<p>My S will most likely be attending Barrett in the fall. He chose Barrett over other higher rated universities because of the bend of a large university with a wide variety of students and a smaller group of highly motivated students. ASU is huge and offers many opportunities to try all sorts of activities, enroll in classes not offered at smaller schools and meet many kinds of people. At the same time, he gets the benefits of the smaller, close-knit honors community, and lives in beautiful newer dorms with great facilities that include a 24 hr workout room, better dining hall and computer lab. They also offer programs such as honors-only internships, small honors classes and early registration. ASU has the majors he wants, and offers so many programs that if he switches, they will have it. The name recognition of a large university can certainly help during the job search, and recruiters seek out the Barrett graduates. Add to this a wonderful scholarship, lower costs than our state flagship, and outstanding weather. What’s not to love?!</p>
<p>I wonder if the “disdain” ucb senses is more discomfort with the idea of an “elite, pampered” student body within the larger school? Were I such a student, I think I might feel awkward about it, in the same way that a smart kid often deprecates his good results in an effort to make the other kids in his school feel more comfortable with him. It’s not likely that the honors students would be walled off from the other students, and it can be difficult to be singled out by dorm name, for example (“what dorm are you in?” “Wilson.” “Oh, the nerd one!” Or even just “oh, you must be a brain, then.”). There might even be some resentment on the part of other students, since the honors students are promised special treatment. In the SUNY system, there is an honors college (Geneseo), which is more selective than the rest of the SUNYs, and even there, in a school of less than 6000 students, there is a further honors cohort, whose members get better access to professors, etc. In the LACs I know of, there are honors students, but they tend to be self-selecting and to have chosen to do special projects, not to be marked out for special treatment.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus, yes, our high school is above average but it’s not “nearly everyone” going to a 4-year college, it’s 2/3 of the students, with over 20% of the students classified as “disadvantaged” (I think that means free/reduced lunch), and 15% limited English proficiency. I’m not sure I’d call that elite but I suppose it depends on your perspective. To a kid from the ghetto, yes, it would seem elite.</p>
<p>it depends on the honors college. Not just the perks, but how students are accepted. If students are picked from their applications based only on their main application to the university (scores, GPA), it may not be that different/special. IMO good programs would have
Honors housing (very important IMO)
registration perks (most do)
Special, FUNDED programs reserved for honors students (not all do)
require a thesis to be written
have honors courses, especially in the large service courses
Honors specific advisors
some scholarships, but not to the extent of bribing students to come. Good students should see something more than a zero-cost</p>
<p>IMHO…I think that many students that attend a large U and are in the honors program have no desire to attend a small LAC or smaller U. Personally, I’m not sure you could pay me enough to attend an LAC, I don;t care if it is Williams College or Loras College.</p>
<p>That seems to often be the case at the U where I work and at the U where my son is in an honors program. Many of those students had no desire to take their 30+ ACT scores to a small school. In addition, many of these families just don’t think it is worth the premium for a more elite private or OOS school. We pay < $15,000 per year for a U with a 22-28 ACT range. He could have attended a higher ranked private U with a 29-32 ACT range for about $40,000 per year. Not worth it in our opinion. He has found his courses (only one of which was honors) plenty challenging at his U this year.</p>
<p>^^^^^^^Well said ucbalumnus. My experience as well after transferring from the small LAC I started out at but which I quickly discovered was only going to prepare me for graduate school and not work.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that a larger school has many more course offerings, many more professors to interact with, and many more research and internship opportunities than a smaller school. I personally never found it difficult to get together with more serious students or to attract the attention of a professor with great internship connections at the flagship I attended. </p>
<p>DS2 most likely will attend a large flagship due to his desire to major in CS, as it is difficult to find the courses, facilities and opportunities he seeks at a LAC. We are looking at Honors programs because he is as interested in the Humanities as he is in Science, and it seems that most will provide smaller seminar courses instead of large lecture halls for the Humanities classes he will take as part of his General Education requirements.</p>
<p>An LAC-oriented kid looking to satisfy his desire for an LAC-type experience with an Honors program in a massive flagship is sure to be disappointed. Having attended both, I can assure you there is no valid comparison between the two. But I don’t think it is necessary to tear down public Honors programs in order to justify spending a lot more on a LAC. It should just come down to what works for your family’s budget and your kid.</p>
<p>I think the distain comes from being at a big school with lots of people with lower scores. Kids who did well in high school don’t want to be at the same school as people who didn’t do as well in high school. They want some sort of validation that they did better. </p>
<p>I have a kid at a big school in an honors program. Yes, he does like to drop that he is in the honors program when people ask him where he goes to school. I think over time that will become less important, however. He will just name the U. His experience has been great so far. He didn’t choose the honors dorm option, deciding to live with friends. The preference in registration has been helpful, though he has seen there are ways to get what you want without it. The best part has been the smaller classes and the special classes with equally motivated students. As he becomes an upperclassman, he will take more specialized courses and get this effect even without honors, but it has been nice to have some small class early on. He has wide ranging interests which he has been able to satisfy at a big U better than he could have at a smaller one. </p>
<p>Meanwhile second son is likely to choose a LAC, and for him it will be a better fit. </p>
<p>Someone up stream made a very good point. Not every high achieving kid wants to attend a LAC. My D applied to many different types of schools. From LAC’s to small regional unis to mid-size privates unis to large OOS publics. At this point, she’s gained admission to all the varied types with merit aid. So, she has lots of options. She wants to attend a large public. She loves the school spirit, big time sports, beautiful campuses, diverse student body, endless EC options, etc. The honors college acceptance is like icing on the cake.</p>
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<p>Two thirds going directly to four year college is still a lot higher than the overall average for high schools, not just low performing high schools. Perhaps not elite in the world of high schools, but not a “typical” high school either.</p>
<p>“They want some sort of validation that they did better.” No, I really don’t think that’s it at all. They want a better educational experience which some honors programs provide and some are really rather minimal. My daughter has an honors college acceptance, sure it’s always nice to be flattered by a college with anything–an honors college, a scholarship, a likely letter, but what does her honors acceptance get her? I’d value it a lot more if it came with honors housing because I believe that would provide a better educational experience. Mostly what I see in it is a guarantee that she won’t be stuck paying an extra year of tuition, because it does confer priority registration.</p>
<p>here are some academic rankings from the honors college site I linked earlier.</p>
<p><a href=“http://publicuniversityhonors.com/400-2/”>http://publicuniversityhonors.com/400-2/</a></p>
<p>At my zoned public school, which is considered average in my state, does not receive Title I funds and is in a middle-class suburban county (not inner-city, definitely not “ghetto”), the high school graduation rate is 66%. Of those that graduate, 30% go on to a 4 year college. 50% go to community college or trade school. Here, the only schools that send 2/3 of their grads to a 4 year college are private schools. Only 2% of classes at this high school are AP or dual enrollment, and there is no IB. It’s always interesting to see how people’s perspectives differ from reality. The high school experiences of most CCers is definitely not typical.</p>
<p>sax, here is a post that is something like a decision tree for selecting an honors program–sans diagram…<a href=“Choosing an Honors Program: Twenty Questions to Ask - Public University Honors”>http://publicuniversityhonors.com/2014/03/25/choosing-an-honors-program-twenty-questions-to-ask/</a></p>
<p>If someone needs “honors” to validate themselves, then that is their decision, but I think people think favorably about honors programs because they are another “niche” of educational opportunities for good students. Not all of them are alike. Some seem to just confer a title and a few classes, while others have housing, research, priority registration and more. Barrett seems to be known as a good honors college because of the way it is organized and what it provides. Honors programs are not designed to substitute for an LAC, but they can make a large university seem smaller. Comparing them to LAC’s is apples and oranges. They are one more choice a student can make. </p>
<p>@InigoMontoya, I never said that I felt our high school was “average”. It’s above average. In fact, I think it’s the best high school in the area, public or private, and it’s not a coincidence that we live in this particular district. However, it’s a bit odd to consider a public school “elite” when the truly elite public (non-magnet) schools are, say, producing National Merit scholars at a per-student rate that is nearly 10 times what our school achieves and offering all kinds of opportunities that simply aren’t available in a school with a far smaller number of top students and per-student spending that is less than half what some elite schools are spending.</p>
<p>For the purpose of this thread’s topic, my comment was that a student who felt unchallenged in their high school, might feel strongly about wanting the honors college to get a better educational experience–it’s not just an ego thing as someone suggested earlier. That’s really independent of the high school quality. It’s more about seeing what kind of students from their school are attending the University in question. A student from an elite high school might have the same sentiments about even the very top public Universities.</p>
<p>I think it’s very important to research the honors college to see what it really offers–and it’s probably a good idea to go beyond what it says on paper and try to talk to people who are actually in it. It seems that for some people some particular honors college might be too “walled off” from the rest of the students, while for others it might not be walled off enough. My kids went to a selective IB program in a public school, and I do have to say that some of their peers who went to a couple of different honors colleges were not that happy with them, reporting that they were too much like high school. Others liked them fine, and did fine there.</p>
<p>I think it’s a good idea to avoid judging a kid’s character on the kind of college he prefers, or to judge his family’s character on what they consider worth spending money on. (Before I’m cross-referenced to another thread, let me say that this is the kind of thing a family needs to discuss carefully when college lists are being compiled, especially with respect to finances, so they are sure they are on the same page about this. The honors college at the state flagship may be by far the best option if finances are the key to the decision.)</p>
<p>Both of my boys started as freshman in the honors department of 2 different large universities. S1 was housed in the honors freshman dorm, typical room with like minded students, and took most of his freshman core classes honors so he had 100-150 in lectures, rather than 300+. He also had a gc who advised students from the engineering honors department, which was also nice. He stayed in his 4 years but will not be graduating with honors as he decided not to do the extra work (thesis, research etc.) needed. However, the perks he did get were worth it. S2 is a sophomore in an honors department at a different state U. He gets to live in a honors suite, has priority registration (definitely worth it), take honors classes for core classes (there are none in his major), and has an opportunity to take special general interest classes and activities only offered to honor students. He may or may not graduate from the honors college, but he is enjoying the “perks” it offers now. Whether these honors colleges compare to some high ranking LACs, I can’t tell you. But my kids couldn’t afford those high ranking LACs anyways, so I am glad that the honors option is available to them.</p>
<p>@mathyone, yes, you did say your school was above average, and might seem elite to someone from “the ghetto”. I wanted to point out that while your high school might not seem elite to you, it does to many kids at average schools, not just “the ghetto”. It would definitely seem elite to kids in the town I live in and people here would be very upset at being considered “ghetto”.</p>
<p>On topic, I agree that every honors program needs to be evaluated. Probably some kids do honors for “status”, but in some schools there are genuine advantages and good reasons (other than just merit money) to participate. In some other schools, it’s just extra work for little to no reward. Just as in choosing a school in the first place, choosing whether to accept an honors program is an individual “fit” decision.</p>
<p>@InigoMontoya, “The percentage of high school dropouts among 16- through 24-year-olds [was] 7.1 percent in 2011…” <a href=“Fast Facts: Back-to-school statistics (372)”>Fast Facts: Back-to-school statistics (372);
<p>Your high school has a 34% dropout rate. It sounds to me like any average school would be considered elite in your town. </p>
<p>@ucbalumnus - the graduation rate I quoted was for a 4-year cohort. The statistic you quoted is for students from age 16-24. Not at all an apples to apples comparison. I don’t know what the rate is for my local school when you extend the range to age 24, but I expect it would be higher, especially since that number most likely includes people who earned a GED (which is now a BIG business around here). The overall 4 year graduation rate in my state is 82% now, but in 2007 was 69%. My town is just still a few years behind the times… but even the top public school in my county - the one everyone lies about their address to get their kids into - has a 4 year graduation rate of just 80%. In a state that has been transitioning from an agrarian/manufacturing economy, higher education was not always valued outside of the big cities…</p>