<p>Hi, I was wondering if anyone has any input from their honors college experiences? I'm just trying to get a sense of what kind it brought to your undergrad experience that you wouldn't have gotten without being in the honors college.</p>
<p>Both my children have had very good honors college experiences. They enjoyed the smaller classes, the priority registration, and honors housing. </p>
<p>The smaller class sizes also helped them get to know their profs which has made it easier to get LORs from them. </p>
<p>Are you a senior or junior?</p>
<p>If there are separate administrative procedures for the honors college, that can be a huge advantage as well. Things like major declaration, intent to graduate, degree analysis and requirement exceptions, etc. can suck the life out of you in a major university bureaucracy.</p>
<p>I’m a senior. I’ve been accepted to two from rolling admissions and one is arguably my top choice so I’m just looking to see how everyone else’s experiences were.</p>
<p>Honors college = more administrative confusion (b/c my non-honors friends have different procedures sometimes) and greater contact with pretentious, annoying people.</p>
<p>On the plus side, I think big universities are great! There are so many opportunities.</p>
<p>Mine had both the good and bad. Definitely had greater contact with pretentious and often people who didn’t seem to know how the real world worked. I came from a very different economic background and thought some of my classmates were whiners and had no clue as to what most of the population had to deal with. </p>
<p>However, I had very interesting classes, much smaller seminars, and in our program, and administrative staff that went out of it’s way to help you navigate the system. At a large university, it creates an instant peer group. If it isn’t to your liking, you are at a large university with plenty of opportunities to look elsewhere. </p>
<p>Think about this way, if you’ve been accepted, you can always leave the program if you don’t like it. It’s often harder to get in once you’ve started at the college.</p>
<p>*Honors college = more administrative confusion (b/c my non-honors friends have different procedures sometimes) and greater contact with pretentious, annoying people.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>My kids’ never had that experience. The “administration experience” was easy. “Degree Analysis” has become much easier at many schools for ALL students now that many schools have purchased software that tracks each student’s req’ts and students can easily login to see “where they’re at” requirements-wise…even if they are considering a change of major.</p>
<p>Honors colleges can be a great choice for those attending a larger school. Honors colleges offer valuable perks and let you meet some of the top students at your college. However they are often oversold with glossy pamphlets implying a small LAC has been set up inside the larger university giving ann elite private education at the public school price. On this forum you’ll read posters who also say/imply that.</p>
<p>Depending on the program offerings may range from separate honors classes to taking just one honors seminar per semester. And some of the “honors” offerings may just be a special discussion section of the regular class (at many U’s you meet 2-3x a week in a large class with the prof, then everyone meets weekly in a smaller group with a TA). You really need to dig in to find what a particular school offers.</p>
<p>Keep in mind honors programs typically offer the small classes and hand-picked profs only the 1st two years of college. They can do this because doesn’t take that many classes to come up with a set that will meet the lower-division requirements for most majors. It is rare to find more than a token amount of upper-division classes since the honors program simply doesn’t have enough faculty members to create entire major(s). So the last two years most/all classes are taken with the rest of the students in the regular U’s classes. The teaching of the profs will be geared towards the normal U level, the discussions and student involvement in class will be dominated by the regular students, and so on. Class sizes may balloon, too, if you’re in a popular major.</p>
<p>Peer effects are big, too; when almost everyone around you at school is a strong student you have lots of good student to emulate in class or outside it such as doing research or internships. If the top kids are a few hundred strong dispersed among tens of thousands at the U then strong examples may be harder to see. When it comes to finding a job, employers are less likely to send recruiters to a campus with a limited number of honors seniors when they can get a campus-full at more highly regarded schools.</p>
<p>Honors colleges do offer some valuable perks, in addition to the classes. Typical ones include registering for classes before everyone else so you get the classes you want (a perk worth its weight in gold!), special counselors, guaranteed housing, special library privileges. They will mark your diploma recognition. But I would be dubious about attending a college for its honors program in place of a more highly regarded U if finances are not an issue.</p>
<p>*So the last two years most/all classes are taken with the rest of the students in the regular U’s classes. The teaching of the profs will be geared towards the normal U level, the discussions and student involvement in class will be dominated by the regular students, and so on. Class sizes may balloon, too, if you’re in a popular major.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Upper division courses are often much smaller anyway. When my kids moved from lower division honors to upper division courses, their class-sizes barely grew. Sometimes, their upper-division classes were smaller - as few as 8 students. Lower division gen-ed or intro classes are often the big classes. Upper division classes can be much smaller simply because fewer kids are taking those classes.</p>
<p>There should be little/no fear of who your classmates will be once in upper-division. People tend to choose majors where they have a strong interest/talents. The El-Ed major with average stats is not going to be in your Complex Calculus class.</p>