My son was accepted at UMASS honors college, northeastern honors college and university of Delaware honors college. He is unsure he wants to go that route bc he wants a “real” college experience. Is it a big deal to be accepted into honors colleges? What are the advantages? Any cons?
Thank you.
Honors isn’t that big of a deal: some programs have perks but overall it’s not going to make a significant difference.
How does this relate to the “real” college experience?
The Honors College at UMass Amherst entails new dormitories which might actually enhance his college experience if he happens to like carpets over hardwood floors during cold Massachusetts winters, haha.
Typically, Honors College/Programs have certain benefits - early/priority registration, individualized advising, smaller classes, unique scholarship opportunities, unique extracurricular opportunities, and so on. It’s not a HUGE deal, but it’s still something that may benefit one’s social and academic experience.
I can’t comment on these schools, but at my school, being in the honors college literally has no drawbacks. Benefits include opportunities to boost a resume, as well as what preamble1776 mentioned, and participation in everything is voluntary.
Honors classes are usually smaller and more one on one–similar to high school classes which makes the college transition a lot more familiar. It takes off a lot of anxiety in that regard, but your son might reject that idea due to wanting a more traditional college experience. In my opinion, the people in honors classes are people worth hanging around. Better than some of the dunces you’ll encounter in entry freshmen classes. No offense to those people, of course
My daughter is in a honors program and it has greatly enhanced her college experience. She was able to get into classes that would have not available if she was not in honors. Preamble1776 sum up the more common advantages well. It can make a difference academically.
The only con is also a pro. The people in honor classes will tend to be the better students. You will need to work harder to get the best grades. The material will be greater depth and the class could move through the material at a faster rate than a non-honors course. Most students seem to enjoy the greater challenge.
The thing is the benefits of an honor program is mainly determine by the student. If he/she doesn’t take advantage of the extra opportunities then it is no different than being a non-honors student.
Overall, I doubt being in Honors will impact what your son considers the college experience. I suspect he is mainly thinking about the impact on the social aspects of the college experience. The only real impact might be a little less free time do to the higher demands of honors courses and maybe that his friend might be a little smarter than the average student.
My daughter is in the Honor Program at our state college…Being in freshman dorms with other generally academically inclined people was better than being in the “freshman towers” dorms. Freshman seminar was also with other honors kids.
The grading of honors classes at my school (Indiana University) is not what noname87 says. Essentially they just give a larger % of high grades in honors classes because more students are able to live up to the standard. There also seems to be more “free points” in honors classes. The average class GPA in an honors class is almost always higher than the non-honors version.
^ actually that is probably true at my daughter school. However the standard does seem to be set higher. For example, she had one class where the she was in the same lecture as the non-honors. However the honor students had an additional break out session where they went into the material in greater depth. Their test had additional questions of a more complex nature. The grading scale was the same. It was harder to get the A since the exam questions were more complex. However, I suspect overall the grades were higher since the students signing up for the honors generally were the better students. For this class, the professor made it clear that there would be more work and more class time for exactly the same credit and advise them to switch if this was not for them.
I once asked a professor what difference he saw between the honor classes and the same non-honors classes that he taught. He felt the honor students generally came to the class better prepare. In the non-honor classes, he felt he had to lead the discussions more and prompt the students more. In the honors classes, the discussions tend to more lively and less directed by him. He did teach a subject that was heavily discussion based.