<p>First off, I want to say that it's my first post here at CC! I've been lurking for a while since my days as a junior, checking the SAT answer threads, and now I am a senior, enrolling into college. Everyone's been a great help here despite all the trolls, but a forum would not be complete without them right? To start off my time here, I'd like to discuss the school that I am most likely attending next year, the University of Michigan, and its honors program at the LSA.</p>
<p>I can't say that I've been a terribly hard worker in high school and I was relatively surprised when I got into Michigan. About the honors program at Michigan, does anyone know how difficult the classes are? Are there certain requirements to stay in like maintaining a certain GPA? Is there a large gap in difficulty between the honors program and regular LSA classes? How does the honor program compare to Arts&Sciences classes at "higher schools" like Ivies, Northwestern, Chicago, WUSTL etc? Certainly, the prospect of getting honors housing sounds tempting but lots of stress is not worth a better room freshman year. I have been accepted by an honors program at another public school but I'm not sure if it compares to Michigan's. If anyone has any experience in this, please let me know. Thanks CC for all the help and I'm glad that I can finally be part of the community.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say participating in the honors program adds much stress. In general, in courses that have honors section - which is extraordinarily common - we don’t do more work than anyone else. Really, the only difference is better discussion, and we typically have the head GSI so we usually get really good exam reviews. If you want to do honors in a class that doesn’t offer an honors section, you have to do an honors conversion. That typically just means you do an extra project and work more closely with the professor. </p>
<p>The only thing that I would say was even remotely stressful was Great Books 191, which you have to take first semester of freshman year, unless you take Classic Civilization, but that’s not the traditional route. The only reason GTBOOKS was stressful was because there was a lot of reading, but it wasn’t necessarily difficult. </p>
<p>You do have to maintain a 3.5 GPA or above to stay in the program, but I think they give you a semester of “honors academic probation” to get you to raise your GPA if it falls below that mark before they do anything. Also, you have to take an average of 2 honors courses per semester, or 8 in the first two years. The honors program itself is only a 2 year program, and you have to apply for an honors concentration in your field to continue to be in honors.</p>
<p>The only advice I have is it requires a lot of self-motivation to do well in college, but especially in the honors program, because while I wouldn’t say the classes are more difficult, more is expected of you.</p>
<p>Thanks! I really hope they accept me for honors. Go Blue!</p>