Engineering Honors Decision Came Today

My son received an email today that he’s accepted into A&M Engineering’s Brown Honors Program (not University Honors). I would love some input from parents about this program. Is this the correct forum? I’m a College Confidential newbie. Thank you!

Congratulations! My daughter was just notified as well. Is your son planning to live in the Engineering Honors LLC at the Commons? My dtr chose space over the LLC & is hoping for a northside modular dorm.

Our younger son received notification this morning that he was accepted into honors. Our older son is a sophomore Engineering student that was also in honors and was part of ECOS (Engineering Honors) in Mosher. He liked living in Mosher but felt like he did not get much out of being in the ECOS program. I’ve heard other students felt like they benefited. The main factor for our younger son applying for honors is the ability to register before most students in the Spring.

Thanks so much - my son does NOT want to live in an honors LLC, so that isn’t a factor; he is interested in the priority registration and the faculty contact, honors classes etc. Do you know what percentage of the Engineering students are in Engineering Brown Honors Program?

Also, my son really wants a single room. He listed his housing preference in Phase 2 as Hullaballo single suite. Assuming he advances from National Merit Semifinalist to Finalist, we have told him he can pick any price range of room because of how generous the National Merit tuition awards are. My husband and I didn’t go to school in Texas, and he’s our oldest, so we are really flying blind here!

Son got in as well. I read a mixed feedback regarding coe honors vs. university honors and some seem to prefer uh. I feel either way will be great. IMO, it’s more about the environment. On a side note, does anyone know if this will come with department scholarship?

@krr12345 He likes single suite as well but that means he would not be in the LLC. I will encourage him to stay in LLC. I’m myself an engineer. I feel (most of the time) group studying helps. From the website, it says 10% of the class.

@KRR12345 My son is a third year engineering honors student who dropped university honors first semester but has elected to keep up with honors student council even though it is not a requirement for engineering honors. He did not live in either University Honors housing or the engineering honors LLC because he wanted his own room and has been happy with that choice. I’m not sure what all were your questions but I am happy to provide you what knowledge I have on your questions.

Son got in this honors program tonight.

My son got in to honors as well. He also applied to Purdue. Any thoughts on the differences in the two schools? We’re oos.

My son got into engineering honors. Can you share more about your son’s experience in terms of hands on teams and internships? Thanks

@Jamesmom3 I can’t compare and contrast but if you have any Purdue specific questions I’d be happy to answer them. My D is a 2nd year chem e in honors college at Purdue.

Congrats to all on their kiddos’ admission to honors! I guess I was mainly just checking that there isn’t something “bad” to know about the program. Also, does anybody know if they are supposed to click “accept” even if they haven’t accepted A&M’s overall offer of admission yet? My son will hold off making his final decision until February to hear from other schools. Also, I was wondering if the honors program - if he doesn’t live in the LLC - still provides some feel of a “smaller school within a big school” in terms of friends, etc. He didn’t apply to Purdue, but it seems like a great school. One of my friend’s daughters is a junior there and absolutely loves it (she’s a nuclear engineering major).

@Jamesmom3 Well considering my son is at A&M in honors and also applied to Purdue because his Dad graduated from there in engineering, I can give you some feedback. My husband says Purdue and TAMU seem very similar. Apparently TAMU’s ETAM process was modeled off of something that Purdue does and Katherine Banks came from Purdue. My son chose TAMU mainly because it is closer to us and he does not like the cold.

The honors program at TAMU is what you make of it. They have lots of opportunities both social and academic to get together with the other engineering honors students, however most majors only require you to do one of those per semester. My son does one or two per semester but if you wanted to make it feel like a smaller school experience becoming more involved would definitely help. Because research is a requirement of the engineering honors program they make it easy to connect with professors and get involved with that. My son has done research the last 3 semesters and really enjoys it. He also does challenges like Aggies Invent which is a cross functional team project challenge in 48 hours. One bit of negative feedback on the honors program is that many of the courses are what they call “stacked” honors courses. Which means you are in the same class as the non-honors students but just given some additional work to do. Be careful with these type of classes. Check out the syllabus before electing a particular section with a particular professor; many times these can just be increased busy work with less time to do it. In other cases, some professors make the honors component a deep dive into something and reduce other requirements to make time for it.

@KRR12345 It seems I answered your questions in my response to @Jamesmom3 above but forgot to tag you.

When did you all apply for the honors engineering program and what was your SAT or ACT?

I too have the question - does my son “accept” on the Engineering Honors page even though he hasn’t yet committed to TAMU. Or by selecting the “accept” is he committing to the university too? Kind of confusing. Definitely a top choice but waiting to hear from a few other schools to compare all options.

Also is there a way to change the leading thread name to include TAMU? I had a really hard time finding this thread. If someone had mentioned the thread on one of my other threads I would have never found it. Thinking others may be looking for information or could maybe contribute to our questions.

I don’t know how to change the thread name, but we did email the Honors program and they replied that my son can “accept” and it’s not binding/doesn’t affect his admission decision (he hasn’t decided for sure where he wants to go).

@KRR12345 thank you so much for the info! And I understand about name. I didn’t know, just thought I would throw it out there. Thanks again and best of luck to your son.

My son is an introvert but loves working in groups and enjoys hands on experience. What does your daughter think about how easy it is to get involved and getting internships?