<p>At orientation my adviser and peer advisers told me that taking honors classes doesn't benefit you in terms of making your transcript look better like it does in high school. They said that it's different in college and that most people only take honors classes for a more engaging experience and because they find the material truly interesting. To what extent is that true? I don't want to "slack off" in college and just take easier classes, but I also don't want to take the risk of honors classes hurting my GPA. Thanks in advance for any replies.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that some honors classes (especially math) are easier than the regular classes. Can’t say for sure if that’s true as I’ve only taken the regular courses. </p>
<p>And yes, taking honors classes instead of regular does not make your transcript look better. Only good grades do. And FYI, the regular classes aren’t as “easy” as you think. It’ not high school where AP > Honors > Regular classes.</p>
<p>U-M does not weight your GPA for taking honors courses. Often the grade distribution in honors courses is heigher than in non-honors courses. This doesn’t mean that the courses are easier. Some honors courses offer a more engaging experience and some honors sections will be taught by professors or more experienced GSI’s than non-honors sections.</p>
<p>Honors classes usually have higher averages, and you get to be with people who are actually smart and didn’t get into umich by fluke.</p>
<p>Hm, some other students joke that the Honors Program is “GPA protection”. I think this is true to some extent, but partially because the professors realize that students in Honors classes are more likely to be engaged and will have a larger number of high achievers, and that’s why they have to set their average high. For example, my Honors Diff Eq class was set so an average student would get an A-. This was to make up for a really smart person getting consistent 100% on tests while the regular Honors kids were making do with 80 percents. It depends on your grader though; I find the graders in my Honors classes were more willing to give A’s and A-'s because grades weren’t as important as actually learning the material and being interested in it.</p>
<p>Well honors sounds awesome now. I wasn’t sure what to do with calc III since I took it my last year of HS but didn’t get credit, so I decided to take the honors version at Umich. I did the same thing with Eng151, since it looked exactly like AP Comp Sci</p>