<p>Some universities - particularly larger public instuitutions - have Honors Programs or Honors Colleges embedded within them. They offer a range of extras, from research opportunities to counseling to symposia to dedicated residences and curricula.</p>
<p>So I was wondering . . . which honors programs or colleges do you think are successful, and why?</p>
<p>It'd help if you could indicate whether the program has any dedicated program components that are limited to just those in the honors programs/college.</p>
<p>For example, it looks like Skidmore's Honors Program sponsors an annual Academic Festival, has internships for credit, and sponsors service-learning courses. It looks like it does not have dedicated honors housing or dedicated honors courses.</p>
<p>Penn State’s Schreyer Honors program is probably the gold standard.</p>
<p>Also UVA, UNC-CH (both are almost impossible to get into OOS), UT-Austin, UIUC, and U of Michigan- Ann Arbor also have notable programs, as well.</p>
<p>Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University has its own freestanding campus (dorms, dining hall, amphitheater,fitness center, classrooms, etc.) tucked away in the corner of ASU’s main campus in Tempe. This 8-acre, $130 million honors college campus will open next month.</p>
<p>Barrett also offers special classes and summer study abroad programs that are open only to honors students, as well as special advising/mentoring for national scholarships (like Marshall, Rhodes, Goldwater, etc.). Honors students are definitely treated well at ASU.</p>
<p>For above average New York state residents, the Macaulay Honors Program. Tuition and room covered: a good deal, given the sheer number of talented and motivated kids from working class families in the city.</p>
<p>. . . looks like it has a dedicated curriculum and special advisors</p>
<p>Is there anything specific about the Macaulay program that makes it a high quality program?</p>
<p>Reason I’m asking is there there is information already on CC about the money side of Honors, but I’ve seen very little on the quality of these different programs.</p>
<p>Aside from the money . . . what makes Macaulay/UGA/Penn State honors programs so good . . . or are we just all about the $$$$$$ :-)</p>
<p>UT-Austin has a ridiculously sick pair of Honors programs:</p>
<p>McCombs Business Honors (for the more Type-A among us)</p>
<p>and Plan II Liberal Arts (for the intellectual, Great Books-type).</p>
<p>Both are VERY selective (to the point where Plan II bases almost half of its decision on essays). I almost went to UT for Plan II, but chose Duke instead :)</p>
<p>^UT’s Honors Engineering is really really good too. You basically have to be in the top 3-5% of your class to get in. I’m pretty sure that program is all numbers-based though.</p>
<p>^ Yes, I agree. It’s very good, but obviously any math/sci program will probably be more objectively numbers-based in its admissions procedures. But yeah, if you like Engineering, it’s great.</p>
<p>If you can stand the rural location and conservative religious and political climate, you might find University of Mississippi’s Honors College worth a look. It was rated top three in the country recently. It also includes the Croft Institute, an international studies research facility.</p>
Sure, but it isn’t the case that you’re attending a separate college and taking all of your classes thru it. In fact the great majority of the classes are elsewhere. According to the info for prospective Barrett students
Here is the entire list of honors classes offered this Fall – <a href=“http://honors.asu.edu/Files/Documents/Fall2009Course6309.pdf[/url]”>http://honors.asu.edu/Files/Documents/Fall2009Course6309.pdf</a> It looks heavily loaded with the “Human Event” seminar required of all Honors students, and a smattering of other classes. Everything else you choose is in the regular U. Frankly their program looks a little weak compared to what some other schools offer, the 1st 2 years having a much bigger proportion of honors seminars & classes.</p>
<p>Honors colleges are commonly oversold, the glossy pamphlets giving the impression a small LAC has been set up inside a larger university. Honors colleges do offer some very valuable perks and let you meet some of the top students at your college. But when you’re thinking of honors colleges the pitch is often that you’re getting an elite private education at the public school price. Unfortunately this isn’t really the case.</p>
<p>Depending on the U’s program, what they offer may range from taking separate honors classes to taking just one honors seminar per semester. Some of the honors offerings may just be a special discussion section of the regular class (at many U’s classes can have 100-500 students, then everyone meets once a week in a smaller group with a TA). You really need to dig in to find what a particular school offers. </p>
<p>And keep in mind honors college programs typically offer the small classes and top profs the brochures promise during the 1st two years of college, because it doesn’t take that many classes to come up with a set that will meet the lower-division requirements for most majors. It is rare to find more than a token amount of offerings upper-division since the honors program simply doesn’t have enough faculty members to duplicate an entire major or set of majors.</p>
<p>So the last two years most/all classes are taken with the rest of the students in the regular U’s classes. The teaching of the profs will be geared towards that level, the discussions and student involvement in class will be dominated by the regular students, and so on. And class sizes may balloon, too, if you’re in a larger public U and a popular major. Peer effects are big, too; when almost everyone around you at school is a strong student you have lots of good examples of how hard to work, of extras like doing research or internships to get a leg up for post-college. If the top kids are a few hundred strong dispersed among tens of thousands at the U then good examples may be harder to see. When it comes to finding a job, employers are less likely to send recruiters to campus with a limited number of honors college seniors compared to the campus-full they’ll find at more highly regarded schools.</p>
<p>Honors colleges do offer some valuable perks in addition to the classes. Typical ones include registering for classes before everyone else so you get the classes you want (a perk worth its weight in gold!), special counselors, guaranteed housing, special library privileges. They will stamp your diploma with some indication of honors college or make a note on your transcript. If you are going to be attending a given college anyway, being in the honors program is a way to ensure you get the most it has to offer. But I would be skeptical of attending a college for its honors program in place of a more highly regarded U if finances are not an issue.</p>