Honors College?

<p>I am a senior this year and was accepted to the the honors college at Oregon State a few months ago.</p>

<p>Reading other threads I have seen many people say that honors college doesn't mean much in terms of medical school admissions but I was wondering if I should accept the offer. The advantages are of course the smaller class sizes (I was looking at the catalog and honors classes such as freshman biology and calculus seem to have a 20 person cap, while regular biology lectures has like a 525 person cap). I think the disadvantages are more reading, writing, discussion, projects (more work overall), which possibly means lower grades and I know that GPA is extremely important when applying to med school.</p>

<p>What do you think about honors colleges and what do you suggest? Is the grading indeed harder and is it harder to get a higher GPA in an honors college as opposed to the regular college?</p>

<p>We've been wondering the same thing. S has been accepted at both U of O and OSU honors as well as several good private universities. We visited U of O and were very impressed but still not sure as S also wants to attend medical school.
Any help out there?</p>

<p>I don't know but I would start with talking to people at the Honors College, at the state medical school and at the college's pre-med office (or whatever they call it). Find out how well the program is regarded and how the kids do on their MCATs and med-school admissions. (The pre-med office may or may not be able to distinguish between honors college and regular univ alumna.) Ask current honors college students (especially those taking plenty of science courses) if it's very hard to get a high gpa. The most important thing for med school admissions are maximizing gpa and MCAT scores.</p>

<p>I don't know anything about Oregon State so can't comment specifically; however, I would just say that honors colleges in general can vary significantly in their scope and quality. Some are fantastic while others don't really measure up. If possible, talk to some current and ex-students to get their opinion (you could ask the college about med school admission success) and compare everything with the other choices available. Quite often, an honors college certainly can give you just as good, if not a much better, education and resources compared to much more expensive smaller schools... however just do your research first.</p>