I am going to be a senior in high school this fall and, after numerous college visits, have decided that I want to attend AU. I’ve completely fallen in love with it after my second visit & it just feels like home. I was wondering if anyone has experience with Auburn’s honors college? I have a 4.0 GPA along with a 33 ACT score. Will joining the honors college cause my classes to be more difficult? I plan to major in engineering (either computer or electrical) which is a hard enough major in itself. If you add joining a sorority, intramural sports, and becoming an RA into the mix then I just don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it all. I know honors students get priority housing, and living in the Upper Quad would be ideal, but is the Lower Quad much worse? And if honors classes are in fact more difficult, what would look better to an employer: 3.75 GPA graduating WITHOUT honors OR 3.5 GPA graduating WITH honors (random numbers but you get the idea)?
My son was in the Upper Quad and loved it - definitely preferred over the Village apartment style - whole different vibe. The Lower Quad facilities look identical to me as the Upper squad although I don’t know if you have to be in honors to be in LQ - maybe that’s your point. Honestly I think most kids in either Quad are serious students (Auburn in general has serious students).
3.75 without honors - my son dropped it and so did most of his engineering friends. The Honors core classes are definitely more difficult, the seminar classes were hard but very interesting and my IB kid loved them.
Don’t take all your AP/IB credits - retake easy English/history/math to smooth out the tougher engineering/math classes.
@threeofthree Thank you for your response! Yes I meant that I would prefer to live in the Upper Quad but I wasn’t sure if it was worth it to join the honors college just to live in Upper rather than Lower. Of course that wouldn’t be the only reason to join - I’ve read honors students get to take smaller classes and priority scheduling which both sound ideal. If there’s a greater chance I’ll have a higher GPA by not joining the honors college then that’s what I’d rather do. I also don’t plan on transferring any AP credits for the exact reason you mentioned!
I’m a freshman who just finished with orientation (Aerospace Engineering student), and I gotta say that those people at the Honors College exceeded my expectations. I went in thinking that HC would be a bunch of horsehockey, but the opportunities (for research especially) are neat and the advisors are really cool - heck, the director (Dr. Baumann) is a Materials Engineer and is one awesome lady. They were all so helpful and knowledgeable when I was developing my schedule and were so welcoming to me and all of my questions.
Also, it’s really comforting going into my first year knowing that I only have 23 people in my History class and get to take a pass/fail “extended orientation” type class with an advisor. The group of people I’ll be interacting with is also a plus, as they’re all super smart like you and we can all provide each other with excellent tutoring/studygroup opportunities 
All I can say, as a person who was skeptical about it, is just to try it - you’ll definitely get in, and what’s to lose?
@trailblazer11 thanks for all the info! There definitely seems to be several benefits to joining the honors college. I’d love to hear your impression of it at the end of your freshman year as well!!
S1 (NMF, now a junior MechE) thought it would be snooty and didn’t sign up. Then he got on campus and the friends he made turned out to be mostly in HC. So he joined 2nd semester and likes it. Housing and early registration benefits as well. Note that upper level engineering honors courses are normally extra directed work contracted with the professor as opposed to separate honors classes.