Honors Colleges .vs Higher Ranked Schools

My son is applying to well regarded schools, such as, UVA and William and Mary. We live in VA. He is also applying to Alabama, South Carolina, and Ole Miss for their honors colleges and other special programs along with merit scholarships. Do you think graduate schools pay much attention to if the applicant was in an honors college? Do you think the quality of education is much better in the honors colleges than the mainstream classes?

Honors colleges offer valuable perks and let you meet some of the top students at your college. But too often they’re oversold with glossy pamphlets suggesting a small LAC has been set up giving an elite private education at the public school price. On the forum you’ll see posts that say/imply that.

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 discussion section of the regular class (at many U’s you meet 2-3x a week in the full class with the prof, then once a week in a smaller discussion section with a TA). You really need to dig in to find what a particular school offers.

Honors programs typically offer the small classes and hand-picked profs the 1st two years of college. It doesn’t take that many classes to come up with a set that will meet the lower-division requirements for most majors. But it’s 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 majors. So the last two years most or all classes are the regular U’s classes. The teaching of the profs will be geared towards the normal 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.

When almost everyone around you at school is a strong student you have lots of examples to emulate in class, or outside it such as doing research or internships. You have kids ahead of you with names and information about opportunities that are not widely publicized (if at all). And 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.

Honors colleges offer perks in addition to the classes. Typical ones include early registration so you get the classes you want (a perk worth its weight in gold!), special counselors, guaranteed housing, special library privileges. Your diploma will proudly bear the honors insignia. But I would have reservations about attending a college for its honors program in liu of a more highly regarded U if finances are not an issue.

mikemac’s post makes good points.

I had a nephew that chose a honors program at a less well regarded school and ended up transferring to a more highly regarded school. While he appreciated aspects of the honors program (more choice, more access to professors, etc.) he did not regret transferring. He thought the overall college experience was better in multiple ways, particularly liked the daily exposure to smart, highly-motivated students. Obviously this is only one data point.

W&M and UVA are both excellent options. They don’t have the reputation for being huge and indifferent, which is the type of environment that can make an honors program more attractive.

I know this post is older but as a side note, my nephew was accepted to UVA and South Carolina. However, he was not asked to even apply for the Honors College at South Carolina. I’m honestly scratching my head on this one! I think it is interesting that a kid that can get into UVA would not be qualified for Honors at SC. I think that speaks to the quality of student that the SC Honors college accepts.