<p>Loyola University Chicago wants me in their interdisciplinary Honors Program. Should I get in? I'm afraid this might mean much harder classes, thus a lower GPA. But my degree will say Honors Program, will that help?</p>
<p>If you can get a high GPA and honors then thats excellent....but if its one or the other, go high GPA</p>
<p>You may be one of those rare individuals who knows exactly what their intended career path is when he/she starts out in college (which may be as a lawyer for you, a medical doctor, a musician, etc.) For the vast majority of students, their career interests (and majors) change as they try out the buffet of options and interests in college. The point - don't box yourself in worrying about a higher GPA versus the extra benefits and challenges of an honors program. If Loyola is a fit, you and your folks can afford it, and the interdisciplinary honors program is icing on the cake, then go for it! My son is in an honors program at college that stated to incoming high school seniors that honors courses would explore topics more deeply and that grading would not be more rigorous than regular classes (just using different criteria for grading). This is exactly what happened. The college honors experience has lit his academic fire; his overall GPA and class standing are much higher in college than in high school. You know yourself. Don't put off a potentially enriching experience in whatever college you choose by overlyworrying about what might be four years from now (such as law school). My son first majored in political science and then business. During this past fall (as a college junior) he has decided that law school is definitely for him and his high GPA will help give him more law school choices (assuming a high enough LSAT). However, a year ago a legal career was but one of several career options he was considering. Give yourself some slack.</p>
<p>This is not meant to dispute any of the points lonestar has made...it's just to share my story which is slightly different.</p>
<p>I majored in Mathematics and was a member of ASU's Honors College throughout my undergraduate degree program. The benefits of the honors track were that those courses challenged me to write better than any other courses taken with a Mathematics degree would have...at least outside of writing proofs.... and on a personal level I appreciate the exposure to the classsical works of literature (Plato, the Koran, Chaucer, etc) that I would not have been forced to explore in courses required of by "normal" graduation requirements. So I am grateful for those things. </p>
<p>But given all that, GPA is extremely important. You can read lots of stuff in books and webpages talking about school rankings and how admissions committees hate them but are forced to care about them....and they get measured off of GPA and LSAT. So while the bottom quartile of each school's admitteds may be full of people who given their intangibles/special experiences do indeed earn admission to their school, thats obviously a minority, and if you want to be more assured of your entrance, you better keep your GPA as high as you can. For me, the honors courses werent the difference maker in my GPA...the difficulty of degree and hours worked concurrently with familial obligations were...but if for you the honors courses would be the difference maker...then think really hard about that. </p>
<p>Also, all colleges claim that a transcript with "honors" on it is a positive thing....but they don't put a quantitative value on it which makes me feel like I'd rather just have the higher GPA from an admissions perspective...</p>
<p>Well, I decided to go to Loyola once they bumped my scholarship there to $15,000 a year. That makes it near $10,000 a year, I couldn't say no. I'm used to a difficult schedule (I'm currently taking 4 APs and 3 honors.) But I guess I'll have to see. Thanks for the responses so far.</p>
<p>I don't have a strong opinion on this, but it may be true that if most of the students from a particular college who apply to law school are in that schools honors program (or other similar program) and you are not, then it may seem hurt you in the admissions process. To offer some insight, in my experience, both in law school and recruiting from top law schools, most of the law students who I meet from the University of Michigan were either in the business school or in the honors program. Perhaps, then, there is a bias in law school admissions favoring U of M students who are in either the business or honors program, and if you're not in those programs, you may suffer a detriment in admissions. Of course, it could also just be a chicken and the egg thing, where students who want to go to law school mainly enter the business or honors programs. It's hard to say, but I thought it was an interesting perspective on the issue.</p>
<p>Again, just my two cents here . . .</p>
<p>you might find that your gpa won't be much lower in an honors program--the honors classes could be more interesting, or smaller, or not curved, or something.</p>
<p>also, if the honors program allows you to get to know professors better, that can be a real plus when it's time to get recommendations for grad school. i picked a college where i could be a "bigger fish in a smaller pond" and i think that my recommendations--two from profs with whom I'd taken small classes with heavy research and discussion components, and one the president of the college (she'd appointed me to several committees and i'd worked on community service projects with her)--made all the difference in being accepted to law schools where i was an average candidate at best.</p>