<p>Is there any ranking of honor colleges out there, or a list of the truly great ones?</p>
<p>Someone told me the Honors College at the University of South Carolina is supposedly "the best in the nation" without giving any justification, statistical support, whatever. Any info on that?</p>
<p>Any information about honors colleges out there? What are these things, and how do those compare to actual top-tier colleges? Do the honors added to your diploma even matter much to someone reading your application?</p>
<p>The honors added to your diploma probably won’t matter as much as the opportunities for networking some honors programs offer or the chance for stellar, in-depth recommendations from faculty who have a chance to know you in smaller classes. As for rankings, I don’t know. What makes a good honors program? Getting into grad school? Opportunities for research? Study abroad? Core curriculum? I think there would be so much variation from school to school that you would have to look at each one and see how it fits you.</p>
<p>Honors colleges can be a great choice for those attending a larger school. Honors colleges offer valuable perks and let you meet some of the top students at your college. However they are often oversold with glossy pamphlets implying a small LAC has been set up inside the larger university giving ann elite private education at the public school price. On this forum you’ll read posters who also say/imply that.</p>
<p>Depending on the program offerings may range from separate honors classes to taking just one honors seminar per semester. And some of the “honors” offerings may just be a special discussion section of the regular class (at many U’s you meet 2-3x a week in a large class with the prof, then everyone meets weekly in a discussion section with a TA). You really need to dig in to find what a particular school offers.</p>
<p>Keep in mind honors programs typically offer the small classes and hand-picked profs only the 1st two years of college. They can do this because doesn’t take that many classes to come up with a set that will meet the lower-division requirements for most majors. It is rare to find more than a token amount of upper-division classes since the honors program simply doesn’t have enough faculty members to create entire major(s). So the last two years most/all classes are taken with the rest of the students in the regular U’s classes. The teaching of the profs will be geared towards the normal U level, the discussions and student involvement in class will be dominated by the regular students, and so on. Class sizes may balloon, too, if you’re in a popular major.</p>
<p>Peer effects are big, too; when almost everyone around you at school is a strong student you have lots of good student to emulate in class or outside it such as doing research or internships. If the top kids are a few hundred strong dispersed among tens of thousands at the U then strong examples may be harder to see. When it comes to finding a job, employers are less likely to send recruiters to a campus with a limited number of honors seniors when they can get a campus-full at more highly regarded schools.</p>
<p>Honors colleges do offer some valuable perks, in addition to the classes. Typical ones include registering for classes before everyone else so you get the classes you want (a perk worth its weight in gold!), special counselors, guaranteed housing, special library privileges. They will mark your diploma with special recognition. But I would be dubious about attending a college for its honors program in place of a more highly regarded U if finances are not an issue.</p>