<p>I've heard (unconfirmed, probably groundless) Honors classes are 80% As and Bs, and that some Honors course are noticeably easier than regular ones.
Any merit to this?</p>
<p>thats exactly what I heard from umich students (i live in aa), but mostly because of this: Honors students are considerably more “smarter” than regular students and the honors courses are usually more rigorous than normal, but the professor is usually more “close” to the student and can answer their questions directly. Thus, the student has more of an education to pass the class/tests itself. For an example, a lot of my highschool classmates took calc 3 at UofM and attended huge lectures. Most of them said they didn’t understand much of what the professor said and dropped out of the class. Those that took Calc 3 honors, on the other hand, usually ended up staying in the class to study (and those that dropped directly advised me to take Calc 3 HONORS if I ever attended michigan).</p>
<p>Engineering students have the opportunity to take honors classes, correct?</p>
<p>Engineering students are able to take most Honors courses, though you may have to request permission from the department to be able to enroll. The only honors class I can think of that would be closed to engineers is Great Books, and I don’t know why you’d want to take that, anyways.</p>
<p>As far as “grade inflation”, their logic is they don’t want to discourage students from taking Honors courses. You’ll cover additional concepts and perhaps need to do more work than the regular class, but if you put in the effort you’ll get a good grade. This is very different from the larger regular version of classes. Their logic is more along the lines “screw kids over so we get a wide distribution of grades, and weed people out”. This is usually done by making the grade largely based on tricky exams.</p>
<p>That all sounds encouraging.</p>
<p>even people from LSA (not honors) can take honors classes, I believe, as long as they show that they can handle the work. I think you need to request permission though… <- im not positive about this though</p>
<p>Found this on the honors program site at umich</p>
<p>Won’t being in Honors lower my grades and make it more difficult to get into graduate or professional schools?</p>
<p>We doubt it—quite to the contrary! Our students find that they tend to do as well or better in their Honors courses as in their other courses because of the intellectual stimulation offered by these courses. It can be hard to do your best work when you’re not being adequately challenged. Students frequently report that their Honors courses are more engaging than their non-Honors courses and thus they are motivated to do better work. In addition, graduate schools view Honors work as a sign that you are motivated and willing to work hard.</p>
<p>[Honors</a> Program - University of Michigan](<a href=“http://www.lsa.umich.edu/honors/invited/FAQ.htm#top]Honors”>http://www.lsa.umich.edu/honors/invited/FAQ.htm#top)</p>
<p>the real honors program is the college of engineering. It’s where the smartest are and where the classes are hardest. Think about it, for cum laude requirement, 3.2+ and you are top 25% in COE vs 3.8X+ being top 25% in LSA.</p>
<p>God, I love some engineers’ extremely over-inflated sense of self worth.</p>
<p>and I love honors’ extreme grade inflation. I took econ401 honors first semester. What a joke, the course work is easy and the grading scale is way inflated. and the honors kid in my class were actualy complaining about the class? Are you kidding me? Try taking Dr Daida’s engin100 or 101 and they’d know what ridiculous is.</p>
<p>Econ 401 isn’t an Honors class, and considered a joke by many people who are good at math besides engineers. Much like people who are good at math consider engineering to be pretty easy.</p>
<p>i took the honors only section of 401. They have 1 honors only section and i got the overide from the professor
and no, people who are good at math do not consider engineering easy, considering the COE student body are probably on average the best at math if you take out the math majors themselves. And i have yet to find many engineering students who find COE easy, specially the first year weeder class… there is a reason why COE students generally have comparable test scores and grades as honors students out of high school but the COE average GPA is way lower. You cant deny the huge grade deflation in COE. I was interviewing for a job with delphi, if you look at the U of M job board, they said, minimum gpa requirement for engineering (excluding IOE) : 2.8, IOE: 3.0, minimum gpa requirement for others: 3.5</p>
<p>I’m sure there are a lot of people in LSA or the LSA honors program that were smart enough to get into engineering as well…but just wanted to concentrate on liberal arts..can’t all UM students just get along lol.</p>
<p>there is also a reason why there are a lot more kids transferring out of engineering than in every year because they cant crack it or meet the requirement to declare. </p>
<p>i just found the GPA distribution in LSA
top 3% Higest Distinction: 3.930 - 4.000
top 10 % High Distinction: 3.821 - 3.929
top 25% Distinction: 3.649 - 3.820</p>
<p>COE for 2008
top 3% summa cum laude 3.7+
top 10% magna cum laude 3.5-3.7
top 25% cum laude 3.25-3.5</p>
<p>GPA wise, most of the top 25% range of LSA overlaps with the top 3 % range of COE, while COE students on average graduated with higher GPA and SATs from high school than LSA.
Interpreting this data, it means on average a student with lesser gpa and sats in high school could go to LS A and graduate with a much higher GPA than a more capable student being in COE. There are only two explanations to this intepretation:
- extreme grade deflation in COE
- extreme grade inflation in LSA</p>
<p>there is also a reason why a lot of engineering students consider LSA classes their GPA saver..that’s the reason why i am taking econ and spanish</p>
<p>The fact that engineers as a whole aren’t very good at what they do doesn’t make me feel much safer about crossing bridges…</p>