Honors College?

<p>I don’t know why my daughter was told she needed an adviser’s okay. Maybe it depends on the class. She’s taken only the one honor class so far.</p>

<p>Did she mention how much more difficult the honors class was compared to a regular one? Grading wise/workload wise/etc.? Or is the class size just smaller so there’s more interaction?</p>

<p>So far may daughter has not needed to see an honors advisor to register for any of her honors classes. AS far as I know, she has only talked to an honors advisor once - I’m afraid that she came back from that discussion underwhelmed with the help she got. Her regular advisor - in A & S had been a great help - unfortunately he relocated to Florida and is now teaching at a college there. (Family move - spouse got a new job - NOT dissatisfaction with Pitt.)</p>

<p>She said the honors class was MUCH more difficult than the regular section. She knows that because she spoke to someone in that class, and he said it was “easy.” The honors section (a psych class) had fewer than 20 kids, as opposed to 100-plus in the regular section, and was more like a seminar than a lecture. She had to write a long paper at the end. She said the professor was awesome and really knew his stuff. I think that’s the main benefit of the honors classes.</p>

<p>I think that honors science classes are significantly more work, although they are worth it if you like the subject. Honors Physics has 5 lectures per week as opposed to three, and Honors Bio has about 40 pages of reading per night. From what I hear, the professors are really quite interesting.</p>

<p>On the honors advising, I got the impression that there may be some help for students who apply for the national scholarships. Somewhere in the pile of mail was a brochure from Pitt that highlighted its Rhodes, Truman, Goldwater, etc. scholars; it was fairly impressive and I thought that someone must be giving some friendly guidance. </p>

<p>The labs in the honors science classes are different as well. I think that the physics class has three lectures and two recitations all with the same professor–Dr. Stewart.</p>

<p>My daughter was advised by another student not to take the honors calculus because it was great for a math major, but not particularly helpful for a physics major. The honors science classes are plenty rigorous.</p>

<p>I always thought they were grooming the Chancellor scholarship winners for the Rhodes, Truman etc. </p>

<p>I would agree the honors science and math courses are more rigorous than the normal courses and Dr. Stewart is great.</p>

<p>Son has never met with an honors advisor but his engineering advisors are terrific.</p>

<p>New to these boards but the thought of a good merit scholarship has gotten my son to apply to Pitt. Is there anything special needed to apply to Honors or do they just base it on your stats? He did write the essay but could not believe they didn’t even ask about extracurriculars. He decided to attach a write-up on them though. Also would recommendations help with honors since they seem to be optional?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>I think it is pretty much base on your stats. They say the essay is required for scholarship consideration.</p>

<p>I think that the honors college basically looks for a 31+ ACT or 1350+ SAT and a good GPA, and the scholarship committee looks for a 33+ ACT and a 1450+ SAT, based on the trends I’ve seen for this year’s and last year’s threads.</p>

<p>@ smart cookie</p>

<p>I agree with your scholarship trend but I definitely don’t agree with the Honors College trend. Seven students so far have been accepted to the Honors College from my school this year and only 2 of us have 31+ ACT or 1350+ SAT. Pitt is for some reason really flexible when they admit students for Honors College.</p>

<p>Maybe Pitt came up with more housing for Honors freshmen and can therefore admit more students. Let’s see how it pans out.</p>

<p>I don’t really think Honors housing is a main concern when they accept students. Not all students get Honors Housing according to CC because they have students compete for dorms at Forbes Hall through essays.</p>

<p>Every year, Pitt says that 20% of admitted students were eligible for the honors college. So acceptance depneds on what they expect the admitted student profile to look like and whether they think your stats place you in the top 20%.</p>

<p>My daughter indicated that the honors advisors seem to be the most effective with students who come in with a very specific plan or idea of what they want to accomplish or pursue. This is based on some her friends’ experiences, not her own. It didn’t seem to be a brainstorming session. The student needed to go in with a pretty good outline. Personally, I wanted my daughter to enlist their advice as she was considering a double major, study aboard etc. Her reasons for not going are above.</p>

<p>@ steelersngators: You definitely have better data to work with than I do because all of my observations are based on CC posts, and we all know that CC is land of the overachievers (9/9 CCers who posted stats and honors college acceptances met the 31+ 1350+ mark). So it sounds like Pitt is really looking for someone who meets the top quartile of their applicant pool, which could definitely be less than a 31 or a 1350. Out of curiosity, what would you say are the avg. SAT/ACT scores from the people accepted to the Honors College from your school?</p>

<p>“CC is land of the overachievers” This is true statement that many non veteran CCers don’t realize.</p>

<p>Well I can do better than an average I can give you the stats of four out of the seven students
3.7 UW 31 ACT 1890 SAT Top 7% (Me)
3.75 UW 29 ACT 1940 SAT Top 6%
4.0 UW --ACT 2280 SAT Top 1% (Met specific Honors College Criteria)
3.9 UW 28 ACT 1800 SAT Top 3%</p>

<p>Of the seven students I only know the stats of four. As you can see for the last student her GPA made up for the lackluster test scores. Also, only one student met the criteria of 31 ACT, 1350+ SAT and Top 5%. So i guess in reality only one student of the seven met the criteria and not two of seven like I said previously posted. Although CC is an excellent source, it tends to make students think they wont get into a college because of the overachieving students who post here. That is why I enjoy answering Chance threads so students can look beyond the general high test scores they see on CC.</p>

<p>Also, for anybody who looks at “Official Class of 2014 XZY Thread” make sure you realize that the majority of students who get rejected never post their stats. So don’t assume you won’t get in because 100 students are already accepted to your college. Make sure you realize that a lot of interesting factors come into play like leadership roles, ethnicity, and even geographic residence.</p>