I have recently been notified of my acceptance to UIUC for Engineering undeclared, and have received an offer as a James Scholar.
I have done a bit of research on it, but can not seem to find very much about it. What are the benefits of being a Scholar? What do you get that is different from any other student? Does it help in future career search a lot and stuff like that?
I have read that you need to get a 3.2 GPA or higher to stay in, but not much has been said about the program recently (posts that I found were from 2005 or so).
Could any recent/current Engineering James Scholars tell me a bit about how it is?
From the link - “Your benefits include priority registration, the opportunity to take certain honors-only classes, and receiving James Scholar distinction upon graduation.”
The three mentioned above are about all there is and the second two, taking honors courses and having distiinction noted upon graduation, have limited value. However, the first one, getting to register for classes before the rest of your class can be a very important benefit that may result in your getting classes you need at times of day, like late morning or early afternoon, that are preferred by many students, while many of your classmates who register later are blocked out of ideal times.
