My D is instate and has an incredible academic record (highest GPA, many IB courses at a nationally very highly ranked school), extra-curriculars (prestigious internships, recognized artist, state and national awards for art and literature) and very high SAT/ACT scores. Has decided to be a Research Analyst in Neurosciences, biochem or one of the related fields in Biology. Not interested in being a doc but likes the biological sciences.
We are curious about the following:
The UO Honors college is too liberal arts focused and only 1/3rd of the classes are taken there. Is that true of OSU HC as well?
UO Honors will force her to take Lit and History again even though she will have IB HL credit for those. Is that true of OSU Honors College too? We are concerned that it will just add to her workload when she needs to focus on the sciences.
How is the OSU Honors college regarded in general? Will going to OSU place her at any disadvantage? Its ranking is so low despite having some good programs. Concerns us a lot.
Are there enough research opportunities for her at OSU while studying for her Bachelor's
We have 3 well known colleges very interested in her but they are in the wrong part of the country for us for now and obviously being instate makes us consider finances but if it comes at the cost of hurting her progress due to not enough sciences focus or the reputation not being good enough, we will have to cough up the extra cash and send her elsewhere. Are there any sciences focused grads/parents/students who can help guide us?
I cannot directly answer your questions, but I do want to add something to think about (warning: rant ahead). I am a college professor with a daughter headed to college next year (accepted to OSU, waiting on HC). I am familiar with IB and AP classes, she has taken mostly these types of courses and scored well on the AP exams (IB exams are this year). I have also taught (25 years experience) students who have taken AP classes in my field and in other fields. I have talked extensively with faculty from fields where AP courses are common, from English to Physics. IB and AP classes are NOT the equivalents of college courses. This is how they are sold to parents, but it is not true. Why did my daughter take AP/IB classes and exams? Because the courses are more challenging (somewhat approaching college level), and to challenge her learning through the exams. I will not allow her to use AP/IB tests to “get out of” taking college classes because I know there is added value to taking these courses at the college level. We are not rich people (we’re college professors!). We do not want to pay any more for college than we have to. But we KNOW that substituting AP/IB for required coursework is a disservice to our daughter and her college education. I will save my rant about excessive emphasis on STEM for another time.
understood and thanks for the feedback. our concern is that we read that students who wish to be STEM majors find the UO honors college curriculum too onerous from an ability to take enough courses in the sciences because of the high literature/history/humanities focused honors college curriculum leaving fewer slots for the sciences.
@TheInfanta – I have to disagree strongly with your view. First off, I think you are giving entry level college classes FAR too much credit. I knew kids when I went to college who took Calculus again so they could “Learn it better”. Well the professors were worse at teaching it than the high school, the exams were all multiple choice and one stupid error could ruin your grade, and the curves made their GPAs worse when they didn’t learn any more than the first time. So relative to counting the AP, they were further behind and their GPAs were lower with nothing learned from taking the class.
On the other hand, if the kid isn’t going to take more of the AP exam material, then why bother retaking material in an area unrelated to what they are going to study. My kid got a 5 on AP Chem, which gave him all his science credit. Since he studies computer science and wants nothing to do with biology or chemistry, this was fabulous. It lets him either co-op without having to stay at school longer, graduate early, or take fewer classes so he can spend more time on the ones in his major – all good things.
After reading your last line, I know understand where you are coming from, but I think you somewhat under-credit a couple of AP courses – US History for one. But if my kid with a 5 on AP Lang and AP lit got out of all the humanities requirements in college, that indeed would be a missed opportunity not to take some of those courses anyways.
What I have seen as the difference between UO and OSU Honors is this – UO is focused exclusively on the humanities and social sciences, and the requirements for Honors replace any credits one might carry into to the university due to the volume of required honors classes. OSU has a number of non-humanities honors courses - sciences and math - where they are taught to small groups of honors students (as opposed to 100 students or more in non-honors classes) and covering the material more deeply. OSU Honors seems really valuable to avoid giant lecture halls for stem and entry-level courses.
@khanam Actually, I recently discovered another program that looks more like the OSU Honors college that is pretty appealing for students not willing to dismiss their Humanities and Social Science AP credits: College Scholars.