<p>Got in today… was accepted to BME in December and Honors today with a 2500 one time scholarship…</p>
<p>Christ this is so disappointing… I mean I’m with half of you guys on the “i don’t think i deserved to get in” sentiments. only 1470 M+CR and val at a really uncompetitive small school in Houston. I feel like I just barely made the cut and the 2500 dollar scholarship was a booby prize to make me think they want me. Geez, how the hell do they choose admits?!</p>
<p>Someone mentioned the financial problems Texas is having; you think that affects it much? Because I’ve read a lot of posts in previous years and it seemed like if you were good enough to get into honors, they’d throw a lot more dough your way. The TEA or whatever (Texas Education something, i dunno) definitely is making huge cuts to public primary/secondary schools; is that the case with public universities as well? In regards to ISD’s, I think they’re cutting budgets by some ridiculous amount, like 25-30%.</p>
<p>Not sure about the funding of merit awards…but it has definitely changed. When my daughter was accepted into Honors at UT back in 2006, UT gave out scholarships for Nat’l Merit, Nat’l Hispanic and Nat’l Achievement. (She qualified for the NM money.) I think those merit scholarships are all gone now. She also rec’d the equivalent of 3/4 ride at Texas A&M with three major merit scholarships stacked plus a departmental award. My son technically has a stronger application than my daughter and rec’d scholarship offers this week from A&M, but not on the scale rec’d by my daughter 5 years ago. And he’ll receive nothing from UT. </p>
<p>I definitely think the economy affects public supported schools. Property valuation is down which means tax revenues are down. And I’m sure contributions to endowments are down as well. My d’s alma mater, UNC-CH, is hurting as well. We only get calls about budget woes 5 times a day…lol. (I exaggerate, but they are aggressively fundraising to fill budget gaps.)</p>
<p>But at the end of the day…Cockrell is still a fantastic deal without merit money.</p>
<p>Btw…congrats to those who got into EHP and rec’d scholarships. I don’t want to hear one more word about not deserving it. Just because highly qualified candidates were declined does not mean you did not earn your place/award! :-)</p>
<p>Good point, ldmom06. My son still wonders why he got into BME, but he got on the honor roll his first semester, even while facing significant medical issues, so I guess UT knew what they were doing when they admitted him. You guys/gals will do great! Be thankful and move on!</p>
<p>ChemE major: accepted to Cockrell, notified for Vip.
Rejected from EHP.
1510/1600 SAT, Val, All AP classes, 800 SATII’s, average to semi-strong ec’s?
Fail.</p>
<p>To those who are bummed about EHP rejections:</p>
<p>After graduating from EHP and currently working, there are no scholastic benefits of the EHP program. It is not recorded in any way on your diploma. Employers don’t “prefer” EHP kids over regular kids. And once you get your first job, it won’t matter what honors program you were in. The only recognition scholastically speaking is in your major code on your transcript (which no one will see/care about) and a “special designation” if you complete an honors thesis (which no one ever does). The only honors designation on your diploma results from the percentile of your class that you graduate in which is completely dependent upon GPA. Ironically, by taking more difficult honors classes during your first few semesters and possibly doing worse, you may be affecting the only honors recognition that actually appears on your diploma. </p>
<p>Not that diploma honors should be any sort of motivation. Just to say that it may seem like a big deal now, but in actuality there’s virtually no downside of being in the “regular” engineering program. The website also says that there will be special recognition during graduation, but I definitely don’t recall this. Of course, being in honors classes gives you the chance to compete with some extremely bright kids. But for those who stick around until junior and senior year in engineering, you’ll find enough of those people too.</p>
<p>Thanks for the post, kkwa. That was the same experience I had after being in the honors program. That’s one reason I didn’t even suggest to my son that he apply for it.</p>
<p>I disagree with kkwa and MaineLonghorn’s response. While it is true that the First Year Engineering Honors Program may not give you an edge for employment, it is helpful in getting your footing early on. The honors class size is so much smaller. Sure the classes are harder, but the curve is a lot more lenient. However, the biggest benefit is living in the honors dorm and be surrounded in a very academically focused students/environment. You don’t get that at Jester. The atmosphere and support definitely help me get through the rough transition from high school to college. </p>
<p>Having graduated from UT (engineering honors) and attending an elite MBA program, the only true difference between schools is the network that is available to you. The honors program alumni generally do very well post graduation. Most of my honors friends ended up at top 10 graduate/professional programs, that’s skewed more towards the top 3. People I know at the regular programs don’t fair nearly as well.</p>
<p>As far as the special recognition goes. Employers can care less about your grade or whether you graduated summa cum laude (highest honors). Beyond a certain point of intelligence, extra intelligence does not help you at all. It’s about how well you can work with others and lead teams. I have yet to have an employer ask me about my grades. But I get tons of questions about leadership and teamwork skills. Even in industries that value “numbers”, it’s not nearly as important as people think it is. I see tons of my lower GPA/GMAT score classmate landing jobs at McKinsey and Goldman over higher GPA/GMAT score classmates.</p>
<p>Your point on the insignificance of academic work in industry and the emphasis on team work is well-taken. However, the types of networking you speak of is hardly limited to freshman honors programs. In fact, I was able to network with much more like-minded people in my last few years in honor societies like HKN or TBP. Top students will always find each other. True, the honors dorms are more conducive to academic focus, but an equal amount of strong students find themselves outside of the quad freshman/sophomore year. </p>
<p>You seem to suggest that the number of your honors friends who end up being successful post-graduation is somehow an indication of the quality of the honors program. If anything, it’s an indication of the quality of students brought into the program. I second your assertion that teamwork and leadership are tremendously important in industry/life. However, no causal relationship can be made between taking the “honors” version of intro classes and the “leadership and teamwork skills” that you attest to be important to employers.</p>
<p>I agree that diploma recognition is a meaningless distinction. It was just to point out that many kids see EHP as a some badge of achievement. In reality, the only distinction that you can possibly achieve is one that can potentially be hurt by EHP classes.</p>
EHP is free for those who gets in. I don’t see why not utilize the extra resources.</p>
<p>kkwa: I didn’t argue casuality of EHP with higher success. My argument is that honors kids do well, and at ABC and in the freshmen/sophmore honors classes, you get better opportunity to form bonds with the honors kids. Sure, you can get meet smart kids at the honor society/fraternity, but the bond that’s formed isn’t as deep. This is the reason I advocate for the First Year Engineering Honors Program (FYEHP) vs. EHP. After the first year, the value of EHP is pretty much gone - you don’t get that bonding experience. </p>
<p>As FYI to the CC community. You can get in EHP in subsequent years based on your college GPA. Whereas FYEHP is for maybe the top 10% of incoming engineering class.</p>
<p>liu - your facts are interesting, but purely anecdotal and I’m not sure about your conclusions.</p>
<p>Bonds can be formed in the Engineering FIGS as well as the various honors organizations. Deepness of bonds is not a quantitative attribute…no one can assert a bond acquired in one particular honors is more or less than a bond acquired elsewhere. It simply something not knowable or predictable. </p>
<p>And Cockrell doesn’t accept nonsmart kids. When I spoke with Admissions, they made it very clear that this was the most competitive year for Cockrell Admissions to date and that strong candidates for engineering were declined for lack of space. Anecdotally speaking … my son was accepted into Cockrell ChemE, declined for engineering honors but then invited into CNS Honors (he’ll have to do a major change if he decides to accept this invitation). Go figure.</p>
<p>btw…according to Engineering academic advisors at our VIP session, Jester has a very large concentration of engineering students (more so than the other dorms) and the engineering department sponsors nightly tutoring and study groups/tables at Jester West.</p>
<p>I’m not arguing that you cannot form deep bonds elsewhere. I’m saying that the people you form the bonds with are different between the honors program and the regular college. </p>
<p>I don’t quite buy the everyone in engineering is smart, especially considering the class reduction after the freshmen weed-out classes. From an anecdotal stand point, the grade distribution is a good tell-tale sign that the ability level is not normally distributed. The distribution is more like a bi-modal (two humps), one small cluster at the top, and then the main cluster. When I was going to school, the average SAT for engineering is slightly below 1300. They don’t publish average SAT for FYEHP, but I only know one guy with a below 1500 score. Not that SAT score is good measure of intelligence, as the one dude with below 1500 is one of the smartest kid I had the priveldge of being friends with at UT. However, it is a quantitative indication that there is a gap.</p>
<p>I’m also not saying that there are not stellar kids in the regular program. There are many aspects that make people stellar beyond grades. But you are more likely to meet stellar kids in the FYEHP at ABC than at Jester or in a FIG, because there has already been a filtering to get into the FYEHP.</p>
<p>Again, liu, you make conclusions that you can’t possibly support. You say the bonds among honors students are different…different in what way? How so? Bi-modal grade distributions…at Cockrell in general? Or within a certain engineering major…or perhaps just a particular class? Is this a recent observation on your part? You know a couple of SAT scores…is that enough to make a conclusion about all SAT scores? I wouldn’t do it.</p>
<p>However, I would rely on the information that Admission relayed to me and that was the Cockrell candidates were exceptional. In fact, the example given to me was that top ranked kids with 2200 SATs were not even getting their first choice majors within Cockrell. </p>
<p>And…concluding weedout is related to intelligence is also invalid. I knew plenty of brilliant kids with perfect SATs who spent their freshman year doing things other than studying. I would venture that a student who is accepted into Cockrell based on skill and intelligence would not weed out by suddenly becoming unskilled and unintelligent. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, any learning experience is what you make of it. For example, honors will not make a student into CEO material. And not being in honors will not mean a student is not CEO material. And there are no barriers that would prevent an honors program engineering student from bonding with a regular engineering student. In fact, we’ve had one parent share that Longhorn band is a bonding experience among engineering students. Presumably the Longhorn band is grouping their students by musical instrument and not by engineering honors and non-engineering honors.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong…I believe even the smallest opportunity should be exploited to its fullest. I just think maybe I wouldn’t argue the greatest opportunity engineering honors provides is that it is a great way to hang around smarter people.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean that the bond is different. I mean the caliber of students you form bonds with is different. I think this is the same argument ivy league makes regarding its student body. </p>
<p>I also didn’t say that there aren’t stellar kids in the regular college. I even went out of my way to say that there are stellar kids in the regular college (and at any college), but the probability of meeting stellar kids are higher in FYEHP and at ABC dorms.</p>
<p>I also made the point to say my examples are anecdotal, and may be not representative. The logical leap about the grade distribution is that it applies in general for engineers, since that’s the college I had experience with. If I were a law student and want to knit pick on details and adjectives, admissions description of “exceptional” needs to be qualified. Also, the one anecdotal example of 2200 getting denied admission may be an outlier, since that is obvious much higher than the average.</p>
<p>P.S. “I knew plenty of brilliant kids with perfect SATs who spent their freshman year doing things other than studying.” I think that’s an exaggeration. Define plenty. I know 6 kids who has perfect 1600, and they did do other stuff, but they didn’t neglect school/studying while they were doing other things.</p>
<p>I don’t think I really bonded with anybody in my honors classes. Most of us were too busy studying! My close bonds were made as an upperclassman, when I didn’t do any honor activities at all. And in my case, there were several students who had NOT been in honors who were definitely brighter than I was.</p>
<p>The bonds that meant the MOST were the ones formed in grad school, anyway. One of my friends from grad school went on to become a distinguished professor who wrote a textbook that is used extensively. Another started a forensics firm that had offices all over the country. A third started a company that does work all over the country, and hired my husband last year to work for them on an as-needed basis (which works out great, since we also have our own company). So that’s my anecdote!</p>
<p>^That was MY conclusion, but liu feels differently, and he/she was there a lot more recently than I was. I imagine the caliber of students in the honors program was a lot lower in 1980 than it is now!</p>