We read on the UMass Amherst website that some majors are more competitive and students applying via Early Action may have an advantage of applying to those majors. I was wondering if the same applies to the honor college? Our child was thinking they would apply regular decision initially but now is weighing the advantage of having additional SAT scores in hand vs. applying early. They took their first test in October so we don’t have insight into where they are quite yet but need to inform their current school in the next day or so if they are going to apply early action. Appreciate any insight from those who have been through it before or have a sense of the tradeoffs.
You are right. some majors like CS and business majors in Isenberg are very competitive. Is honors an absolute must to consider matriculating to UMass?
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Since you don’t apply for Honors but they select you, you might ask the school if you apply TO and are not admitted to Honors, will they allow you to submit your test score after you receive it and have them reassess you.
If not, they also have a path to get in 2nd semester.
Generally, you want to apply early action to any school that offers it. They recommend this however their FAQs say the acceptance rate is only slightly higher.
What’s the major ? Is it popular ?
I’d personally go EA and risk honors. There’s no guarantee the decision changes even with a decent test. If your GPA is superb, you might do well anyway.
Good luck to you.
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Definitely not a requirement, but will be factored in when comparing to other schools that offer similar “Honors Programs”. Our understanding is that UMass’s Honors College is particularly competitive so we are hoping more to just put our best possible self forward.
That’s a great question to ask. Thank you!
My child is thinking neuroscience to start. Not sure how popular that one is?
Appreciate the thoughts on EA as well. Their GPA is strong. The TO nature of things has us reconsidering if it makes sense to do as you say and just apply wherever there is EA and just submit if they are in the 50% percentile or higher but go TO if not. Reading experiences on this forum, it seems like some amazing candidates don’t get in so we just want to maximize our chances (even though we still realize it’s not a guarantee by any stretch).
If i remember right last year, quite a lot of people who applied EA were still waiting for a decision in late january. Do ask them if you apply EA, whether you can add the score in the portal when it is available.
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It is. UMASS and Rutgers are the only honors programs my kids didn’t get accepted into (ended up in honors at UDel and Clemson, I don’t know how competitive honors is at Villanova but my daughter got in there). UMASS did offer good merit.
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Selection to UMASS honors program isn’t as straight forward as GPA and test score. They need to have at least one of each major represented and can’t draw from too many students from the same high school… etc…so it is a tricky thing to predict acceptance. I believe it’s also used to try and entice selective out of state students- who pay more in tuition etc- as well, so a bit of that is in the formula as well as other variables that are deemed important to make an interesting and diverse group.
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S23 applied EA today!
OOS (but we’re moving to MA in late 2023)
Economics and Political Science
4.0/4.5 GPA
35 ACT
standard ECs and such
Fingers crossed! Good luck everyone.
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3 posts were split to a new thread: UMass Honors