Honors Program

Hi. I’ve just applied to UMN through Common App. What are my chances of getting accepted to CLA honors program and getting scholarship? Here are my stats

I’m an international student
Applied to CLA (Child Psychology major)
Top 10% of class
SAT 1440
ECs: Founder&President of a club and an online campaign. President of several clubs and have leadership positions in some non-profit organization Exchange programs (mainly related to Education)
Stellar recs
Gold medal in Regional Olympiad and other school-level awards
Competed the optional essays and chose to submit personal statement

Also will I have a tracker if I applied through Common App?

You should get a UMN ID# which you can use to activate the tracker. Don’t wait for the e-mail; give them a call at the end of the week to see if they’ve got your ap. on file (it always takes a few days) and, if so, can they give you the ID # directly. That’s the fastest way to get on the tracker.

Here is the selection criteria for Honors (scroll down to see the class rank and test scores):

https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/honors/review.html

You should get accepted to CLA no problem.

Thank you so much for your reply. If have several other questions, I will really appreciate your help. So according to the honors profile, my SAT score is around the 25 percentile. Does this means that my chances for getting into the honors program is low or is it just the cut off? Also, even if I don’t get into the honors program, is there any chances of me getting scholarship?

If you get into Honors then it’s highly likely you will get scholarship money - not sure what happens if you DON’T get into honors. As you are in contention for honors, depending on how your stats compare to those of other applicants this year, probably makes the most sense to look at the probability of getting that. The primary criteria are the same as for admission: GPA/Class Rank, Test Scores, Course Rigor. Secondary factors are considered as well and those are listed in the link I provided above. Just noticed that for some reason they didn’t update for this fall’s class so those are last year’s stats. Not sure what’s going on there but hopefully they won’t change much.

Ask away and if I can help I will do so. Good luck to you!

Historically, you haven’t had to get into Honors to receive scholarships. Although, I’m not sure how being an international student plays into that. My daughters were accepted to CSE in the Fall of 2012 and 2014. Neither made Honors. The older was offered the Maroon National Scholarship; the younger was offered the Gold National Scholarship. We’ll see what happens with my son this year. Good Luck!!!

^^ that makes sense, esp. for CSE. Acceptance and honors is by college while the university-wide merit aid goes to the strongest applicants across the board. One possible way they might “discriminate” a bit is to favor the females for CSE and the males for CBS since the enrollment is so lopsided in both those programs. Therefore, it’s possible to allocate a bit more scholarship money in those directions to equalize that discrepancy, consistent with point #5 of the secondary characteristics: contributing to gender diversity of the student body. Also, there are college-specific scholarships available. Here is the link that will get you started researching both university-wide and college specific scholarships. Note that CLA scholarships used to require a separate application (not sure if that’s the case anymore but the link will direct you to the correct and updated information there).

https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/costsaid/schol_campus.html