Hi, I am a first-year applicant and recently added 3 safety schools to my college list: Ohio/Penn State, and Indiana University. I am applying for the honors colleges in all three. Prestige is important to me when selecting a school both for the name recognition for potential employers, and also to justify my years of hard work. I am wondering how much prestige these honors colleges hold assuming I would maintain a solid GPA? Say I graduate from either one of these three honors colleges with a 3.7. Would the prestige be comparable to graduating with a 3.7 from an Ivy, a top-tier public like Michigan, lower than that, etc. If someone could give an example and level with insight for prestige that would be great. Thanks.
Will depend on your major. Also where do you wish to be employed after graduation?
When will the prestige matter? Employers will hire you because of the quality of your education. After you’ve been out of college for a few years none of your friends will care where you went to college.
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. Employers are not going to consider them the equivalent of an Ivy or top LAC.
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. You’ll take the rest in the regular U. This is reflected in the requirements for completing the honors college. At ASU you only need 36 honors units out of the 120 it takes to graduate, and you’ll likely find similar numbers elsewhere.
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, sometimes streamlined opportunities to be involved in research. 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
I think where HCs help is in gaining work and research opportunities during college. My D’s summer internship was through her honors college and the company who gave her a co-op offer only spoke to freshmen if they were in honors. She’s guaranteed research as an undergrad as well. That will strengthen her resume when she goes to apply for jobs.
Sorry about this being so late, I should have included this in the original post but I am a prospective Business major. Ideally, I want to get a starting job at a company and work my way up into a management position. I have heard that prestige does not matter much for business, but there is no way it can harm and I am wondering how prestigious SHC is
@mikemac Thanks for the info, sorry this is so late. I am not too invested in the size/intimacy of classes but more so being able to have early registration as well as having prestige coming from a large public. The social scene I want at college matches that at Penn/Ohio State and Indiana, and I am seeking prestige that comes with that.
@hotsauce240 SHC has strong reputation for networking and leadership opportunities.
See examples of events for career prep
https://www.shc.psu.edu/events/
Schreyer has Career Development Program with mentor/mentee opportunities that seem unique
https://sites.psu.edu/shccdp/
You could go on LinkedIn and search whether people include their honors college experience in their profiles.
@hotsauce240 This article may answer your question:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-a-prudent-college-path.html