What is the difference between graduating with honors and not doing that? What is the difference in the course? If it is really fruitful, is it worth applying to honors college in freshmen years or it is better to enroll into them later?
Honors college may be different from graduating with honors. Frequently being in the honors college gives you benefits like first in on classes, possibly a separate quiet dorm, certain classes only open to honors college students. Check each of your colleges for specifics.
Often honors classes are smaller.
I asked a professor once what he felt was the difference. He reply that the honors classes go into greater depth and often had more work. That the honor students tend to be better prepared. His honor students tended to be more engaged in the class discussions. The regular class students are often less prepared. In those classes, he found he had to take a more active role in the discussions. This is just one point of view from one random professor. Every class is different. Ever college runs its honor program differently.
Graduating with honors may also have to do with maintaining certain grades or GPA.
As a parent, I say as a freshman try to get into the honors program if it at all appeals to you…especially if the prospect of a quieter dorm does. Then as you go along you can see if the benefits of the program are worth the more in depth classes. If you don’t like after a year or two you don’t have to continue. There is no downside to trying it.
There are three different things:
Honors Colleges - Programs within a University that often provide specialized coursework + certain benefits to students (priority registration, unique career advising, special housing, etc.)
Latin Honors - A distinction conferred when you graduate that indicates that you earned a GPA above a certain level (for example, “summa cum laude” for a 3.75+ GPA at some schools.)
Departmental Honors/Honors Thesis - The completion of a research project/paper (or something of comparable work) during one’s senior year that enables them to earn “honors” in their department.
I would recommend joining an Honors College as soon as possible because the requirements for it may be more difficult to complete the longer you wait - for instance, my University’s HC requires 6 honors courses. If you joined the Honors College as a freshman, it’d be a lot easier to spread out those 6 classes across 8 semesters - but if you joined the second semester of your junior year, it’d be a lot tougher trying to squeeze in those 6 classes on top of all of your other requirements in three semesters.