<p>Seems like the biggest benefits are: no required courses, priority registration, & the experience of living with the other Echols scholars in your first year. </p>
<p>However, the priority registration thing comes with a catch: Echols scholars register for classes only ahead of their own year, not ahead of all years. What this means is that a second-year Echols scholar, for example, registers before all non-scholar second-year students, but not before non-scholar third or fourth-year students. It used to be that Echols scholars registered before everyone else (i.e. fourth-year Echols register, then third-year Echols, then second and first-year Echols, and then all the other students would register beginning with fourth-years and trickling down to first-years), but not so anymore. Thus, it’s not as big of a perk as it may seem to be, but still it’s something.</p>
<p>No required courses is pretty self-explanatory, but statistically ~60% of Echols scholars end up fulfilling all the area requirements within their four years at the University and through AP credits.</p>