-of-state tuition waivers for out-of-state and foreign students who receive a scholarship of at least $1,000 a year from the university.</p>
<p>UT Austin was ranked ninth in the nation for engineering in the U.S. News & World Report 2008 edition of Americas Best Colleges, as well as seventh in business and first in accounting. In addition, McCombs School of Business ranked ninth in the country on Business Week magazines list of the top undergraduate business schools. Find more details on UT Austins rankings including those for grad school at Rankings</a> & Kudos : About UT : The University of Texas at Austin .</p>
<p>If you decide to apply to UT Austin, read the application materials carefully, because there are three separate deadlines: the deadlines for housing, honors program application and scholarship application are October 1, January 15 and December 1, respectively. These all are earlier than the general application deadline.</p>
<p>I was going to mention the venerable Plan II at Univ of Texas, but a couple of people beat me to it, and with much more detail than I knew. If you can get into the idea of living in Texas, everyone in this state knows what Plan II is. I've had friends from Plan II, and they have a great sense of community and incredible attention from professors. In Texas, if you're supersmart, you go to Plan II or Rice (if you stay in state -- and apologies to other schools).</p>
<p>I think I'll plug in UGA's Honor Program. I haven't been there or experienced, but everything I hear about is great/raving/awesome/etc. </p>
<p>Better yet, the Foundation Fellowship.</p>
<p>The top Honors programs I would assume :) without looking further, are the highest rated schools that also have honors programs --</p>
<p>UVA
UMich Honors</a> - University of Michigan
UCLA UCLA</a> Honors Programs</p>
<p>The UCLA program has pre-screening requirements of 4.1 UC GPA (weighted, capped) and top 3% class rank. From this group, the honors students are selected based on a 250 word essay.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley does not have an honors program... they insist everyone is honors! haha</p>
<p>I have heard that UC San Diago has some highly competitive Honors program in Bio...does anyone know about it?</p>
<p>I'm an alum of the University of Michigan honors program. It was terrific: small classes with top profs, special honors advising, honors housing, essentially an elite small college in a great university. I moved seamlessly into my major, philosophy, where I had all small classes: small honors classes at the intro level, small upper-level and graduate-level classes in my junior and senior years, all with one of the top philosophy faculties in the world. It got me into two top Ivies for grad school. Michigan is in general very strong in the humanities.</p>
<p>2007-08
median SAT (math + verbal) 1410-1550
median ACT 32-34
median GPA (unweighted) 3.80-4.0</p>
<p>I don't know about merit aid, though, especially OOS.</p>
<p>How many students are in the Honors program at U Michigan?</p>
<p>pmyen, I guess you ruled out St. Mary's College of Maryland because it's so small? </p>
<p>Or, if not, have you considered it?</p>
<p>On second thought, my comment in post #48 is probably not very relevant. I think housing is a critical issue in this -- to be housed, eat and socialize with other honors students is likely a very important component of Honors.</p>
<p>UCLA does not appear, in reading their website, to offer any Honors housing. As I recall from a LOOONGG time ago, students on Athletic Scholarship received priority housing assignment -- Dorms, southern and northern Suites. Since on-campus housing is in short supply at many flagship state universities, priority housing is pretty important.</p>
<p>I actually came across what appeared to be very promising information regarding the Honors Program at U of Alabama. There are some great financial incentives for OOS scholars and they've just completed brand new Honors dorms which look great. I didn't think much of UA before I really started digging into it, and ultimately D chose elsewhere, but I must say I was really surprised and impressed. If I recall correctly, over the last few years they have more USA Today Scholars than any other school in the country.</p>
<p>
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<p>I'm not sure exactly---I couldn't find that info on their website. But we can noodle it out a bit. I'd guess it's something on the order of 1,000 students, perhaps slightly more. The Honors program is a program of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LS&A) which comprises about 60% of Michigan undergrads---Engineering, Business, Architecture, Art & Design, Education, Nursing, etc. are all separate schools. I believe I once read that the Honors program invites roughly the top 10% of the entering LS&A class (so 10% of roughly 3700) to join, though not everyone accepts. But I don't think they have a precise enrollment quota; numbers may fluctuate somewhat from year to year, depending on the strength of the top of the admitted students pool, and how many invitees accept. Also, not everyone who starts in the Honors program sticks with it through four years; the advantages of the program aren't as clear cut for upperclassmen, who are generally in smaller specialized classes in their major anyway. </p>
<p>Michigan seems to have Honors housing for about 600 students. But it's a longstanding Michigan tradition that most upperclassmen live off-campus in houses, apartments, co-ops, and fraternities/sororities, and I suspect that's as true for Honors students as for others. Overall, only 35% of students live in on-campus housing, but that includes virtually all freshmen and a still substantial percentage of sophomores, far fewer juniors and seniors. Also, students in the Honors program aren't required to live in Honors housing; some may prefer to live on other parts of campus, with their non-Honors friends, etc, even as underclassmen. Assuming some fraction of Honors freshman and sophomores live elsewhere, and a larger fraction of Honors upperclassmen live off-campus, the 600 places in Honors housing is probably consistent with an overall Honors enrollment of around 1,000, perhaps a bit more.</p>
<p>In regard to post #53 regarding the importance of honors housing, you also should check to see how long the honors housing is offered. For example, at Texas A&M it is offered for only one year. In contrast, at UT Austin you may remain in honors housing after your freshman year, and there is a university dining facility located right in the honors quad. The UT Austin honors dorms are charming older buildings with wooden floors and are within walking distance of Guadalupe StreetAustin's most bohemian sidewalkwith its multitude of restaurants and shops.</p>
<p>If you are interested in trying to compare the overall quality of the institutions with honors programs, the link at post #45 showing details on UT Austins rankings at Rankings & Kudos : About UT : The University of Texas at Austin also gives links at the very bottom to about a dozen ranking sites. I looked at a number of these and I found the peer assessment scores (used by U.S. News and World Report to rank universities in its annual Americas Best Colleges issue) to be very helpful. The rating from a low of 1 to a maximum of 5 is an average of the opinions of presidents, provosts and deans of admissions who rated each schools undergraduate academic excellence. This is the number U.S. News uses for generating rankings of best business and engineering programs, and it helps you to compare schools on different U.S. News lists, such as Best National Universities, Best Liberal Arts Colleges, and Best Universities- Masters (those lacking doctoral programs). You can find the peer assessment scores in the annual Americas Best Colleges issue.</p>
<p>My son has SAT scores of 800 verbal and 780 math in his sophomore year and is first in his class with a 5.5 GPA, so he has a lot of options for college. He wants a good engineering honors program and I want an institution that offers good merit based aid since we dont qualify for need based aid. Using the overall peer assessment scores, the engineering peer assessment scores, the total number of National Merit Scholars and the number of National Merit Scholars offered university scholarships, I came up with a short list of eleven schools with top engineering programs offering merit aid to National Merit Scholars. However, not all of these schools offer honors programs and the cost before scholarships (2007-2008 tuition plus room and board) varies greatly, from lows of $14,018 at Texas A&M and $15,806 at UT Austin to a high of $46,506 at Harvey Mudd. </p>
<p>If you can qualify for the honors program, the out of state tuition waiver, and a merit scholarship at UT Austin, I think it is by far the best buy in the nation unless you are a resident of a state with one of the (few) other top public universities with honors programs and merit aid to top scholars. UT Austins overall peer assessment score is 4.1 (slightly above the rating for private schools such as Rice, Georgetown, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame) and it is 4.2 for both business and engineering, putting it in the top ten among national schools in both categories. You can assume that the academic quality in the honors programs is somewhat higher.</p>
<p>does texas calculate gpa differently? 5.5 GPA is like impossible lol, especially sophomore year</p>
<p>William & Mary is an honors college unto itself.</p>
<p>Travel Family: You're probably thinking of the medical scholars program. Here's a link if you are interested. </p>
<p>In response to post #57, Im not sure why our Texas school district uses a 5.0 scale instead of 4.0. The 5.5 GPA is on a 5.0 scale, with an extra point for pre-AP/honors courses as well as AP classes. Because of level courses required for graduation, the 5.5 is just about as high as you can get by the end of sophomore year. </p>
<p>Incidentally, we moved from the Northeast and I was afraid that Texas schools would provide an inferior education. They do give much less homework here because they encourage students to participate in extracurricular or service activities (my son has time for both band and a varsity sport), and they spend much less per pupil on education, but the quality of the teachers at the honors/AP level seems to be similar.</p>
<p>Gotta throw in a bone for Michigan States honors program. The fact that they have a separate dean and buildings is like the epitomy of elite-ness hahah. If only my school was like that with their honors :(</p>