<p>DS is finishing his Jr in HS and will start the college application in a few months. OSU Honor is definitely one of his top focus. We are attending a reception tonight to learn more about Honors program. I am doing some preparation so I know what questions to ask. </p>
<p>I have read over the web pages on Honors but I am not finding all the numbers.</p>
<li>What is the total number of honor student per year? Is that around 1500? </li>
<li>What is the 3 year and 4 year graduation rates? Since most of honor students come in with 10 ~15 AP and they could take higher level courses directly, I would assume one should be able to complete the 190 or so credits in about 3 years.<br></li>
<li>If there are 1500 honors students and each honor course is capped at 25 student, is it very likely that a student fails to get the class he/she wants to take?<br></li>
<li>Per the honor web site, each honor student is encouraged/required to take 1 ~ 2 honor classes per quarter. What about the other 3 ~ 4 classes?</li>
<li> What is the % of honor students get the chance to do study abroad?</li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>I can’t answer all your questions, but I can address a couple based upon our son’s experiences.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about 3 and 4 year rates, but I suspect that may be true with some less demanding majors. My son had 39 hours of credit from AP. It’s allowing him to complete his engineering program in four years instead of a more traditional five years.</p>
<p>He’s not had any issues with scheduling classes. He ran into his first conflict for next fall (his third year). He had two mandatory classes that met at the same time and only one class was offer. It wasn’t a bring deal, he just had to juggle the order of taking some other classes.</p>
<p>The other classes can be whatever they want. I don’t think the requirement is to take 1-2 honor classes per quarter. If I recall correctly, all they had to take was 6 total honor classes as a minimum. This is to maintain the scheduling priority status. Graduating with honors has different requirements.</p>
<p>I can give a few approximate answers.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>D’s freshmen group had ~1300 Honors students. About 1/3 were engineering. The rest were spread out from architecture to zoology. Every major has differing requirements. GECs have a wide range to choose from.</p></li>
<li><p>Very few kids try to graduate in 3 years even with advanced credits. They would be more likely to pick up a minor or 2nd minor during their 4 years.</p></li>
<li><p>Scheduling is tricky at every school. Who wants an 8am or even 9am class? Being in Honors does give the kids a big advantage over non-Honors students.</p></li>
<li><p>D has taken a few non-Honors classes. Mainly things she had to take for her major. When you get into the higher level classes for any major, there are very few honors sections because no one is in those classes except for the majors.</p></li>
<li><p>ANYONE who can come up the cost can study abroad. The opportunities are mind boggling.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>My daughter is a sophomore at OSU. I was not aware of this. Where did you get this information? </p>
<p>My daughter has not had trouble getting the classes she wanted. Like rleffler’s son, my daughter did have an issue when two classes were offered at the same time, and they had only one section of each. Other than that, it has been smooth sailing as far as scheduling goes. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As I recall, honors students need to take 6 honors classes (total). For some reason, I was thinking it was required by the end of their sophomore year. Hmm. . . maybe I’m not remembering correctly.<br>
Most students my daughter knows do not take 5 or 6 classes per quarter. I know this is the norm for those on a semester schedule. Thus far, my daughter has not taken more than 4 classes per quarter, especially because she has lots of lab classes (engineering major). Those labs add extra hours.</p>
<p>Honestly, I did not want my daughter to go to OSU because of the size. Being in the honors program helped make a large university a little bit smaller.</p>
<p>It was a very nice reception and I found most of the answers.</p>
<p>About 20% of enrollment each year are honors. so around 1200 to 1300.<br>
There is not an official 4 year graduation rate for honor students because most of them are engineering students. It is normal for them to take 5 years.
With AP or other tests, one could get a max of 45 course credit hours.
So, if one works hard and take 18 hours per quarter, (18 x3 x3) + 45 = 207 that is more than enough to graduate. The unknown, of course, is about if you could get in all the required classes. </p>
<p>Yes, they are required to take 6 honor class in the first two years. That is just one per quarter. If a student is taking 4 ~ 5 classes per quarter, you will be taking most of your classes with the “regular” students. </p>
<p>The good news is that about 50% of the students are the top 10% of their high school classes per the speaker last night. The average ACT of the top half 3000 student is 30. The overall average is about 27.5 - the highest ever in the school history. </p>
<p>We left the reception very impressed.</p>
<p>PS, the current tuition freeze ends in 2010.</p>
<p>PPS, the study abroad program is typically one or two week trips. I was thinking about students actually live abroad and go to classes for one whole quarter.</p>