<p>I was just wondering, what advantages I guess you could call it, comes with the Honors program, namely in the school of management? And, is Howell Hall dorm at Tech a good dorm?</p>
<p>Howell is an OK dorm. All the dorms on that side of campus (Smith, Brown, Howell, Towers, Glenn, etc) are pretty similar in quality. Glenn, Towers, and Smith being larger and the others smaller. Unless things have changed, there's no "honors dorm" of higher quality - it seems like they rotate around which dorms are male, which are female, which are co-ed, and which are honors. </p>
<p>I don't think management has any specific honors courses. From what I've heard (and the honors program is new), you take just general courses in your first few years with the honors program, then take "normal" courses in your major with everyone else.</p>
<p>It would be difficult to have honors-specific major courses, as those courses already only have one or two sections a semester. Something like Physics I with 12 sections a semester is a different situation.</p>
<p>I'm in the Honors Program and I want to go ahead and correct/add to a couple of things that G.P.Burdell said. I agree that the dorm is nothing special, though you do get to be the only co-ed dorm on East campus.</p>
<p>With regard to courses, during your first year, you take a few of your general education courses (physics, calculus, etc) with the honors program. This turns your 300-person lecture hall into a 20-student room. There is a lot more interaction and you can actually get to know your teacher if you want to.</p>
<p>For the rest of your years, you get to take Honors Seminars (typically one per semester), which are somewhat random. For example, some of the offerings this semester are Psychology of Creativity and the Arts (which I'm taking.. it's great) and Social Entrepreneurship. Some of these will be Management courses (Social Entrepreneurship technically is), so you can use them to fulfill elective requirements.</p>
<p>I got a letter from Tech the other day saying that I am admitted to the Honors Program! Anyone else get this?</p>
<p>I am wondering, what are the benefits of the Honor Program as an engineering student?</p>
<p>How many openings are there typically in honors courses for non-honors students?</p>
<p>aznschoolboi22: I got my letter back in December, so I guess they make honors decisions on a rolling basis. Congrats, by the way!</p>
<p>falcon13: I'm not sure if non-honors students can take honors classes, but I'm not aware of any GT literature confirming anything either way. Your best bet for information would be to contact the Honors Program with you questions:</p>
<p>Honors Program Office
103 A. French Building
Atlanta, GA 30332
404-385-7532</p>
<p><a href="mailto:honorsprogram@gatech.edu">honorsprogram@gatech.edu</a></p>
<p>If you have not applied for honors you can do so, provided you have already been accepted to Georgia Tech, at the following link:</p>
<p>Best of Luck!</p>
<p>Considering that this is the third shot at this sort of system (the first to be called "honors", though), I have a suspicion that the "honors program" may be a pilot study for a complete restructuring of the freshman system. Instead of having an "honors program", you'll join a "learning community" which will be a series of essentially "honors programs".</p>
<p>Also, I wonder if there is a push to start awarding Latin honors and then using these sorts of things to award English honors. I've always found it strange that Tech doesn't award Latin honors.</p>
<p>What are you basing this suspicion on? Based on the Honors Program's 2008 Report I see no reason to suggest that the honors program is even considering a shift to open opportunity for all undergraduates. The program is working to expand, but not necessarily expand in regards to participation levels. There are, of course, the freshman experience program, the new Think Big Residence Communities, and The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program that offer some similar opportunities as the honors program to all undergraduates.</p>
<p>"Are there any plans to expand the program?
Right now, we have about 120 students a year. That seems to be the right size in terms of our ability as staff to work with the students, to get to know them, and to do all their advising. Weve tried to select students based on some indication of their intellectual or social level of engagement, their intellectual curiosity and their commitment to following things through. "
Honors</a> Program celebrates first anniversary</p>
<p>The 2008 Annual Report: <a href="http://www.honorsprogram.gatech.edu/files/AnnualReport2008.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.honorsprogram.gatech.edu/files/AnnualReport2008.pdf</a></p>
<p>I got my invitation today, pretty surprised to say the least. It said in the letter that they are expecting 110 students this year. I have pretty average stats and I honestly could care less about high school academics. I do however, pursue my interests outside of school (aviation, photography business). They seem to be looking for kids who show a fair amount of dedication, passion, and "potential".</p>
<p>From what I've seen and read, the dorms look pretty standard and it seems to be a fairly young program. What other advantages does the honors program have besides seminars/special courses and smaller core class sizes? Still glad I got in though, looking forward to visiting GaTech this march.</p>
<p>Well, like I said, it's just a suspicion. Tech has been trying for at least 20 years to figure out the best way to "manage" freshman to improve retention, decrease alcohol use, and decrease drug use (in the mid 90's, Tech was cited as having a high rate of addiction among students, and subsequently received grant money to address at least alcohol). In addition, Tech continually ranks at the top of "Colleges where students have the least fun" on Princeton Review's list, and they've been trying to do something about that for years.</p>
<p>They've had "learning communities" in the past, but it was on open enrollment and failed. They tried a "Think Big" type initiative in the past, and that failed (my freshman year had a faculty member living on my hall - which was strange to me). Every few years they try something new, and some stick (like freshman experience) but most are retooled and released later.</p>
<p>What you'll probably see is something like this honors program, except they'll have a community for people who like music, a community for people who like robotics, a community for international students, and a community for people that like foreign languages, etc. Then everyone will apply to the Institute, get admitted, then apply to a community. The goal will be to use a network effect to create a sense of belonging and to shrink the Institute.</p>
<p>There are several colleges that use that model, and quite frankly, it's not a bad idea. Or maybe they won't do that.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How many openings are there typically in honors courses for non-honors students?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Honors Calculus II and Honors Calculus III have separate sections for non-honors students. In Spring 2008, there was one honors program section and one non-honors program section for Honors Calculus III. Both attended the same lecture but different recitations. The HP section had six students while the non-HP section had eleven.</p>
<p>As an anecdote, my roommate was in the non-HP section. He was without a doubt academically qualified to take the class. But, he was mentally weak. He felt intimidated by the HP students. He viewed them as so superior that it wasn't even worth trying to beat him, so he quickly stopped trying. Consequently, he never passed a single exam, but the professor curved his grade to a C.</p>
<p>The point? Yes, the HP students are good, but that doesn't mean they can't be beaten! In fact, four of my roommate's direct peers (ie. non-HP students) got As and beat two HP students who got Bs.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The point? Yes, the HP students are good, but that doesn't mean they can't be beaten! In fact, four of my roommate's direct peers (ie. non-HP students) got As and beat two HP students who got Bs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think people get a little carried away with the "honors" or "presidential scholar" notation. During my time on campus, the PS students weren't necessarily "smarter" than any other student. Being in PS (or now also HP) is just a signal that the person didn't just scrap into the university, and that they're probably top 50% of the admitted class (yes, there were many PS students with average SAT scores - high 1200's, low 1300's. They just had other qualifications (not necessarily academic) that won them the scholarship). </p>
<p>And not being PS or HP doesn't mean someone is lower in the class. I knew two valedictorians with 1600 SAT scores that didn't get PS, and had HP been around, they probably wouldn't have applied. Their non-academic qualifications just weren't that "interesting" (one guy "just" worked 25-30 hours per week outside of school to help support his family - no time for ECs). </p>
<p>Besides, once you get to Tech, everyone is on a level playing field. Every student has the same GPA on Day 1. I wouldn't let any kind of high school based classification system give you a sense of superiority (which will come back to bite you) or inferiority (which will also bite you).</p>
<p>While I agree that honors students and President's Scholars may not always be the most academically gifted in the entering class they are, on average, very intelligent and far above average. The average honors SAT exceeds 1420 and the average President's Scholars SAT is around 1500. Certainly, factors other than academics play a large and often determinate role, but to say that many President's Scholars have SATs around 1300 is somewhat absurd. There are certainly a select few with those scores that had something else phenomenal that stood out, but generally speaking those selected to these programs have both high academic merit and stand out as "people" and leaders. </p>
<p>I want to emphasize that not being in the honors program or receiving the President's Scholarship doesn't indicate anything about your potential success at GT, but to say that the students in these programs are merely average (50%+) is to take the bottom students of each group and use them as anecdotes pluralized to create "data" for the whole population, which is obviously fallacious and somewhat rude.</p>
<p>I agree that any sense of superiority is misplaced, misguided, and misleading, but I have yet to meet anyone in these programs who I would describe as exuding superiority.</p>
<p>I also agree that everyone admitted comes in on an equal playing field, and if you got in, the admissions committee obviously thinks you have what it takes to be successful at tech; no one should enter tech feeling inferior because if you got in you are NOT.</p>
<p>But please don't demean the Honors and President's Scholars programs as you have done above and in previous threads, unless you have the personal testimony of someone in these programs to back up your views/not just your perceptions of a select few people in these programs.</p>
<p>I apologize if I came across as excessively extreme in my rebuke-I felt I needed to firmly address what I have perceived as some very anti honors/anti President's Scholar bias on your part, G.P.Burdell.</p>
<p>SH291: Congrats on your admission to the Honors program!</p>
<p>
[quote]
But please don't demean the Honors and President's Scholars programs as you have done above and in previous threads, unless you have the personal testimony of someone in these programs to back up your views/not just your perceptions of a select few people in these programs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I was PS. At least when I was there, there were several people with high 1200 / low 1300 scores (who, for some reason, we're all in-state females - not to be sexist, but that's the truth). I obviously have no experience with HP, but we've had at least one poster in here that give his stats as "average" for last year's incoming class, and he was accepted to HP. That's my data point for that.</p>
<p>But I'm not trying to demean anyone. PS and HP are both great things, and I wish any PS or HP student well. It's just that some believe they have this mysticism about them, where Tech hand picks the "best" students and bestows upon them the sacred honor of PS. That's not necessarily true. While the median PS is generally of higher quality than the median non-PS student, any given non-PS student can be more or less intelligent than any given PS student. </p>
<p>Sometimes people confuse the quality of the median student at a school or program with the quality of every student at that school. Just because the median Harvard student is intelligent doesn't mean that all of them are. Just because the median student at Kennesaw State is less intelligent than the median student at Harvard doesn't mean that they all are. I bet I can find at least one person at Kennesaw State that's more intelligent than some person at Harvard. In fact, I bet I could find a bunch. It's the same thing with PS and non-PS. Being PS doesn't make you better than everyone else. It's just a signal that you're of high quality (at least in high school).</p>
<p>Edit: As for PSers: I think if PS students are viewed as being elitist or stuck up, it's bad for the program. Being more down-to-earth and approachable is a good thing.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
And not being PS or HP doesn't mean someone is lower in the class. I knew two valedictorians with 1600 SAT scores that didn't get PS, and had HP been around, they probably wouldn't have applied. Their non-academic qualifications just weren't that "interesting" (one guy "just" worked 25-30 hours per week outside of school to help support his family - no time for ECs).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hah this rings pretty true. I worked 2-3 days after school every week for 8 hours and weekends as well so I basically had no EC's. I didn't quite have a 1600 but I was valedictorian and well above the NMF cutoff for FL. I didn't even make PS semi because I looked like just another kid with good stats. I'm not really bitter since I can see it from Tech's PoV, although I would have loved to go to Tech for undergrad.</p>
<p>On that note (totally irrelevant to this thread), it's pretty sad when you have to choose between working to make money for your family and loading up on EC's to get scholarships to go to good schools. The only kids at my HS that got into Ivies were upper-middle class kids who didn't need to work and spent every waking hour volunteering at museums, taking night classes, practicing [esoteric musical instrument] or editing the school news program while I was stocking groceries in the evenings. Ok I became more and more bitter as I edited my post :).</p>