<p>My son is top 11% in a top high school - 98.4 GPA, top SATs, academics, etc. so, great student, but not eligible for A&M Honors (no exceptions on Honors as it's only top 10% regardless of your individual academic picture). We know that he can earn his way in after the first semester, but want to understand what he will be missing if he accepts TAMU and isn't in the Honors program? How much impact does it really have on class placement, enrollment, etc.? Are there meetings/events he can't attend? We are told by the Eng office that it really makes no difference as a freshman, but find that hard to believe. Also, don't you enroll in the 2nd semester before you know what your final grades are for the first semester? Can anyone shed some light on this topic?</p>
<p>It probably isn’t such a big deal his freshman year. Freshmen are limited to one Honors class per semester anyway.</p>
<p>My junior just met with the engineering school and discussed the honors program with the counselor. It seems to me that the only real advantage is that you get to register before everybody else (except the football players ;)), so you have a better opportunity to get the schedule you want.</p>
<p>I have also heard that there are more A’s givin out in honors classes than regular classes.</p>
<p>Oh it’s super easy to get A’s in honors classes at A&M. Not that they’re easier than regular classes. The only hard part is getting your foot in the door. Honors classes for core requirements are usually the first to go in terms of availability and if you don’t already have honors preregistration, you may be out of luck (this has happened to a couple of my friends who are eligible for honors). But your son won’t miss much by not having one freshman honors class. My first semester honors course was a lower-division math course that I could have easily taken any other semester as honors.</p>
<p>And yes, you register before final grades come out. That doesn’t affect anything though; you can still register for the courses (if they’re open) and they just drop you if your gpa is less than 3.5 when the semester is over.</p>
<p>How big are the class sizes the freshmen and sophomore years - on average?</p>
<p>For regular classes it varies, but it can get in the hundreds for core classes like history and political science, and closer to the 30-40 range for major specific classes (at least in the sciences, so I would assume about the same for engineering). Then for honors classes it can be from about 15 to 30.</p>
<p>Besides getting to register for classes first and smaller classes… how does being in honors help the big picture? Are they hired on jobs easier? Offered more money? What?</p>
<p>Advantages of being in Honors in engineering are:</p>
<p>1)Usually half the size of regular classes
2)Register Before non-honors students in your classification (fresh, soph, etc.)
3)Better Curve. Those freshman “weed-out” classes won’t be weeding out honors students. Most engineering honors classes are AB rarely C grading scale. Non-honors have a pretty significant amount of students receive C’s, D’s or F’s. And at A&M, you have to retake D’s.</p>
<h1>3 is a big advantage for your son, and anyone. If your son can get a 3.5, he’ll be able to get into the Honors college… which I strongly recommend. However, 3.5’s are not easy to come by in non-honors engineering.</h1>
<p>That is just amazing to me. </p>
<p>I understand the weed out process, all colleges have that. but to have honors classes give A and B’s while regular classes get C’s and D’S.
Interesting.</p>
<p>I guess I am not understanding how it works. Would my dd and ds take all honors classes to avoid the weed out process. Or can they take some non-honor courses and still dodge the weed out because they are deemed in the honors program??
[slow on the uptake I know…luckily my kids are much smarter…LOL]</p>
<p>They assume that kids in honors are more than capable of making it through the engineering (or whatever majors) coursework sucessfully. Rather than having a kid who isn’t quite sure what he wants to do with his life. I guess you could say that the honors kids have already proved they are capable while a non-honors student still has to prove themselves. Not the best analogy but, it works.</p>
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<p>Not slow at all, I wish I’d known this before falling on my face my first semester. The only real lower division classes that would be considered engineering weed-out would be Physics 1&2 and Calculus 1&2. Unfortunately, most large universities do this to separate the contenders from pretenders, and honestly, it’s a pretty efficient way to do so in engineering. And this is usually dependent upon the professor your son or daughter takes. So, the best advice I can give you is USE PICKAPROF.COM to avoid professors who like to fail freshman. You don’t have to be in honors to make good grades, to get good professors, or to avoid potential weed-out classes… it just helps.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. For incoming freshman, Top 10% and 1250 SAT INMHO is not too hard to attain… **if **you apply yourself. The transition from high school to college can be completely different on a person to person basis, and maybe that HS top 10%er turns into an alcoholic and fails out after entering college. Especially with engineering, the difference between high school coursework and college course work is like the difference between the Rocky Mountains and the Himalayas. You could sit back and easily get A’s in highschool, but if you can’t adapt to the new responsibilities and rigor or coursework you’ll fail. To me, giving honors students the safety of not worrying about failing is completely unfair.</p>
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<p>This was a point made by the engineering advisor we met with. He said that in highschool, you are tested over small chunks of information every couple of weeks, so you don’t have to learn and retain large amounts of information. In college, you may have 2 tests the entire semester, with LARGE amounts of information on each test. So, he really recommended living in the honors dorm where my son would be around other honors engineering students, there would be built in study groups (or maybe misery loves company ;)).</p>
<p>I think that safety of getting good grades in the honors courses is one of the reasons they only let you take one honors course your first semester</p>
<p>[Texas</a> A&M Engineering](<a href=“http://engineering.tamu.edu/]Texas”>http://engineering.tamu.edu/)
[A&M</a> Honors Portal](<a href=“Honors - LAUNCH”>Honors - LAUNCH)
Fall 2009 Honors Preregistration Information
[Texas</a> A&M University | Registration](<a href=“Honors - LAUNCH”>Honors - LAUNCH)</p>
<p>Momof2for college: It is a myth and absolutely not truth honor is easier to receive good grade. S2 is in HONOR. It depends on the class you take and yes the professor. However, one cannot always get good or decent professor. It depends on the various class schedules. Many engineering class have lecture and lab hours which require multiple days and block of hours. You don’t miss much not in Honor for freshman. You can always take honor classes by maintaining 3.5 GPR and start Honor class in freshman 2nd semester. All freshman engineering curriculum of all majors are exactly the same except the Engineering exploration track - one class per semester. To find out more accurate Honor and engineering information, look up the link above. For example: Individual engineering department listed the entire 4 yrs programs courses. Be sure to pick the appropriate year of student entering the college year. AP course equivalent transfer base on grade, 2nd semester freshman honor registration requirement etc are in the Honor Hand book. Note: If your DD have many AP and CC credit transfer, she will have to mix and match of 2nd semester, even sophomore classes. If one is accepted into Honor, they should definitely stay in the Honor dorms, Fall 2009 there have 2 of them for freshman. They “dorm mom” organize a lot of fun thing together especially during the fall welcome week. As for study group, it depends on the student itself and their major. If you need further information, contact me.</p>
<p>We were told the reason for only one honors class per semester per freshman was because there were only so many honors classes and they wanted every honors student to have the opportunity to take one.</p>
<p>@ucla011, not trying to start a big debate or anything, but I’ve been through 6 honors classes (3 math, political science, english, psychology) and it was significantly easier to get A’s in all of them compared to regular classes.</p>